The way in which they are caught is this.  You must know that by day they live underground because of the great heat, and in the night they go out to feed, and devour every animal they can catch.  They go also to drink at the rivers and lakes and springs.  And their weight is so great that when they travel in search of food or drink, as they do by night, the tail makes a great furrow in the soil as if a full ton of liquor had been dragged along.  Now the huntsmen who go after them take them by certain gyn which they set in the track over which the serpent has past, knowing that the beast will come back the same way.  They plant a stake deep in the ground and fix on the head of this a sharp blade of steel made like a razor or a lance-point, and then they cover the whole with sand so that the serpent cannot see it.  Indeed the huntsman plants several such stakes and blades on the track.  On coming to the spot the beast strikes against the iron blade with such force that it enters his breast and rives him up to the navel, so that he dies on the spot [and the crows on seeing the brute dead begin to caw, and then the huntsmen know that the serpent is dead and come in search of him].

This then is the way these beasts are taken.  Those who take them proceed to extract the gall from the inside, and this sells at a great price; for you must know it furnishes the material for a most precious medicine.  Thus if a person is bitten by a mad dog, and they give him but a small pennyweight of this medicine to drink, he is cured in a moment.  Again if a woman is hard in labour they give her just such another dose and she is delivered at once.  Yet again if one has any disease like the itch, or it may be worse, and applies a small quantity of this gall he shall speedily be cured.  So you see why it sells at such a high price.

They also sell the flesh of this serpent, for it is excellent eating, and the people are very fond of it.  And when these serpents are very hungry, sometimes they will seek out the lairs of lions or bears or other large wild beasts, and devour their cubs, without the sire and dam being able to prevent it.  Indeed if they catch the big ones themselves they devour them too; they can make no resistance.[NOTE 3]

[Illustration:  “Riding long like Frenchmen.”

“Et encore sachie qe ceste gens chebauchent lonc come franchois.”]

[Illustration:  Suspension Bridge, neighbourhood of Tali]

In this province also are bred large and excellent horses which are taken to India for sale.  And you must know that the people dock two or three joints of the tail from their horses, to prevent them from flipping their riders, a thing which they consider very unseemly.  They ride long like Frenchmen, and wear armour of boiled leather, and carry spears and shields and arblasts, and all their quarrels are poisoned.[NOTE 4] [And I was told as a fact that many persons, especially those meditating mischief, constantly carry this poison about with them, so that if by any chance they should be taken, and be threatened with torture, to avoid this they swallow the poison and so die speedily.  But princes who are aware of this keep ready dog’s dung, which they cause the criminal instantly to swallow, to make him vomit the poison.  And thus they manage to cure those scoundrels.]