As I Was One Day Sitting Solitary And Pensive In My Primitive
Arbour, My Attention Was Engaged By A Strange Sort Of Rustling Noise
At Some Paces Distant.
I looked all around without distinguishing
anything, until I climbed one of my great hemp stalks; when to my
Astonishment, I beheld two snakes of considerable length, the one
pursuing the other with great celerity through a hemp stubble field.
The aggressor was of the black kind, six feet long; the fugitive was
a water snake, nearly of equal dimensions. They soon met, and in the
fury of their first encounter, they appeared in an instant firmly
twisted together; and whilst their united tails beat the ground,
they mutually tried with open jaws to lacerate each other. What a
fell aspect did they present! their heads were compressed to a very
small size, their eyes flashed fire; and after this conflict had
lasted about five minutes, the second found means to disengage
itself from the first, and hurried toward the ditch. Its antagonist
instantly assumed a new posture, and half creeping and half erect,
with a majestic mien, overtook and attacked the other again, which
placed itself in the same attitude, and prepared to resist. The
scene was uncommon and beautiful; for thus opposed they fought with
their jaws, biting each other with the utmost rage; but
notwithstanding this appearance of mutual courage and fury, the
water snake still seemed desirous of retreating toward the ditch,
its natural element. This was no sooner perceived by the keen-eyed
black one, than twisting its tail twice round a stalk of hemp, and
seizing its adversary by the throat, not by means of its jaws, but
by twisting its own neck twice round that of the water snake, pulled
it back from the ditch. To prevent a defeat the latter took hold
likewise of a stalk on the bank, and by the acquisition of that
point of resistance became a match for its fierce antagonist.
Strange was this to behold; two great snakes strongly adhering to
the ground mutually fastened together by means of the writhings
which lashed them to each other, and stretched at their full length,
they pulled but pulled in vain; and in the moments of greatest
exertions that part of their bodies which was entwined, seemed
extremely small, while the rest appeared inflated, and now and then
convulsed with strong undulations, rapidly following each other.
Their eyes seemed on fire, and ready to start out of their heads; at
one time the conflict seemed decided; the water snake bent itself
into two great folds, and by that operation rendered the other more
than commonly outstretched; the next minute the new struggles of the
black one gained an unexpected superiority, it acquired two great
folds likewise, which necessarily extended the body of its adversary
in proportion as it had contracted its own. These efforts were
alternate; victory seemed doubtful, inclining sometimes to the one
side and sometimes to the other; until at last the stalk to which
the black snake fastened, suddenly gave way, and in consequence of
this accident they both plunged into the ditch.
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