the wood he had brought, and kindled
a flame, he raised himself to an upright posture to survey the cavern.
Who shall describe the terror which filled the soul of Cayenguirago,
stout and fearless as he was, when he found himself in the middle of
an immense body of rattlesnakes, and perceived that it was among these
deadly animals, of which there was a thick layer upon the floor of the
cave, that he had been for some time wallowing? Their eyes it was that
lit up the cavern, and theirs were the hissing, and rattling, and
slapping, which saluted his ears. Under his feet and upon every side
of him, as far as the eye could reach, were heads upreared with little
fiery tongues projecting from green jaws, and moving with a motion
more rapid than a flash of summer lightning. The heads about the
cavern were thicker than the thievish ravens in a field of milky corn.
The moment that the light of the fire he had kindled enabled them to
see the intruder, all of them rushed towards him, though none
attempted to inflict injury. The nearest approached within a step;
those behind climbed over the backs of the more advanced, until they
lay piled up on every side, as high as the shoulders of a tall man.
Surrounded, as Cayenguirago was, by the most venomous and dreadful of
all the animals formed by the Great Spirit, he did not forget to keep
his fire burning, nor to draw out his pouch filled with good tobacco.
Having recovered his coolness and composure, and become a man again,
he filled his pipe with the beloved weed, and, lighting it, began to
roll out clouds of smoke. Each time he puffed, he observed that the
snakes retreated further from him, until at length they were seen
gliding into the darkness which enshrouded the further part of the
cavern.

While he lay thus warming himself at the fire, and emitting clouds of
fragrant smoke, some one near him exclaimed, in a very sharp and
shrill voice, "Booh!" Looking up, Cayenguirago beheld standing behind
him a very ugly creature, but whether man or beast, he found it at
first difficult to determine. His skin was black as soot, and his hair
white as snow. His eyes, which were very large, were of the colour of
the green far-eyes[A] with which the pale faces survey distant
objects, and stood out so far from the head that, had one of them been
placed in the middle of the forehead, a tear dropping from it would
have hit the tip of the nose. His teeth, which were very large, were
white as snow; hi