When I Had Almost Got Back
To Railhead I Happened To Notice A Huge Serpent
Stretched Out On The Grass, Warming Himself, His
Skin Of Old Gold And Bright Green Sparkling
Brilliantly In The Sunshine.
He appeared to take
little notice of me as I cautiously approached,
and was probably drowsy and sated with a heavy
meal.
I shot him through the head as he lay,
and the muscular contortions after death
throughout his long body gave me a very vivid idea
of the tremendous squeezing power possessed by
these reptiles. Skinning him was an easy process,
but unfortunately his beautiful colouring soon
disappeared, the old gold turning to white and
the bright green to lustreless black.
CHAPTER XX
A DAY ON THE ATHI RIVER
In spite of all our difficulties, rapid progress
continued to be made with the line. Each day
railhead crept a mile or so further across the
Plains, and on April 24 we reached the Stony Athi
River, where our great camp was pitched for a
few days while the temporary bridge was being
thrown across the dry bed of the stream. Still
another temporary bridge had to be arranged for
the Athi itself, which was some eight miles further
on, so I had to make one or two expeditions
to this river in order to select a suitable place
for the crossing and to make various other
arrangements. On one of these occasions I was
busy attending to the pitching of my tent after
arriving at the Athi late in the evening, when
on looking round I was very much surprised to
see two European ladies sitting under the shade
of some trees on the river bank.
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