ABSTRACT
There is found in this Calicut a kind of serpent which is as large as a great pig, and which has a head much larger than that of a pig, and it has four feet, and is four braza long.1 These serpents are produced in certain marshes. The people of the country say that they have no venom, but that they are evil animals, and do injury to people by means of their teeth. Three other kinds of ser pents are found here which, if they strike a person a little, that is, drawing blood, he immediately falls to the ground dead. And it has often happened here in my time that there have been many persons struck by these animals, of which animals there are three kinds. The first resemble deaf adders ; the next are scorpions ; the third are thrice as large as scorpions. Of these three kinds there are immense numbers. And you must know that when the king of Calicut learns where the nest of any of these brutal animals is, he has made over it a little house, on account of the water.8 And if any person should kill one of these animals
1 Crocodiles, the animals here indicated, swarm in the rivers o f Mala bar. “ Of other reptiles, there are the skink, a large lizard about four feet long, the salamander, tortoise, snakes of various kinds, as the cobra de capello, the bite of which results in inevitable death, and many other venomous kinds, as also the boa constrictor, generally swept down by torrents from the jungly valleys of the Ghats.” T h o u h t o n ’s Gazetteer, sub voce Malabar.
