“For the first time in my life I was thoroughly overcome; and, sinking down, I remained in a semiunconscious state for several minutes. When I fully recovered, Grant and the overjoyed negroes held me up, and pointed out the boa, which was still writhing in its death agonies. I shuddered as I looked upon the effects of its tremendous dying strength. For yards around where it lay, grass and bushes and saplings, and, in fact, everything except the more fully grown trees were cut quite off, as though they had been trimmed by an immense scythe. “The monster, when measured, was fifty-one feet two and a half inches in extreme length, while round the thickest portion of its body the girth was nearly three feet, thus proving, I believe, to be the largest serpent that was ever authentically heard of.” POWERFUL BEGGARS. The Chinese are more charitable than they have been given credit for. They give freely, especially on occasions of public or private rejoicing. Beggars are numerous everywhere, and are organized into a sort of union or guild, with a master at the head, whose word is law to his mendicant subjects, and whose laws are as unchanging as those of the Medes and Persians. No man can be buried without a large share of “funeral baked meats” falling to the lot of the beggars’ guild. No person is allowed to marry by this powerful union unless he or his friends pay a tribute to the king of beggars, in the shape of a big feast and a sum of money. The last varies from one to five hundred dollars, according to the means of the tribute payer. The feast must consist of as good food as is served to the wedding guests. On this the beggar king and his cabinet dine, with as much gusto, if not as much ceremony, as the Emperor of China when feasting his ministers. In almost every city you will find a beggars’ guild. The subjects of any one king vary in number, according to the size of the city. These kings of China’s submerged millions, whose territories consist of streets, gutters, bridges, and doorsteps, and whose subjects have been won for him by poverty, accident, vice, and disease, exercise a patriarchal sway and dispense a rough and primitive justice. The office is not hereditary, but elective, and tenable for life. The beggar king lives in a house that is almost a palace, compared to the miserable shelter that his subjects have to be contented with. Not infrequently he grows rich from the tribute paid him by the people of the upper crust of society. He has powerful means of enforcing his demands. He has means of annoyance which the police are unable to put a stop to.