Mamba

“ Having replied to the wood-cutter’s first inquiry that he was “going yonder,” Mamba now saw fit to explain that “yonder” meant Tamatave.
“I want to see the great Missionary Ellis before he leaves the country.”
The wood-cutter shook his head. “You are too late, I fear. He passed down to the coast some weeks ago. The Queen has ordered him to depart. She is mad against all the praying people.”
“Are you one of the praying people?” asked Mamba, with direct simplicity. ”

“ The dead mamba? Its poison glands are intact. Can he not by some means make the dead head bite the living animal? That would look less suspicious than a bullet hole, in the event of the carcase being found. But he doubts whether the venom will inject under the circumstances. No. He must sacrifice the poor brute to his own sense of self-preservation. ”

“ The youths left the naturalists and Noko and made their way to the other side of a large thatched house.
Then, horror stricken, they saw what had caused Bob to utter his sudden exclamation.
Coiled but a few scant feet away was a long black mamba, the most poisonous snake of Africa. It was eyeing the human invaders staringly, apparently with evil purpose.
For one awful moment the youths gazed in terrible [Pg 200] fascination, unable to take their eyes from the hideous reptile. Then, sensing the need for flight, they turned to leave. But they hesitated.
“It’s going to strike!” gasped Joe. ”

“ Finally he persuaded his mother to run away with him, and thus it came about that we find them with the band of which Ravonino was leader—Laihova being lieutenant of the band.
An occasion for the display of his affectionate nature was afforded to Mamba on the morning we write of. Active as a kitten, though middle-aged, Réni-Mamba was skipping from rock to rock in a very rugged part of their route, when, her foot slipping, she fell and sprained her ankle badly.
Mamba was close to her.
“Mother!” he exclaimed, hurrying forward and raising her carefully, “why jump about like the squirrel? ”

“ Holton. “It is very unlikely that we’ll run across any. But of course we can’t be sure.”
If the jungle had been dense before, it was almost impenetrable now. More than once the explorers [Pg 208] received cuts and bruises from sharp thorns. Their high shoes protected them from most snakes, the dreaded mamba being one exception. So, although there were difficulties of the trail, the adventurers forgot them in their eagerness to explore. ”

“ One day while the Waluguru were clearing the bush from a new patch of coffee-ground near the house they had disturbed and killed a big black mamba, one of the most deadly of African snakes. He had brought it into the house to show Godovius, who straightway discovered in it the making of an excellent practical joke. For the woman who shared their house had always lived in dread of snakes, and the dead monster coiled in her bed might very well give her a pretty fright. ”

“ Meanwhile, Mamba hid himself behind some bags of grain in the outhouse until night-fall, when he sallied boldly forth and made his way to the house of a friend, who, although not a Christian, was too fond of him to refuse him shelter.
This friend was a man of rank and ancient family. The soot hung in long strings from his roof-tree. He was one of “the ancient soot!”
The houses in the city are usually without ceiling—open to the ridge-pole, though there is sometimes an upper chamber occupying part of the space, which is reached by a ladder. ”

“ Holton, wiping the perspiration from his brow. “We should have warned you about mambas.”
[Pg 201]
“Why?” asked Bob. “They aren’t here any more than anywhere else, are they?”
“Yes,” returned Mr. Holton emphatically. “A deserted village nearly always contains at least one mamba. For some reason they like to pick on such a place. But the main thing now,” he added, “is that you’re still alive.”
With one last glance at the dead reptile the explorers turned toward the safari. As they passed through the village they kept a close watch for any more of the dreaded snakes, but saw none near. ”

“ As I was in the act of doing this, from a clump of reeds mixed with bushes, quite close to me, there came a sound of hissing, and suddenly above them appeared the head of a great black immamba, perhaps the deadliest of all our African snakes, and the only one I know which will attack man without provocation. ”

“ Ask it for a smile, for a stroke of the gentle hand, for a word of love. All the full-fed Mammon can give you is what your mother would have given you without the consequent loathing, with the light of her countenance upon it all, and the arm of her love around you.—And this is what God does sometimes, I think, with the Mammon-worshippers amongst the poor. He says to them, Take your Mammon, and see what he is worth. Ah, friends, the children of God can never be happy serving other than Him. The prodigal might fill his belly with riotous living or with the husks that the swine ate. ”

“ Bomba lived far back in the jungles of the Amazon with a half-demented naturalist who told the lad nothing of his past. The jungle boy was a lover of birds, and hunted animals with a bow and arrow and his trusty machete. He had only a primitive education, and his daring adventures will be followed with breathless interest by thousands. ”

“ And early this morning, long before you were awake, when the young birds were yet nestling in the warmth of their mother's wing, ere the lambs were astir in the fields, when the world was hushed in that sweet stillness which awaits the dawn, he went away—away where he will not be weak or sickly any more, where he will no longer be Jimmy Green, the gardener's poor grandson, or Bambo, Joe Harris's musical dwarf, but a new creature, with a new name—a name that is written in the Lamb's book of life! ”

“ There a forest monarch, uprooted by the gale, lay prostrate.
Again and again Bomba was compelled to make detours. But he advanced rapidly, nevertheless, so much was he a part of the jungle. He avoided upflung roots and intertwining vines as though by instinct.
At times he had to use his machete to force a way for himself through the bushes. In other places, where the undergrowth was not too high, he progressed after the manner of the Indians, in a succession of deer-like leaps that carried him over the obstacles in his path. ”

“ A bibber himself, when the springs of the desert were mine?
And how is the ax, as I said, laid close to the root of the tree,
And my curses fulfilled of the Pharisees, if this must be?
And if, as they say, he is preaching the word that we make
Of the unrighteous mammon a friend for the day when we break
With the lords of the riches of truth, as he put it, for then
The unrighteous mammon shall take us, console us again:—
I have wasted the goods of my lord! ”

“ The odors of camphor and ether catch my throat. People that I know are standing round the bed. They turn to me and speak all together.
I bend down to look at Mame. She is inlaid upon the whiteness of the bed, which is motionless as marble. Her face is sunk in the cavity of the pillow. Her eyes are half closed and do not move; her skin has darkened. Each breath hums in her throat, and beyond that slight stirring of larynx and lips her little frail body moves no more than a doll's. She has not got her cap on and her gray hair is unraveled on her head like flocks of dust. ”

“ He seemed to avert his face when she laid down this generalization; nor could we, from our position, see his expression. “Yes,” said he; and was silent for a while. “What is your mother’s name?”
“My mother’s name is Mumma.”
“But what is her real sure-enough name?”
“Her name is Mumma,” repeated she, with emphasis. “Oh, my mother’s got two names. She is named Mumma and she is named Mrs. Poythress.”
“Ah, yes; but what does your father call her?”
“My papa calls my mumma my dear; oh, and sometimes he calls her ‘honey,’—because she is so sweet.” ”

“ She was back again in Amherst with Mamma, in the garden of the sumptuous 'villa.' Mamma was pulling up plants by the roots. The roots were hair. She jerked up out of the clotting earth a succession of writhing human bodies.
'Oh, Mamma, stop, please stop! I can't bear it, expecially those purplish ones without any legs!'
Mamma leered at her. Usually the heads were half out of the ground like turnips. Sometimes there was only a head. The most ghastly of all had but a leg and a splay foot. ”

“ Then our Cave is just beyond the beaver-swamp. It isn’t as high as the hills really, but I can’t draw things very small. That’s my Mummy outside. She is beautiful. She is the most beautifullest Mummy there ever was, but she won’t be ‘fended when she sees I’ve drawn her so plain. She’ll be pleased of me because I can draw. Now, in case you forget, I’ve drawn the spear that Daddy wants outside our Cave. It’s inside really, but you show the picture to my Mummy and she’ll give it you. ”

“ Like a whisper of sweetest music the peace of the words stole over the dwarf's troubled spirit, soothing and fortifying him so that he felt himself no longer a weakling, a pigmy, but a veritable giant to fight and to endure. And with a smile upon his lips and a light not of earth in his sunken eyes, Bambo and his charges slipped noiselessly away from the bear, the monkey, and the caravan, and set out, not to seek the Happy Land, as Darby said with one of his quaint, grave glances, but this time to find it. ”

“ With ease you serve mammon every day and hour of your lives, and for God, you do not even ask yourselves the question whether you are serving Him or no. Yet some of you are at this very moment indignant that I call you servers of mammon. Those of you who know that God knows you are His servants, know also that I do not mean you; therefore, those who are indignant at being called the servants of mammon, are so because they are indeed such. ”

“ Soon the little ones should be safe at home with their own people, and he, Bambo, homeless and friendless, should be free from future care concerning them—free to creep away somewhere, unnoticed and alone, to lie down and rest—sleep—suffer—or maybe die, if such were God's will for him.
Beside the dwarf's pallet Darby kept loving watch, dozing from time to time when Bambo seemed sleeping; again, rousing up to hang over him in distress when he babbled so queerly about Firgrove, his mother, Thieving Joe, Moll, and the bear. ”

“ They found themselves in a series of stately halls, so covered with pictures in all the hues of the aniline rainbow, that Queen Mab winked, and suffered from an immortal headache.
'How curious it is,' said Queen Mab, 'that of all the many thousand offerings only a very few, namely, those hung at a certain height from the floor, are really visible to any one who is neither a fairy nor a bird.'
'The pieces which you observe,' remarked the Owl, 'are almost in every case the work of the Forty Priests of Beauty, of the Thirty Acolytes, and of their cousins, their sisters, and their aunts. ”

“ When my father came home, we were walking in a garden at the back of our house, and I was shewing her mamma's geraniums, and telling her what pretty flowers they had when mamma was alive.
My father was astonished; and he said, "Is this the sullen Elinor? what has worked this miracle?" "Ask no questions," she replied, "or you will disturb our new-born friendship. Elinor has promised to love me, and she says too that she will call me 'mamma.'" "Yes, I will, mamma, mamma, mamma," I replied, and hung about her with the greatest fondness. ”

“ Gracious heavens, what saw we there!
An enormous desert-bear
From Siberia, white and hairy,
With a lady-bear was playing
A too-tender game of love there.
And the latter was our Mumma!
Was the wife of Atta Troll!
Well I knew her by the tender
Humid glances of her eye.
Yes, ’twas she! the South’s black daughter!
She it was,—yes, Madame Mumma
With a Russian is now living,
With a Northern wild barbarian!
With a simp’ring face a negro
Who approach’d us, thus address’d me:
“Is there any sight more pleasing
“Than to see two lovers happy?” ”

“ Like a beast at bay, Bomba crouched, pulled his bow from his shoulder and plucked an arrow from his pouch.
Before he could fit the arrow to the string a [60] hideous chorus of shouts rent the air, and like magic the jungle was filled with men, men with the ferocious faces of demons, who rushed upon him, shouting and brandishing their sharp, murderous knives above their heads.
Bomba had no time to turn and flee. He dropped his bow, whipped out his machete and backed toward a tree, only to feel himself seized from behind and borne helpless to the ground. ”

“ And Mab, his merry Queen, by night
Bestrides young folks that lie upright,
(In elder times the mare that hight) ,
Which plagues them out of measure.
Hence shadows, seeming idle shapes,
Of little frisking elves and apes
To earth do make their wanton scapes,
As hope of pastime hastes them ”

“ Among the Gallas of East Africa the navel-string is carefully kept, sewn up in leather, and serves as an amulet for female camels, which then become the child’s property, together with all the young they give birth to.​ [712] The Baganda believe that every person is born with a double, and this double they identify with the afterbirth, which they regard as a second child. Further, they think that the afterbirth has a ghost, and that the ghost is in that portion of the navel-string which remains attached to the child after birth. This ghost must be preserved if the child is to be healthy. ”

“ In the middle of the clear space in which the ceremonies take place, a small tree is taken up and placed with its roots in the air, and around it saplings, peeled of their bark, are placed, the whole being tied together with strips of bark, thus making a sort of small enclosure. The saplings are painted with ochre. On this structure one of the medicine-men stands with a cord hanging out of his mouth. He is said to represent a supernatural being called Maamba. ”