for their share of the spoils. Each man had his section to work on,
using a wooden club and his machete. The snake had been laid on its
belly and it was split open, following the spinal column throughout
its length, the ventral part being far too hard and unyielding. About
two o'clock in the afternoon we had the work finished and the carcass
was thrown into the river, where it was instantly set upon by the
vigilant _piranhas_ and alligators.

Standing in front of this immense skin I could not withhold my elation.

"Men," I said, "here am I on this the 29th day of July, 1910, standing
before a snake-skin the size of which is wonderful. When I return to
my people in the United States of America, and tell them that I have
seen and killed a boa-constrictor nearly eighteen metres in length,
they will laugh and call me a man with a bad tongue."

Whereupon my friend, the chief, rose to his full height and exclaimed
in a grieved tone: "Sir, you say that your people in the north will
not believe that we have snakes like this or even larger. That is
an insult to Brazilians, yet you tell us that in your town Nova York
there are _barracãos_ that have thirty-five or even forty stories on
top of each other! How do you expect us to believe such an improbable
tale as that?"

I was in a sad plight between two realities of such mighty proportions
that they could be disbelieved in localities far removed from each
other.

We brought the skin to headquarters, where I prepared it with arsenical
soap and boxed it for later shipment to New York. The skin measured,