The Chinese, just mentioned as having been bitten by this reptile, was described to me as being a stout, robust, and healthy man. The part of his body wounded, was on and about the little toe. He was bitten at eleven P.M., and in the space of an hour was quite senseless. Before this, he described the pain as ascending rapidly up the body. It appears that when first bitten, he thought his assailant was a rat, and, kicking the reptile, he was rebitten; and, altogether, was wounded three times: he expired a little before four A.M. This snake is said to be used by the Chinese as a medicine, being dried, pulverized, and administered as an internal remedy. During floods, these reptiles are very commonly seen about the houses, coming from the creeks up the drains into the kitchens: they very probably inhabit marshy places, and are often brought down during the freshes of the river, among the weeds, rushes, &c., and at that time may be descried sporting and swimming about the multitude of boats in the river. They are killed in numbers by the boatmen. During the late floods which prevailed at Canton, a number of these venomous reptiles were destroyed.[44] I availed myself of the kind offer of Mr. Davis, and left Canton with him at daylight of the 28th of October, in the Company’s yacht for Macao, where, after a long, but agreeable passage, we arrived on the evening of the next day. During my further stay at Macao, I visited one evening, in company with Mr. Davis, a place called the Lappa,[45] situated on the opposite side of the peninsula, upon which the city of Macao is erected, in the inner harbour. The lofty hills have a barren and uninteresting appearance; and there is nothing attractive in the aspect of that part of the country, until, on landing, a pathway leads to a delightful, picturesque, and fertile valley, smiling with the cultivated plantations of rice, yams, sweet potatoes, and interspersed by rural cottages, peeping through a dense crowd of bamboo, pandanus, and plantain trees. Near the beach was a cluster of wretched-looking huts; but the features of the country, both in its natural state, as well as improved by art, were pleasing as we advanced further up this pretty, sheltered valley. The declivities of some of the hills on the inner or sheltered side towards the valley, were covered by the Hill pines, or Shan, tchong[46] of the Chinese, the _Pinus sinensis_ of botanists, of which I collected a few specimens in a state of fructification. Rivulets meandering through the valley, irrigate and fertilize the soil; and their banks are covered with a profusion of wild plants, a number of ferns, Myrtus tomentosa, Sida, Urtica, Melastoma quinquenervia, (or Kai, chee, neem, of the Chinese,) and a multitude of others. From the cultivated, we came upon a wilder, more stony, and less beautiful part of the valley, among scattered masses of granite rocks, about which a wild and profuse vegetation was lavished.