John Nieuhoff, in his Voyages to Brazil,[180] speaking of the serpent Guaku or Liboya, says: "It is questionless the biggest of all serpents, some being eighteen, twenty-four, nay thirty feet long, and of the thickness of a man in his middle. The Portuguese call it Kobra Detrado, or the roebuck serpent, because it will swallow a whole roebuck, or any other deer it meets with; after they have swallowed such a deer, they fall asleep, and so are catched. Such a one I saw at Paraiba, which was thirty feet long, and as big as a barrel. This serpent, being a very devouring creature, greedy of prey, leaps from amongst the hedges and woods, and standing upright upon its tail, wrestles both with men and wild beasts; sometimes it leaps from the trees upon the traveller, whom it fastens upon, and beats the breath out of his body with its tail." The largest (water boa) ever met with by a European appears to be that described by a botanist, Dr. Gardiner, in his _Travels in Brazil_. It had devoured a horse, and was found dead, entangled in the branches of a tree overhanging a river, into which it had been carried by a flood; it was nearly forty feet long. _Winged Serpents._ The next section relates to winged serpents, a belief in which was prevalent in early ages, and is strongly supported by several independent works. [Illustration: FIG. 35.--EGYPTIAN FOUR-WINGED SERPENT, CHANUPHIS, OR BAIT. (_From "Serpent Myths of Ancient Egypt," by W. R. Cooper._)] To my mind, Herodotus speaks without the slightest doubt upon the subject in the following passages. "Arabia[181] is the last of inhabited lands towards the south, and it is the only country which produces frankincense, myrrh, cassia, cinnamon, and ledanum." "The frankincense they procure by means of the gum styrax, which the Greeks get from the Phœnicians. This they burn, and thereby obtain the spice; for the trees which bear the frankincense are guarded by winged serpents, small in size, and of various colours, whereof vast numbers hang about every tree. They are of the same kind as the serpents that invade Egypt, and there is nothing but the smoke of the styrax which will drive them from the trees." [Illustration: FIG. 36.--THE SYMBOLIC WINGED SERPENT OF THE GODDESS MERSOKAR OR MELSOKAR. (_After W. R. Cooper._)]