Mr. McLeod, in his voyage of H.M.S. Alceste, after describing the mode in which a python on board, sixteen feet in length, crushed and gorged a goat, the distressing cries of which on being introduced into the serpent's cage, could not but excite compassion, goes on to say that during a captivity of some months at Whidah, in the kingdom of Dahomey, on the coast of Africa, he had opportunities of observing pythons of more than double that size, and which were capable of swallowing animals much larger that goats or sheep. "Governor Abson," he adds, "who had for thirty-seven years resided at Fort William, one of the African Company's settlements there, describes some desperate struggles which he had seen, or which had come to his knowledge, between the snakes and wild beasts as well as the smaller cattle, in which the former were always victorious. A negro herdsman belonging to Mr. Abson, and who afterwards limped for many years about the fort, had been seized by one of these monsters by the thigh; but from his situation in a wood the serpent in attempting to throw himself around him got entangled in a tree; and the man being thus preserved from a state of compression, which would instantly have rendered him quite powerless, had presence of mind enough to cut with a large knife which he carried about with him, deep gashes in the neck and throat of his antagonist, thereby killing him, and disengaging himself from his frightful situation. He never afterwards, however, recovered the use of his limb, which had sustained considerable injury from the fangs and mere force of his jaws." Ludolph states that enormous snakes exist in Ethiopia: and Bosman informs us that entire men have been found in the gullet of serpents on the Gold coast. In the "Oriental Annual" is the following narrative, explanatory of a well-known picture by W. Daniell: "A few years before our visit to Calcutta," says the writer, "the captain of a country ship while passing the Sunderbunds sent a boat into one of the creeks to obtain some fresh fruits, which are cultivated by the few miserable inhabitants of this inhospitable region. Having reached the shore the crew moored the boat under a bank, and left one of their party to take care of her."