The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-07-20
SNAKE SCIENTIST"
BACK FROM JUNGLE
Has Spent Some Time on the
Orinoco Collecting
Specimens

New York, Jply 5-tSpeciaD ALLEN
Samuel Williams, snake scientist, who as
he himself says, has been herpetologizing
yesterday after landing from the steam
ship Maracas with a large collection of
boa constructors and a few stories.
He made his headquarters while ex-
ploring the Orinoco for strange crawling
things at Ciudad Bolivar and he found
Venezuelan merchants, rancheros and
spectators flocking to that city on their
way to Port of Spain, Trinidad, to put
their surplus money in charge of the
Colonial and Royal bank of Canada in
anticipation of the upheaval in Venezuela.
The revolutionary junta, Mr.. Williams
found, was in trinidad smiling fiercely
under the finest brands of opera bouffe
mustachios and carrying conspicuously
loud handled American made revolvers.
In the throng of revolutionists is
young Russian nihilist who at the age
of 19 escaped from the mines of Siberia
and started around the world looking for
revolutionists to keep him in psychologist
cal trim for the ultimate Russian event.
He carries no gun, but is quite earnest.
Mr.. Williams says, as the picturesque
ones with the, terrible smiles and poses.
Chief among the men of the junta at
Port of Spain are Carmelo and Trina
Castro, brothers of the banished Gen
Ciprano Castro. The impression Mr..
Williams got from his talk with Venez-
uelans in Trinidad was that Castro was
furnishing the capital for the next up
rising. The opinion of the politicians
supporting Gen. Gomez, the President of
Venezuela was that the revolutonists
would not be successful as prosperity
was general in Venezuela and few rev.
olutionists We're looking for a job. But.
Mr.. Williams says, large number of the
most prosperous men of the country We're
slowing away their capital in safe places
in case an outbreak should come.
On the upper Orinoco where the tide
in the season when the mountain SHOWS
melt rises sometimes nearly 70 feet, Mr..
Williams found the river bed so lightly
covered with water that little
river steamboats, were stranded, and no
could look down from the canyon-like
banks seventy feet or more above the
stream and marvel at the rush of the
torrent that filled the gap at high wa
ter.
Iu this part of the country the In
dians are aboreal. otherwise they
might be swept away. Mr.. Williams
lfound a native just a year married
whose wife had presented twins to him
in hammock in a tree top. She got
up the next day and went on with her
work. The happy father Immediately
went to bed, that is to hammock, and
all the men and women of the tribe
brought delieacies to him, pampering
him two weeks, while he lay in the ham
mock and looked proud. Ii his wife
had given him only one baby he would
have had only a week of feasting. The
wife also visited him occasionally, glory
ing in his fatherhood. Nobody took any
notice of her, but she seemed to think
1T was all right.
While Mr. Williams was in Port of
Spain number of natives came into
the city with report that q 23-foot boa
constructor had been seen few miles
from the city limits. Richard r. Mole
editor of the Mirror a daily of Port of
Spain, published the report in his paper,
but doubeted it, as no boa constructor
more than 15 feet long ever had been
seen in Trinidad. Mr. Mole is almost as
much of an enthusiast on snakes as Mr..
Williams, and he decided to run down
the 23-footer or the yarn about it the
next day.
He and Mr.. Williams went out to-
gether, accompanied by a group of ma
tives, including some who declared they
had seen the great boa. Near the place