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The Dragon: Voyage

Mr. McLeod, in the Voyage of the Alceste, states that during a captivity of some months at Whidah, on the coast of Africa, he had opportunities of observing serpents double this length.* Broderip, in his Leaves from the Note-book of a 'Naturalist (Parker, 1852), speaks of a serpent thirty feet in length, which attacked the crew of a Malay proa anchored for the night close to the island of Celebes.

Mr. C. Collingwood in Rambles of a Naturalist, states that "Mr. Low assured me that he had seen one [python] killed measuring twenty-six feet, and I heard on good authority of one of twenty-nine feet having been killed there. In Borneo they were said to attain forty feet, but for this I cannot vouch." That large pythons still exist in South and Western China, although of very reduced dimensions as compared with those described in ancient works, is affirmed by many writers, from whom I think it is sufficient to extract a notice by one of the early missionaries who explored that country. "Pour ce qui est des serpens qu'on trouve dans Chine l'Atlas raconte que la Province de Quansi, en produit de si grands et d'une longueur si extrême, qu'il est presque incroyable; et il nous assure, qu'il s'en est trouvé, qui étaient plus * Figuier, Reptiles and Birds, p. 51. longs que ne seraient pas dix perches attachées les unes avec les autres, c'est-à-dire, qu'ils avaient plus de trente pieds géométriques. Flore Sienois dit, 'Gento est le plus grand de tous ceux qui sont dans les provinces de Quansi, de Haynan, et de Quantun il dévore les cerfs.... Il s'élève droit sur sa queue, et combat vigoureusement, en cette posture, contre les hommes et les bêtes farouches.'"* • ..

We have unfortunately no clue to the actual length of the serpent Bomma, described by J. M. da Sorrento in A Voyage to Congo in 1682, contained in Churchill's collection of voyages published in 1732. "The flesh they eat is generally that of wild creatures, and especially of a sort of serpent called Bomma. At a certain feast in Baia, I observed the windows, instead of tapestry and arras, adorned with the skin of these serpents as wide as that of a large ox, and long in proportion."