through which he must be passing without her, and dreading to enter an academy or picture-gallery lest a laocoon or a fury might revive apprehensions too horrible to be borne.  In view of possibilities so dreadful, surely it is a duty that a man owes to his kind to disseminate the truth, if he can, about the present condition in the East of that reptile which, crawling on its belly and eating dust and having its head bruised by the descendants of Eve, sometimes pays off her share of the curse on their heels.  Here the truth is.

Within the limits of our Indian Empire, including Burmah and Ceylon, there are at present known to naturalists two hundred and sixty-four species of snakes.  Twenty-seven of these are sea-serpents, which never leave the sea, and could not if they would.  The remaining two hundred and thirty-seven species comprise samples of every size and pattern of limbless reptile found on this globe, from the gigantic python, which crushes a jackal and swallows it whole, to the little burrowing Typhlops, whose proportions are those of an earthworm and its food white ants.

If you have made up your mind never to touch a snake or go nearer to one than you can help, then I need scarcely tell you what you know already, that these are all alike hideous and repulsive in their aspect, being smeared from head to tail with a viscous and venomous slime, which, as your Shakespeare will tell you, leaves a trail even on fig-leaves when they have occasion to pass over such.  This preparation would appear to line them inside as well as out, for there is no lack of ancient and modern testimony to the fact that they “slaver” their prey all over before swallowing it, that it may slide the more easily down their ghastly throats.  Their eye is cruel and stony, and possesses a peculiar property known as “fascination,” which places their victims entirely at their mercy.  They have also the power of coiling themselves up like a watch-spring and discharging themselves from a considerable distance at those whom they have doomed to death—­a fact which is attested by such passages in the poets as—­

  Like adder darting from his coil,

and by travellers passim.

This is the true faith with respect to all serpents, and if you are resolved to remain steadfast in it, you may do so even in India, for it is possible to live in that country for months, I might almost say years, without ever getting a sight of a live snake except in the basket of a snake-charmer.  If, however, you are minded to cultivate an acquaintance with them, it is not difficult to find opportunities of doing so, but I must warn you that it will be with jeopardy to your faith, for the very first thing that will strike you about them will probably be their cleanness.  What has become of the classical slime I cannot tell, but it is a fact that the skin of a modern snake is always delightfully dry and clean, and as smooth to the touch as velvet.