[188] _Dahomey and the Dahomans._ [189] Several of the _Aristolochieæ_--plants generally having a very bitter taste, and a strong, pungent, disagreeable smell--are valuable alexipharmics. There is a plant very common in Jamaica, where it is called snake-withe, trailing over the stone fences, which I suspect to be an _Aristolochia_, and perhaps _A. trilobata_; it is employed as a sudden and potent sudorific, and as an antidote to serpent-bites in other countries, for in Jamaica there is no venomous reptile. The _A. anguicida_ of Carthagena is described by Jacquin as fatal to serpents. He says that the juice of the root chewed and introduced into the mouth of a serpent so stupefies it that it may be for a long time handled with impunity: if the reptile is compelled to swallow a few drops, it perishes in convulsions. The root is also reputed to be an antidote to serpent-bites. "It is not a little remarkable," observes Dr Lindley, "that the power of stupefying snakes, ascribed in Carthagena to _Aristolochia anguicida_, should be also attributed to _A. pallida_, _longa_, _b{oe}tica_, _sempervirens_ and _rotunda_; which are said to be the plants with which the Egyptian jugglers stupefy the snakes they play with." [190] _Ceylon_, i., 147. [191] "On the Habits of the Viper in Silesia:" _Zoologist_, p. 829. [192] _Trav. to the Sources of the Nile, passim._ [193] _Travels in the Levant, passim._ [194] _Discov. in Africa_, ii., p. 292. [195] _Lucan's Pharsalia._ [196] _Ind. Field Sports._ [197] _Mod. Egyptians._ [198] _Zool._, 6400. [199] _Beauties of Christianity._ [200] _Note-book of a Naturalist_, 202. [201] Napier's _Scenes and Sports_, vol. ii., p. 227. [202] Tennent's _Ceylon_. X. BEAUTY. Very much of the delight with which we pursue natural history is surely due to the almost constant recognition of the beautiful. I do not know that I could say with the poet,-- "A thing of beauty is a joy _for ever_;"