should fall in with the other party, when Lizzie -- who had accompanied the
troopers -- came rushing back, and said: --

"One fellow snake been bit 'em Cato; plenty that fellow go bong (dead)
by-and-by, mine believe."

We all jumped up, and sure enough, poor Cato came slowly towards us,
looking the ashy-grey colour to which fear turns the black, and followed by
Ferdinand, who dragged after him a large black snake, the author of the
mischief.

If Australia is exempt from wild beasts, the number of venomous reptiles
with which it is cursed make it as dangerous to the traveller as other
tropical countries in which ferocious animals abound. Hardly a tree or a
shrub can be found that does not contain or conceal some stinging
abomination. The whole of these are not, of course, deadly, but a
tarantula bite, or a centipede sting, will cripple a strong man for weeks,
while a feeble constitution stands a fair chance of succumbing. But of all
these pests, none can equal the snakes, which not only swarm, but seem to
have no fear of man, selecting dwellings by choice for an abode. These
horrible reptiles are of all sizes, from the large carpet snake of twenty
feet, to the little rock viper of scarcely half a dozen inches. The great
majority of these are venomous, and are of too many different kinds for me
to attempt their enumeration here. The most common with us were the brown,
black, and whip snakes, and the death-adder, all poisonous; and the
carpet-snake, harmless. The brown and black snakes run from two to eight
feet in length, frequent the long grass, chiefly in the neighbourhood of
swamps, and from the snug way in which they coil up, and their
disinclination to move, are highly dangerous. The latter is very handsome,
the back of a brilliant black, and the under portion of a sea-shell pink.