Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-10-14
FIGHTING AN ANACONDA.
How Brave Sailor Lad Made a HUI.
Reptile Give Up It's Prey.

| How Brave Sailor Lad Made a Huge
Reptile Give Up Its Prey.
An old gentleman from Reading.
| Mass, to whom I have several times
Deen indebted for a good story, says a
story-writer, has told this one of a
| young sailor (who was a boy when the
old gentleman was a boy), named
Phineas Guerney:
This, Phin's first glimpse of equa-
torial countries. was at an unknown
landing on the South American coast
We can imagine how the sight of trop-
| ical luxuriance and palms and llianas
| astonished his northern eyes. The Good
Adventure (his ship lay week or
| more in the cove, and one afternoon
Phin took a rather venturesome ramble,
following the crooks and bends of a
| small tidal river.
| Gas our young explorer went on, the
stiffness of the place was broken by a
| heavy splashing in the stream, at some
! distance ahead, followed in a moment
| or two by frightful bellowings, and all
| the commingled sounds of a deadly
tussle. Phin stood rooted to the ground,
| though more from astonishment than
| fear. Then the strange bawling and
| splash ng continuing, he was drawn by
| great curiosity to see what sort of a
| fracas was going on and what beasts
| were fighting. Running toward the
noise, he came out near a great sauna
, ma-tree, with long, dropping branches,
which grew partly in the water, and saw
a horned creature as he described it,
plungng to and fro, with the biggest
snake there ever was in the world
hanging hold of the animals nose, and
rolling and tumbling itself in great
glossy folds on the ground!
Never had Phin seen nor heard of
such a snake as that before! He de-
clared that it was more than forty foot
long, and as big round as the brig
foremast,' and that it was 'hitched way
up to a limb of the tree by its tail He
says of it that it was a 'yaller snake
with black spots all along its back and
sides, but that Its belly was skim milk
color; also that its head was yellow and
black; and that its eyes were ulged out
like two chiny sassers, and 'were green
as frog spit, except in the middle,
where they looked like bright brass.
Back and forth plunged the bullock,
believing loudly in its fright and dis
lTeSS; UuI wien once GnoSo water DOaS
get grip with their strong, retroverted
teeth, it is next to impossible for an an
imal to break away from them. At
length, the boa got one huge fold over
the bullock's rump, and threw its hind
legs from under it's body. Very short
ly now it would have mastered the
steer-if Phin had not had wrong to
right. From the outset, our young
sailors sympathies had been with the
horned creature
''To see neat stock used in that way
by an ugly monster of a snake went
against Phin's grain, and at this juno
ture he dashed in with his cheetoolM and
began to hammer the snakes head with
all his might. The cheetooih was as
heavy as a sledge, and Phin had sturdy
arm of his own. yet his first blows
seemed not to produce the slightest eff
feet upon the intent monster. But sud-
denly it relaxed it's hold, and with a
single convulsive roll of its coils, flung
itself far back under the rec. The steer,
thus left free. struggled to its feet, shook
its horns and staggered off through the
canes.
''Phin was determined to finish the
life of the boa. but a poisonous effluvia
from its body filled the air, and made
him so sick that he left the reptile to it's
uncertain fate. ~ Youths Companion.