Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1894-08-23

to figure at church parade in Hyde
Park, and strong enough to fell an OK
with.
In my peregrinations through the
bush of Australia this stick was always
with me. 1t was a stout support and
a weapon of defense in case of need.
If ever a snake had confronted me
1 leave you to guess the reception he
would have got. Talk about mince-
meat!
/ have a perfect horror of snakes
those pests of central Australia-and
so, as soon as l had arrived in the coun-
try, made every inquiry as to the best
methods of protecting ones self against
the reptiles.
Cover your legs with leather gai-
ters, was told, land then, with good
stick in your hand, you need have no
fear"
Thereupon 1 was enlightened as to
the infallible manner of staying the
enemy:
Avoid placing yourself behind or
in front of your snake-behind es-
pecially-but take it side on, grip your
stick hard and bring it down on it's
back with all your might: Bang!-
there you are; you have broken it's
y
is soon as dead as door nail"
Over and over again people said to
me: Surely you will not return to
Europe without being able to say to
your compatriots: 4 killed serpent
in Australia, and this is how it was
'done!'' % Every Frenchman who has
travelled in far countries is supposed
to be more or less tinged with tar
tarinade.
All that is very we'll, but / am pru-
dent man, and 1 said to myself: In
stead of a Frenchman telling his fell
low-couutrymen how to kill snake, it
might just as likely end in snake tell
ing its friends and family how to pol
ish off Frenchman."
However, when l was in the bush.
wandering about armed with that new
stout walk ing-stick, I we MT through
the roll that 1 might be called upon to
enact at any moment, and l killed
them by hund reds-the snakes that
were not there. Not one escaped.
Just a tremendous whack, and the
thing was done exactly as my friends
had told me: "Bang!-there you are"
In the case of two enemies, the one
who is first discovered by the other is
half beaten. And so the snake l
feared especially was the one hidden
in the grass or the dead wood with
which the bush is strewn and which,
being walked upon, has a way of en-
tering an energetic protest in the form
of a bite on your calf before you have
time to know where you are.
But the snake that l dreaded most
of all was the one which insinuates it.
self at evening into peoples houses,
glides into bedroom and quietly
-curls up in the bed.
l arrived one evening in a town sit
uated in the interior of New South
Wales. The season was what the in
habitants of those parts called win
ter; 1O5 degrees of heat at midday and
90 at nine in the evening regular
snake weather. Not leaf stirred; one
could scarcely breathe in the leaden
atmosphere. The little town was
right in the bush. Behind the no.
tel where I had alighted ran small
river that furni shed the establishment
with mosquitoes of an energy and vo-
zracity beyond competition. The cook
cry in that hotel was atrocious. Like
poor dead Polonius, we, the guests,
were at feast, not where we ate, hut
where we were eaten. Before retiring
to rest on the first night had a chat
with the landlord. who informed me
that the district was infested with
snakes. The close vicinity of the bush
and of the river, added to the intense