Certainly, it was high time to make a crusade against these unwelcome denizens.

Dr.Davy, judging from a Government report, says that nineteen persons were killed by them in one small parish in the year 1849; and the death, though by no means certain, is, when it befalls, a hideous death enough.

If any one wishes to know what it is like, let him read the tragedy which Sir Richard Schomburgk tells--with his usual brilliance and pathos, for he is a poet as well as a man of science--in his Travels in British Guiana, vol.ii.p.

255--how the Craspedocephalus, coiled on a stone in the ford, let fourteen people walk over him without stirring, or allowing himself to be seen: and at last rose, and, missing Schomburgk himself, struck the beautiful Indian bride, the 'Liebling der ganzen Gesellschaft;' and how she died in her bridegroom's arms, with horrors which I do not record.
Strangely enough, this snake, so fatal to man, has no power against another West Indian snake, almost equally common, namely, the Cribo.

{40} This brave animal, closely connected with our common water- snake, is perfectly harmless, and a welcome guest in West Indian houses, because he clears them of rats.