They had thus destroyed it as a specimen, and had broken three of
the teeth, but I counted eight, and secured five poison-fangs, the two
most prominent being nearly an inch in length. The poison-fangs of
snakes are artfully contrived by some diabolical freak of nature as
pointed tubes, through which the poison is injected into the base of the
wound inflicted. The extreme point of the fang is solid, and is so
finely sharpened that beneath a powerful microscope it is perfectly
smooth, although the point of the finest needle is rough. A short
distance above the solid point of the fang the surface of the tube
appears as though cut away, like the first cut of a quill in forming a
pen: through this aperture the poison is injected.
Hardly had I secured the fangs, when a tremendous clap of thunder shook
the earth and echoed from rock to rock among the high mountains, that
rose abruptly on our left within a mile. Again the lightning flashed,
and almost simultaneously, a deafening peal roared from the black cloud
above us, just as I was kneeling over the archenemy to skin him. He
looked so Satanic with his flat head, and minute cold grey eye, and
scaly hide, with the lightning flashing and the thunder roaring around
him; I felt like St. Dunstan with the devil, and skinned him. The
natives and also my men were horrified, as they would not touch any
portion of such a snake with their hands: even its skin was supposed by
these people to be noxious.
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