Snakes
piece of work, as the hole had been made on the side and all the contents carefully removed. As I looked up again I saw the white underbelly of a python about 30ft up in the thicket of creepers where the herons had their nest. I took a careful shot with my .22 into the side of his neck, and he immediately fell down almost at my feet. It was a python about 8 ft long and about as thick as my forearm and he straight away made a dash for the river. Quickly in a flash I dropped my rifle, grabbed it by the tail and pulled him back, but as I pulled it he spun round and attacked me from about 4 ft up with his mouth wide open showing rows of dangerous looking teeth. So I dropped his tail, and ran back and again he headed for the river, and again I caught his tail, but this time looked around for a convenient stick. I spotted a piece of dead wood and with the aid of this I managed to hold his head down and grab him by the neck. But now he suddenly got his coils around my legs binding them tightly together and I lost my balance and fell to the ground but I still hung on, and holding his head down with one hand, I managed to free my legs with the other. Eventually he relaxed…..snakes have only a single ventricular heart, and can perform wonders for brief periods, but quickly tire and become exhausted….soon I was able to control it and dragged him to the boat and put him into the tool box, and after a bit of difficulty managed to close the lid. It was peaceful until we got home that evening to my comfortable house in Lusaka which I shared with a Mr Thatcher who was a chief Civil Servant in Roy Welensky’s Government. Thatcher was very interested when I told him what I had got in my box. I placed the metal box in the middle of the sitting room and he rose in his dark brown neat suit to take a look. However when I opened the box, the python shot out and went straight for him rearing up with his jaws wide open. Mr Thatcher took to his heels and rushed out through a side door into the garden and then he came back round the house in through the passage back to the sitting room. Meanwhile I had stayed quietly in the corner but also not far from the door in case I too had to leave in a hurry. Again the python went for him, but soon it calmed down and within a couple of weeks it was eating and he and Mr Thatcher became the very best of friends! He was a great reader and would lie on the sofa with a book and it would often come out of his home under a large bookcase go round the room , slither across the sofa and curl up on his lap where he would gently stroke all the while as he was engrossed in his story! The snake would be relaxed it forked tongue coming out in a lazy manner, and soon we could both handle it, carry it about, stroke it and it would never even hiss. It would seem that once the python gets tame he seems to know you
The next python I got was one about two months later after I had released the first one, I found him crossing a main road. It too was about 8 – 9 foot long, but this one was far more vicious than the first one at first but again quickly calmed down, probably because by now I was more experienced in dealing with them. It hated sudden movement but provided one was quiet he behaved well. So well in fact that I took him into town one day to my friend Harold who owned a chemist shop to show him at first hand just what a python was like. The snake got terrified in the chemists shop. It hated the slippery marble floor which it could not grip, plus the general smell of anti-septic odours and it panicked! I did not have a stick with me as he was normally so well behaved, and so I grabbed him by his tail, with his head weaving from side to side, upon which he promptly swung around and bit me with his jaws closing right across my hand and the palm. I got him back in his box and examined my sore hand. Both sides had embedded in them masses of tiny sharp pointed teeth like tiny hypodermics. I went round to the back of the chemist shop and with a pair of tweezers we pulled them all out one by one and finally swabbed the wound down with acri-flavine. There was no swelling, no infection, and after a day or so I was