There Are Three Other Kinds Of
Serpents, Some Of Which Have Such Deadly Venom, That If They Draw Ever
So Little Blood Death Presently Follows, As Happened Several Times While
I Was In The Country.
Of these some are no larger than asps, and some
much bigger, and they are very numerous.
It is said that, from some
strange superstition, the king of Calicut holds them in such veneration,
that he has small houses or cottages made on purpose for them,
conceiving that they are of great virtue against an over abundance of
rain, and overflowing of the rivers. Hence they are protected by law,
and any person killing one would be punished with death, so that they
multiply exceedingly. They have a strange notion that serpents come from
heaven, and are actuated by heavenly spirits, and they allege that only
by touching them instant death insues. These serpents know the idolaters
from the Mahometans, or other strangers, and are much more apt to
attack the former than the latter. Upon one occasion, I went into a
house where eight men lay dead, and greatly swollen, having been killed
the day before by these serpents; yet the natives deem it fortunate to
meet any of them in their way.
[Footnote 82: From the description these must be crocodiles - E.]
The palace of the king of Calicut contains many mansions, and a
prodigious number of apartments, in all of which a prodigious number of
lamps are lighted up every evening. In the great hall of the palace
there are ten or twelve great and beautiful candlesticks of _laton_ or
brass, of cunning workmanship, much like goodly fountains, the height of
a man.
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