_byd_ (native doctor), who will apply his nostrums, and the Brahmin to sing his incantations and perform sundry mystical rites whilst he, poor Gidari, passes away to the happy land. But even of white men there are few indeed who, after some years in the Indian plains, return home without a lively recollection of one or more escapes, for which at the moment they were thankful to Providence. In large towns like Bombay or Calcutta, snakes are not unknown; whilst in and about the bungalows of most, if not all country stations, they are common, and pay visits to these habitations at inconveniently short intervals. There are few bungalows the thatched roof of which is not the occasional abode of one objectionable species—the _sankor_, or roof-snake; whilst round about, in the hollows of old trees, or beneath the flooring of the rooms, or in the garden hard by, come at intervals specimens more or less dangerous to human life. It will serve to show the nature of the danger from this source, if I relate a few of my own personal experiences during a residence of some years in Bengal. Of the many snakes killed by me—some hundreds—I retain the liveliest recollection of the first my eyes beheld. I was then living in a small three-roomed bungalow, the flooring of which was almost on a level with the ground outside. Amongst other annoyances, the place was infested with rats; and being so low, the number of little toads that made free use of every room was incredible. My _sweeper_ would in a short time fill and refill a _gylah_ (a sort of round earthen pot capable of holding more than a gallon) up to the brim with toads. We called them frogs, but they were really toads of a jumping kind; and the only thing to be said in their favour was their capacity for swallowing mosquitoes, beetles, and other kinds of creeping and flying insects. But as a set-off against this advantage comes the fact that snakes with equal avidity swallow and relish toads, and are ever in quest of these dainty morsels. The rats, however, troubled me most. They destroyed my shoes, drank up the oil of my night-lamp—a very primitive arrangement, known as the _tel-buttee_, that carries one back to the time of Moses—sometimes extinguishing the light in the process; and made sad havoc of my cotton-stuffed pillows, the contents of which I would often discover, after an absence of a few days from home, strewn about the floor, and the pillow-cases ruthlessly destroyed; and it was not an uncommon thing to find a fat rat, which had effected an entrance through the mosquito curtains, nibbling away within an inch of my nose as I lay in bed. They held high revels in an old sideboard stored with sundry eatables, and so loud was the noise amongst the crockery therein, that often I had to get up and put the rebels to flight. In desperation, I determined one night to try what smoke would do to keep them out. Accordingly, I placed a piece of smouldering brown paper