_Virtue——needs no Defence; The surest Guard is Innocence: None knew, till Guilt created Fear, What Darts and poison’d Arrows were. Integrity undaunted goes Thro’_ Lybian _Sands, and_ Scythian _Snows_. In _Paraguay_, or _La Plata_ in _America_, is a famous _white Bird_, which, though it has a very small Body, has a Voice like a _Bell_, and therefore the Natives call it _Guirapo_, that is, the _Sounding-Bird_. How many Animals of the same kind in the moral Creation, that wear gaudy Feathers and Plumes, whose Sound, in the Assemblies of Saints and Sinners, proves to be _vox & præterea nihil_. LIII. The _Boicupecanga_ is a Serpent, so called because its Back looks as if it were overgrown with Briers and Thorns, the Ridge being sharp pointed, which makes the Beast look as if he were guarded by little Spears: This prickle-back’d Serpent is of a monstrous Extension, very frightful, and venemous, the very sight of which strikes Terror into Man and Beast. LIV. The _Cucurijuba_ is a Water-Snake of twenty-five or thirty Foot long, and three Foot in Compass, will swallow a Hog or a Stag at once; has Teeth like those of Dogs, but makes no use of them as Instruments of Mastication. _HARRIS_ in the _Atlas America_, mentions one kill’d when asleep, that was twelve Yards and a half long, and proportionably big, in whose Belly they found two wild Boars. This Creature I take to be the _Lyboya_, (or a near Relative) a gigantick Serpent, already described, therefore I dismiss the Monster, and proceed to the LV. _MANIMA_, another Water-Snake, of the same Proportion with the former, if not more bulky: The sight is terrible; the Monstrosity of Dimensions is sufficient to render it so; but we are told, the Terror vanishes in some Degree upon a view of the Skin, which is exquisitely painted, and the _Brazilians_ not only love to see so spruce an Animal, but reckon it an Omen of a long Life. If you ask, What a long Life is? I answer, ’Tis nothing but a lingering, slow Consumption: Life itself, what is it, but a meer practical Tautology, a Repetition of the same things over and over, and looks more like a Penance imposed upon Mankind than Pleasure. LVI. The _Terpomongo_ is another Serpent, which in the _Brazilian_ Dialect, signifies to _stick close_, so close to whatever it touches, that it is not to be parted. It is about the bigness of a Cable-Rope, which being fasten’d to the Anchor, holds the Ship fast when it rides. This Property in the Serpent, may be an Hieroglyphick; or Symbol of true Friendship, which is a sacred Mixture: My Friend and I are as two Rivers joined in one, not to be separated; we stick close and fast, traversing the Wilderness hand-in-hand: He who strikes one, wounds the other—No Schism in true Friendship.