But the sense of awe inspired by a tropic forest is certainly greater
than the mystic fear which any wooded wilderness of the North could ever
have created. The brilliancy of colors that seem almost preternatural;
the vastness of the ocean of frondage, and the violet blackness of rare
gaps, revealing its inconceived profundity; and the million mysterious
sounds which make up its perpetual murmur,--compel the idea of a
creative force that almost terrifies. Man feels here like an
insect,--fears like an insect on the alert for merciless enemies: and
the fear is not unfounded. To enter these green abysses without a guide
were folly: even with the best of guides there is peril. Nature is
dangerous here: the powers that build are also the powers that putrefy;
here life and death are perpetually interchanging office in the
never-ceasing transformation of forces,--melting down and reshaping
living substance simultaneously within the same vast crucible. There are
trees distilling venom, there are plants that have fangs, there are
perfumes that affect the brain, there are cold green creepers whose
touch blisters flesh like fire; while in all the recesses and the
shadows is a swarming of unfamiliar life, beautiful or hideous,--insect,
reptile, bird,--inter-warring, devouring, preying.... But the great
peril of the forest--the danger which deters even the naturalist--is
the presence of the terrible fer-de-lance (_trigonocephalus
lanceolatus,--bothrops lanceolatus,--craspodecephalus_),--deadliest of
the Occidental thanatophidia, and probably one of the deadliest serpents
of the known world.
... There are no less than eight varieties of it,--the most common being
the dark gray, speckled with black--precisely the color that enables the
creature to hide itself among the protruding roots of the trees, by
simply coiling about them, and concealing its triangular head. Sometimes
the snake is a clear bright yellow: then it is difficult to distinguish
it from the bunch of bananas among which it conceals itself. Or the
creature may be a dark yellow,--or a yellowish brown,--or the color of
wine-lees, speckled pink and black,--or dead black with a yellow
belly,--or black with a pink belly: all hues of tropical forest-mould,
of old bark, of decomposing trees.... The iris of the eye is
orange,--with red flashes: it glows at night like burning charcoal.
And the fer-de-lance reigns absolute king over the mountains and the
ravines; he is lord of the forest and the solitudes by day, and by night
he extends his dominion over the public roads, the familiar paths, the
parks, the pleasure resorts. People must remain at home after dark,
unless they dwell in the city itself: if you happen to be out visiting
after sunset, only a mile from town, your friends will caution you
anxiously not to follow the boulevard as you go back, and to keep as
closely as possible to the very centre of the path. Even in the
brightest noon you cannot venture to enter the woods without an
experienced escort; you cannot trust your eyes to detect danger: at any
moment a seeming branch, a knot of lianas, a pink or gray root, a clump
of pendent yellow fruit may suddenly take life, writhe, stretch, spring,
strike.... Then you will need aid indeed, and most quickly; for within
the span of a few heart-beats the wounded flesh chills, tumefies,
softens. Soon it changes color, and begins to spot violaceously; while
an icy coldness creeps through all the blood. If the _panseur_ or the
physician arrives in time, and no vein has been pierced, there is hope;
but it more often happens that the blow is received directly on a vein
of the foot or ankle,--in which case nothing can save the victim. Even
when life is saved the danger is not over. Necrosis of the tissues is
likely to set in: the flesh corrupts, falls from the bone sometimes in
tatters; and the colors of its putrefaction simulate the hues of
vegetable decay,--the ghastly grays and pinks and yellows of trunks
rotting down into the dark soil which gave them birth. The human victim
moulders as the trees moulder,--crumbles and dissolves as crumbles the
substance of the dead palms and balatas: the Death-of-the-Woods is upon
him.
To-day a fer-de-lance is seldom found exceeding six feet in length; but
the dimensions of the reptile, at least, would seem to have been
decreased considerably by man's warring upon it since the time of Père
Labat, who mentions having seen a fer-de-lance nine feet long and five
inches in diameter. He also speaks of a _couresse_--a beautiful and
harmless serpent said to kill the fer-de-lance--over ten feet long and
thick as a man's leg; but a large couresse is now seldom seen. The negro
woodsmen kill both creatures indiscriminately; and as the older reptiles
are the least likely to escape observation, the chances for the survival
of extraordinary individuals lessen with the yearly decrease of
forest-area.
... But it may be doubted whether the number of deadly snakes has been
greatly lessened since the early colonial period. Each female produces
viviparously from forty to sixty young at a birth. The favorite haunts
of the fer-de-lance are to a large extent either inaccessible or
unexplored, and its multiplication is prodigious. It is really only the
surplus of its swarming that over-pours into the cane-fields, and makes
the public roads dangerous after dark;--yet more than three hundred
snakes have been killed in twelve months on a single plantation. The
introduction of the Indian mongoose, or _mangouste_ (ichneumon), proved
futile as a means of repressing the evil. The mangouste kills the
fer-de-lance when it has a chance; but it also kills fowls and sucks
their eggs, which condemns it irrevocably with the country negroes, who
live to a considerable extent by raising and selling chickens.
... Domestic animals are generally able to discern the presence of their
deadly enemy long before a human eye can perceive it. If your horse
rears and plunges in the darkness, trembles and sweats, do not try to
ride on until you are assured the way is clear. Or your dog may come
running back, whining, shivering: you will do well to accept his
warning. The animals kept about country residences usually try to fight
for their lives; the hen battles for her chickens; the bull endeavors to
gore and stamp his supple enemy; the pig gives more successful combat;
but the creature who fears the monster least is the brave cat. Seeing a
snake, she at once carries her kittens to a place of safety, then boldly
advances to the encounter. She will walk to the very limit of the
serpent's striking range, and begin to feint,--teasing him, startling
him, trying to draw his blow. How the emerald and the topazine eyes glow
then!--they are flames! A moment more and the triangular head, hissing
from the coil, flashes swift as if moved by wings. But swifter still the
stroke of the armed paw that dashes the horror aside, flinging it
mangled in the dust. Nevertheless, pussy does not yet dare to
spring;--the enemy, still active, has almost instantly reformed his
coil;--but she is again in front of him, watching,--vertical pupil
against vertical pupil. Again the lashing stroke; again the beautiful
countering;--again the living death is hurled aside; and now the scaled
skin is deeply torn,--one eye socket has ceased to flame. Once more the
stroke of the serpent; once more the light, quick, cutting blow. But the
trigonocephalus is blind, is stupefied;--before he can attempt to coil
pussy has leaped upon him,--nailing the horrible flat head fast to the
ground with her two sinewy paws. Now let him lash, writhe, twine, strive
to strangle her!--in vain! he will never lift his head: an instant more,
and he lies still:--the keen white teeth of the cat have severed the
vertebra just behind the triangular skull!...