I Instantly Fired At Him, Cutting Him
Clean In Half With The Shot; The Tail Part Remained
Where It Was,
But the head half quickly wriggled
off and disappeared in the gloom of the tent.
The trail of blood, however,
Enabled us to track
it, and we eventually found the snake, still full of
fight, under the edge of the ground-sheet. He
made a last vicious dart at one of the men who
had run up, but was quickly given the happy
despatch by a blow on the head. Rawson now
picked it up and brought it to the light. He
then put his foot on the back of its head and
with a stick forced open the jaws, when suddenly
we saw two perfectly clear jets of poison spurt
out from the fangs. An Indian baboo (clerk), who
happened to be standing near, got the full benefit
of this, and the poor man was so panic-stricken
that in a second he had torn off every atom of his
clothing. We were very much amused at this,
as of course we knew that although the poison was
exceedingly venomous, it could do no harm unless
it penetrated a cut or open wound in the flesh.
I never found out the name of this snake, which,
as I have said, was of a dark brick-red colour
all over; and I only saw one other of the same
kind all the time I was in East Africa. I came
upon it suddenly one day when out shooting. It
was evidently much startled, and stood erect,
hissing venomously; but I also was so much
taken aback at its appearance that I did not think
about shooting it until it had glided off and
disappeared in the thick undergrowth.
CHAPTER XV
UNSUCCESSFUL RHINO HUNTS
Although the jungle round Tsavo was a
network of rhino paths I had never so far been
successful in my efforts to obtain one of these
animals, nor was my ambition yet to be realised.
One day I was out exploring in the dense bush
some six or seven miles away from camp, and
found my progress more than usually slow, owing
to the fact that I had to spend most of my time
crawling on all-fours through the jungle. I was
very pleased, therefore, to emerge suddenly on a
broad and well-beaten track along which I could
walk comfortably in an upright position. In this
were some fresh rhino footprints which seemed
barely an hour old, so I determined to follow
them up. The roadway was beaten in places
into a fine white dust by the passage of many
heavy animals; and as I pushed cautiously
forward I fully expected to come face to face with
a rhino at every corner I turned. After having
gone a little way I fancied that I really did see
one lying at the foot of a tree some distance
ahead of me, but on approaching cautiously found
that it was nothing more than a great brown heap
of loose earth which one of the huge beasts
had raised by rolling about on the soft ground.
This, however, was evidently a resting-place
which was regularly used, so I made up my
mind to spend a night in the overhanging branches
of the tree.
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