have a body short and thick, and their bellies speckled with
brown, black, and yellow; they have a wide mouth, with which they draw in
a great quantity of air, and, having retained it some time, eject it with
such force that they kill at four yards' distance. I only escaped by
being somewhat farther from him. This danger, however, was not much to
be regarded in comparison of another which my negligence brought me into.
As I was picking up a skin that lay upon the ground, I was stung by a
serpent that left his sting in my finger; I at least picked an extraneous
substance about the bigness of a hair out of the wound, which I imagined
was the sting. This slight wound I took little notice of, till my arm
grew inflamed all over; in a short time the poison infected my blood, and
I felt the most terrible convulsions, which were interpreted as certain
signs that my death was near and inevitable. I received now no benefit
from bezoar, the horn of the unicorn, or any of the usual antidotes, but
found myself obliged to make use of an extraordinary remedy, which I
submitted to with extreme reluctance. This submission and obedience
brought the blessing of Heaven upon me; nevertheless, I continued
indisposed a long time, and had many symptoms which made me fear that all
the danger was not yet over. I then took cloves of garlic, though with a
great aversion, both from the taste and smell. I was in this condition a
whole month, always in pain, and taking medicines the most nauseous in
the world. At length youth and a happy constitution surmounted the
malignity, and I recovered my former health.

I continued two years at my residence in Tigre, entirely taken up with
the duties of the mission--preaching, confessing, baptising--and enjoyed
a longer quiet and repose than I had ever done since I left Portugal.
During this time one of our fathers, being always sick and of a
constitution which the air of Abyssinia was very hurtful to, obtained a
permission from our superiors to return to the Indies; I was willing to
accompany him through part of his way, and went with him over a desert,
at no great distance from my residence, where I found many trees loaded
with a kind of fruit, called by the natives anchoy, about the bigness of
an apricot, and very yellow, which is much eaten without any ill effect.
I therefore made no scruple of gathering and eating it, without knowing
that the inhabitants always peeled it, the rind being a violent
p