Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XI.—April, 1851—Vol. II.

But to see the true boas in their native forests we must cross the Atlantic; and those who are not familiar with the story may have no objection to learn how Captain Stedman fared in an encounter with one twenty-two feet and some inches in length, during his residence in Surinam.

Captain Stedman was lying in his hammock, as his vessel floated down the river, when the sentinel told him that he had seen and challenged something black, moving in the brushwood on the beach, which gave no answer. Up rose the captain, manned the canoe that accompanied his vessel, and rowed to the shore to ascertain what it was. One of his slaves cried out that it was no negro, but a great snake that the captain might shoot if he pleased. The captain, having no such inclination, ordered all hands to return on board. The slave, David, who had first challenged the snake, then begged leave to step forward and shoot it. This seems to have roused the captain, for he determined to kill it himself, and loaded with ball cartridge.

The master and slave then proceeded. David cut a path with a bill-hook, and behind him came a marine with three more loaded guns. They had not gone above twenty yards through mud and water, the negro looking every way with uncommon vivacity, when he suddenly called out, "Me see snakee!" and, sure enough there the reptile lay, coiled up under the fallen leaves and rubbish of the trees. So well covered was it, that some time elapsed before the captain could perceive its head, not above sixteen feet from him, moving its forked tongue, while its vividly-bright eyes appeared to emit sparks of fire. The captain now rested his piece upon a branch to secure a surer aim, and fired. The ball missed the head, but went through the body, when the snake struck round with such astonishing force as to cut away all the underwood around it with the facility of a scythe mowing grass, and, flouncing with its tail, made the mud and dirt fly over their heads to a considerable distance. This commotion seems to have sent the party to the right about; for they took to their heels, and crawled into the canoe. David, however, entreated the captain to renew the charge, assuring him that the snake would be quiet in a few minutes, and that it was neither able nor inclined to pursue them, supporting his opinion by walking before the captain till the latter should be ready to fire.

They now found the snake a little removed from its former station, very quiet, with its head as before, lying out among the fallen leaves, rotten bark, and old moss. Stedman fired at it immediately, but with no better success than at first; and the enraged animal, being but slightly wounded by the second shot, sent up such a cloud of dust and dirt as the captain had never seen, except in a whirlwind; and away they all again retreated to their canoe. Tired of the exploit, Stedman gave orders to row toward the barge; but the persevering David still entreating that he might be permitted to kill the reptile, the captain determined to make a third and last attempt in his company; and they this time directed their fire with such effect that the snake was shot by one of them through the head.

The vanquished monster was then secured by a running-noose passed over its head, not without some difficulty, however; for, though it was mortally wounded, it continued to writhe and twist about so as to render a near approach dangerous. The serpent was dragged to the shore, and made fast to the canoe, in order that it might be towed to the vessel, and continued swimming like an eel till the party arrived on board, where it was finally determined that the snake should be again taken on shore, and there skinned for the sake of its oil. This was accordingly done; and David having climbed a tree with the end of a rope in his hand, let it down over a strong-forked bough, the other negroes hoisted away, and the serpent was suspended from the tree. Then, David quitting the tree, with a sharp knife between his teeth, clung fast upon the suspended snake, still twisting and twining, and proceeded to perform the same operation that Marsyas underwent, only that David commenced his work by ripping the subject up: he then stripped down the skin as he descended. Stedman acknowledges, that though he perceived that the snake was no longer able to do the operator any harm, he could not, without emotion, see a naked man, black and bloody, clinging with arms and legs round the slimy and yet living monster. The skin and above four gallons of clarified fat, or rather oil, were the spoils secured on this occasion; full as many gallons more seem to have been wasted. The negroes cut the flesh into pieces, intending to feast on it; but the captain would not permit them to eat what he regarded as disgusting food, though they declared that it was exceedingly good and wholesome. The negroes were right, and the captain was wrong: the flesh of most serpents is very good and nourishing, to say nothing of the restorative qualities attributed to it.

One of the most curious accounts of the benefit derived by man from the serpent race, is related by Kircher (see Mus. Worm.), where it is stated that near the village of Sassa, about eight miles from the city of Bracciano, in Italy, there is a hole, or cavern, called la Grotto, delli Serpi, which is large enough to contain two men, and is all perforated with small holes like a sieve. From these holes, in the beginning of spring, issue a prodigious number of small, different-colored serpents, of which every year produces a new brood, but which seem to have no poisonous quality. Such persons as are afflicted with scurvy, leprosy, palsy, gout, and other ills to which flesh is heir, were laid down naked in the cavern, and their bodies being subjected to a copious sweat from the heat of the subterraneous vapors, the young serpents were said to fasten themselves on every part, and extract by sucking every diseased or vitiated humor; so that after some repetitions of this treatment, the patients were restored to perfect health. Kircher, who visited this cave, found it warm, and answering, in every way, the description he had of it. He saw the holes, heard a murmuring, hissing noise in them, and, though he owns that he missed seeing the serpents, it not being the season of their creeping out, yet he saw great numbers of their exuviæ, or sloughs, and an elm growing hard by laden with them. The discovery of this air Schlangenbad, was said to have been made by a leper going from Rome to some baths near this place, who, fortunately, losing his way, and being benighted, turned into this cave. Finding it very warm, and being very weary, he pulled off his clothes, and fell into such a deep sleep that he did not feel the serpents about him till they had wrought his cure.

Such instances of good-will toward man, combined with the periodical renovation of youthful appearance, by a change of the whole external skin, and the character of the serpent for wisdom, contributed, doubtless, to raise the form to a place among the deities.

Their aptitude for tameness was another quality which aided their elevation. The little girl mentioned by Maria Edgeworth, of blessed memory, took out her little porringer daily to share her breakfast with a friendly snake that came from its hiding-place to her call; and when the guest intruded beyond the due limits, she would give it a tap on the head with her spoon, and the admonition, "Eat on your own side, I say."

A lad whom I knew kept a common snake in London, which he had rendered so tame that it was quite at ease with him, and very fond of its master. When taken out of its box, it would creep up his sleeve, come out at the top, wind itself caressingly about his neck and face, and when tired retire to sleep in his bosom.

Carver, in his travels, relates an instance of docility, which, if true, surpasses any story of the kind I ever heard.

"An Indian belonging to the Menomonie, having taken a rattlesnake, found means to tame it; and when he had done this treated it as a deity, calling it his great father, and carrying it with him in a box wherever he went. This he had done for several summers, when Mons. Pinnisance accidentally met with him at this carrying place, just as he was setting off for a winter's hunt. The French gentleman was surprised one day to see the Indian place the box which contained his god on the ground, and opening the door, give him his liberty; telling him, while he did it, to be sure and return by the time he himself should come back, which was to be in the month of May following. As this was but October, Monsieur told the Indian, whose simplicity astonished him, that he fancied he might wait long enough, when May arrived, for the arrival of his great father. The Indian was so confident of his creature's obedience, that he offered to lay the Frenchman a wager of two gallons of rum, that at the time appointed he would come and crawl into his box. This was agreed on, and the second week in May following fixed for the determination of the wager. At that period they both met there again, when the Indian set down his box, and called for his great father. The snake heard him not; and the time being now expired, he acknowledged that he had lost. However, without seeming to be discouraged, he offered to double the bet if his father came not within two days more. This was further agreed on; when, behold, on the second day, about one o'clock the snake arrived, and of his own accord crawled into the box, which was placed ready for him. The French gentleman vouched for the truth of this story, and from the accounts I have often received of the docility of those creatures, I see no reason to doubt its veracity."

THE WATCHER. – A SKETCH FROM REAL LIFE

In a dark room, in a ruined and wretched house, in one of the most filthy districts of a great city, a mother sat watching her sleeping babe. The infant was lying on a hard pallet on the floor, and the mother was sitting beside it on a broken chair, plying her needle with eager haste, and occasionally pausing to look down at her babe or to kiss it as it lay asleep. The child was pale and sickly, and in the close offensive air of the room it seemed to breathe painfully and to inhale, with every pulse of its tender heart, the insidious principles of death and dissolution. But not less pale and wan was the mother, who sat there watching; her features wore that blanched, unearthly hue, and that strange upward light was playing in her eyes, which spoke but too plainly that death was breathing on her. The room was lonely – very lonely – for there were no pictures to adorn its walls, scarcely any articles of common domestic use within it; it was bare, almost unfurnished, dismal, and cold. The mother was engaged in making shirts, and the price which she received for them averaged two-pence-halfpenny each; and it is said that by extraordinary exertions, for twenty hours out of twenty-four, the sum of three shillings may be earned weekly at such labor. Well, the pale, care-worn, suffering mother continued to stitch, stitch, anxiously from hour to hour, leaving off now and then to take her dying baby in her arms and to press it fondly to her breast, until the tide of her heart's affection came stealing forth in tears; and recollecting that the next meal for herself and child must be earned by the continued labor of her jaded hands, she placed the infant on its bed, and again resumed her work.

Thus many hours had passed in a silence broken only by the low moaning of the child, as it turned to and fro in the feeble expression of long-continued anguish, and the deep sighs of the mother as she gazed anxiously upon its fevered face, and saw the stamp of want and misery there in an expression akin to the imbecility of years. At length the babe awoke, and the mother took it tenderly into her arms; she pressed it to her breast and kissed the cold dew from its forehead. And now she began to prepare her humble meal, she placed a few sticks of wood in the stove and lighted them, and placed an old broken kettle half filled with water upon them; and then arranged two cups and saucers on a small tray, and took a portion of a loaf from a shelf above. While waiting for the water to boil she gave her child some food; and she had scarcely begun to do this when a heavy and unsteady step was heard upon the threshold; her heart leaped with fear, and she trembled like a moonlight shadow. A creature somewhat in the semblance of a man staggered into the room, and threw himself down upon the pallet where the child had just been sleeping.

"Charles, Charles, do not, for God's sake, treat me thus," said the mother of the child, and she sobbed loudly, and was steeped in tears.

The man scowled upon her from beneath the broken brim of a slouched hat, and in a low fiendish growl, cursed her. His clothes had been respectable in their time, but now were tattered and slovenly, and his face wore the savage wildness and vacancy of long-continued dissipation.

"I came home to ask you for money, so give me what you've got, and let me go, for I haven't done drinking yet," said he, while the devil-like glare of his eyes seemed to pierce the poor mother to the soul.

"I spent my last penny to buy my child some food, I know not where to get another; you have never wanted a meal while I could work, and my poor fingers are wasted to the bone by midnight labor and the want of bread, and my poor child is wasting away before my face, while you, forgetting all the ties that bind a father to his offspring, or a husband to his wife, take the very bread from me and my babe, to waste it in drunkenness; oh, Charles, you loved me once, but you are killing me now, and my poor dear child."

"You howling, canting hypocrite, give me some money and let me go," bawled the intoxicated brute, and with a sweep of his hand, as he sat upon the child's bed, he overturned the table and scattered the miserable meal upon the floor. The heart-broken wife rushed with her babe to the opposite end of the room, and cowered down in fear. "Do you hear, or do you want me to murder you?" and he rose from where he sat and reeled toward her; shrinking and shivering as she bent over her babe, she pressed its almost lifeless body to her heart, and when he stood above her, she looked up in his face in the agony of despair, and implored, in the mute utterance of her tear-worn eyes, for mercy. But he did not strike her, although she was indeed well used to that, but he put out his hand and taking from her bosom a locket, which had been a dear sister's gift, and the last thing left her but her babe and death, staggered to the door, and, after looking back with a menacing and brutal expression of his savage features, left her. Although he was gone she moved not, but sat wailing like a dove whose nest has been bereft of that which made life dear, and sobbing loudly in her grief she looked upon her child, and saw the tokens of pain and want upon its meagre face, and could feel the throbbing of its little heart becoming more and more feeble, from hour to hour, as the shadow of its life was waning.

And night came, and she laid her child down to rest, and again sat working and watching. She kissed it when its low cry startled her in the midnight silence, and hushed it again to sleep, for it wanted food and that she had not. The morning came, but it was still night to her, and the darkness of her woe sat hovering over her frail soul like the shadow of a great but silent misery. She hurried on in the delirium of extreme weakness that she might complete the wretched work she had, and get food for her famished child. Intense suffering, long watching, hunger, cold, and cruelty had blanched a cheek which had been more fair than snow, and had carved wrinkles, like those of age, upon a youthful brow; death hovered over her like a ghastly shadow, not to her – as to those in comfort – terrible, but welcome. And thus from hour to hour, and from day to day, that mother labored for her lonely child, while he, whose heart should have beat with the devotion of love for her whom he had sworn to cherish, and whose hand should have been ever ready to defend her, deeming nothing too severe, nothing too difficult, which could bring food and comfort to a woman's constant heart, came only to rob her of her last morsel, and to add fresh agonies to her almost withered soul by imprecations and curses.

One morning, after she had been toiling long in cold and hunger, she became too weak to labor more, and nature faltered. She stooped to kiss her babe and to ask a blessing on its head from Him whose benedictions come even to the sorrowful and needy, and as she bent down above its little shadowy form, her sorrows overwhelmed her, and she fell down beside her child and fainted. With none to aid and soothe her – with none to nourish her in her distress of heart, and no kind hand to minister to the poor watcher in that hour of affliction, she lay in that sweet peace which comes to the aching heart when it can for a time forget its sorrows; and better too, perhaps, for her, for her babe was dying, and in the unconsciousness of temporary death, she knew it not.

She awoke at last, for even the forgetfulness so dear to the wounded spirit will have an end, and the grim bitter realities become palpable once more; and as consciousness returned she was startled from her partial dream by the icy chill which fell upon her when she touched her child. She shrieked wildly, and fell upon her face in the maddening agony of despair, "my child, my child, oh, my child!" she cried, and tore her hair in frenzy. Now she became more calm, and turned round to look upon the babe, whose soul had passed into that better sleep from which there is no waking. She kissed its cold wasted form, and bathed its little marble face with her scalding tears.

"Oh, my child," she sobbed, "my poor child, murdered by its father's hand, the victim of his cruelty; oh, Father of all, Father of the wicked and good, take my poor babe to thy fostering bosom, and let me die too, for my last hope is gone, the last link of my heart's affection is broken; Father of mercies, listen to the supplications of a childless mother!"

That step! and the blood goes back to her heart like an icy flood, and every pulse is withered, as with a bleak and desolating frost; she holds her breath, and with her dead child in her arms, crouches down in the corner on the floor, and in the silence of despair and terror asks her God to bless and protect her, and to soften his heart in such an awful moment as this. He came to the threshold of the room, and fell prostrate on the floor as he attempted to approach her; he was too much intoxicated to rise, and there he lay muttering, in broken and inarticulate words, the most horrible oaths and imprecations. The mother spake not, for although, even then she could have prayed for him in her heart, and bless him with her tongue; ay, and still labor for him with her hands, if by such she could win back the old love which had made her youthful hours glad, and which had spread the rosy atmosphere of hope before her; but which was now a thing of silent memory, of sadness, and of tears.

Thus passed away the morning, and at noon the drunkard arose from where he lay, and again demanded what money she had; she gave him a few halfpence from her pocket, and he snatched them from her and departed.

To know that he had gone to procure the poison on which he fed, with this last remnant of the midnight toil, and when his child lay dead within its mother's arms; to know that for the veriest morsel she must toil again, sleepless and famished, and with the withered blossom of her heart's broken hope beside her; to know that the last office of affection, the burial of the child, must be performed by those who cared for neither her nor it, and who would desecrate, by the vile touch of parochial charity, that which had been more dear to her than her own life; to know that all her joys were wasted now, and that she still lived to hear him curse her in the very place where death had so lately been; and that although she sat before him with the sleeping infant in her arms, while he was too brutalized by drink to know that that sleep was one from which it would never more awake, and that her own terror made her speechless when she would have told him; all this was a torrent of sorrow, before whose overbearing force her wintered heart gave way, and she sank down upon the floor, with her dead babe in her arms, senseless.

Sleep came upon her like a poppy spell, and wafted her silent, soul to sweeter worlds. Far away from her cold and solitary room, far away from hunger, wretchedness, and tears; far away from the keen tortures of maternal sorrow and the despair of withered love, her spirit wandered in that peaceful dream. From earth, as from a wilderness of ashes, her willing spirit went upon its upward flight, ascending and ascending. It neared the blue and shining arch above, and clapped its wings for joy, and felt within it the renovated bliss of innocent and unchanging beauty. It felt the calming influence of soft music swelling around it like sunbright waves upon a summer sea; it saw sweet spots and green peaceful valleys lying in the rosy light of heaven, as clouds at evening lie folded up in sleep. On and on her spirit went in calm and holy majesty, amid the shadowy beauty of that pleasant land. It seemed to bathe in bliss amid bright galaxies of living and rejoicing worlds, and to embrace happiness as its long-sought boon. Through flowery pastures, and falling waters, perfumed gardens, and star-lighted solitudes where the soul of music dwelt and lived amid the sweet echoes of her seraph songs, that mother's new-born soul wandered in its freedom, forgetting all the pangs and tears it had so lately known. Now it passed floating islands of glittering beauty where troops of cherubim were worshiping their God; and from the midst of a soft bed of twilight flowers arose an angel host of babes, soaring in their wantonness of joy to higher regions of the azure air, and singing their simple songs in harmony together. From all the gleaming lights afar came dulcet harpings of angelic wings, and all things in that sweet dream-land of beauty told of the joy which falls upon the virtuous soul. The spirit of the mother, dazzled and amazed till now, awoke from its trance of wonder, and cried aloud "my child, my child, and my husband, where, where are they?" and she sank upon a gleaming bed of purpled blooms, and from the odorous sighing of the lute-toned air the voice of her child came gladly in reply. And now a joyous troop of star-light seraphs sailed toward her, like a snowy cloud, and in the midst she sees her darling babe, clapping its little hands in laughing glee, and overjoyed once more to meet her. Oh, what bliss is like the feeling of a mother, when her trusting heart is gladdened by the return of a child whom she deemed was lost; and if such joy awake within the soul amid all the harsh realities of earth, how much more so in the spirit's home, where nothing but the peaceful thought can live, and all earth's grief is banished? It was her own babe, the bud of hope she nursed and tended in the dark winter of her earthly sorrow, now wearing the same smile which gladdened her amid the gloom, but holier, fairer, and freed from all the traces of want and suffering. The spirits of the mother and the babe embraced each other in the wild joy of this happy meeting, and the mother's spirit knelt before the heaven-built temple of light which arched above, and offered the incense of its prayers for him whose wickedness of heart had steeped her earthly days in bitterness; but who was yet to her the token of a youthful hope, and the living memory of a trusting love. Her earnest spirit, in the gush of its awakened affection for the child of her bosom, called upon its God to have mercy upon him, and to snatch his soul from the blackness of its guilt and the impending terrors of destruction. And the prayer went upward, and the angels sung.

The drunkard staggered to the wretched home, and reeling into the silent room gazed upon the wife and child. They spoke not, moved not; he stooped to touch, but recoiled in horror, for both of them were dead. The mother, in her sweet dream, had glided into the blissful evening land, and he, the destroyer of a wife and child, now felt in all the piercing agony of sin and shame, the scorpion stings of conscience. He fell upon his knees and prayed for mercy! His withering soul seemed struggling within him, and he gasped for breath. He had wandered into wicked paths, he had blighted a gentle heart by cruelty and neglect, he had wasted his own child's meal in drunkenness and villainy, while it lay on its mother's breast perishing for want of food. He felt all the terrors of remorse, and hell seemed gaping beneath him! He arose and wept, and the first tear he shed was carried by invisible hands upward to that world of peace, as a sacrifice of penitence to the kneeling spirit of a mother. He wandered away in silence, and where he went were the falling tears which spoke, in accents eloquent and true, the silent utterance of a repentant heart.