How They Captured the Python.
Hamburg, as many know, is the great headquarters of the trade in wildanimals for menageries and "zoos." To Hamburg are shipped lions,elephants, and giraffes, captured in South and East Africa, tigers fromIndia, jaguars and tapirs from South America, gorillas from the Congo,orang-outangs from Borneo, and, in fact, about every kind of beast,bird, and reptile from all quarters of the globe.
The warehouses of the two principal firms engaged in this business areinteresting places to visit after the arrival of a "beast ship," withnews of unusually large specimens of animal life.
The narrator made such a visit some months ago on the arrival of aremarkably large, brilliantly marked python, shipped from Padang,Sumatra. This colubrine giant is more than thirty feet in length, andwas bespoken by the Austrian government for a zoo at Budapest.
But the story of its capture is even more interesting than the hugecreature itself, for this python had fallen a victim to its fondnessfor the notes of a violin.
There is a telegraph line extending across Sumatra, from Padang,connecting that port, by means of submarine cables, with Batavia, andSingapore.
Along this line of land wire are a number of interior stations. Oneof these, called Pali-lo-pom, has been in charge of an operatornamed Carlos Gambrino, a mestizo from Batavia, Java, educated at theindustrial school there.
The station is on a hillock in the valley of the River Kampar, and isadjacent to dense forest, jungle, and a long morass. It is a solitarylittle place, consisting merely of four or five thatched huts, elevatedon posts to a height of six feet from the ground, to be more securefrom noxious insects, reptiles, and wild beasts.
As a general rule Gambrino has little enough to do, except listen tothe monotonous ticking of the instrument. For solace and company,therefore, he frequently had recourse to his violin.
Thatched houses on posts in Sumatra are not commonly supplied withglass windows; but Gambrino had afforded himself the luxury of atwo-pane sash, set to slide in an aperture in the side wall of his hut,and some five or six months ago, during the wet season, he was sittingat this window one afternoon, as he played his violin, when he saw thehead of a large serpent rise out of the high grass, at a distance ofseventy or eighty yards.
His first impulse was to get his carbine and try to shoot the monster,for he saw that it was a very large python, and not a desirableneighbor. But something in the attitude of the reptile led him tosurmise that it had raised itself to hear the violin, and he passed atonce to a lively air.
As long as he continued playing the python remained there, apparentlymotionless; but when he ceased it drew its head down, and he sawnothing more of it that day, although he went out with his gun to lookfor it.
Nearly a fortnight passed, and the incident had gone from hismind--for large snakes are not uncommon in Sumatra--when one night, ashe was playing the violin to some native acquaintances who had come tothe hut, they heard the sounds made by a large snake sliding across thebamboo platform or floor of the little veranda. On looking out with alight, one of the party saw a huge mottled python gliding away.
But it was not until the reptile appeared a third time, raising itshead near his window, that the telegrapher became certain that it wasreally his violin which attracted it.
In the meantime the operator at Padang, with whom Gambrino held dailyconversations by wire, had told him that the German agent of a Hamburghouse at that port would pay ten pounds, English money, for such apython as he described.
Gambrino began scheming to capture the reptile. In one of the huts atthe station there was stored a quantity of fibre rope, such as is usedin Sumatra for bridging small rivers and ravines.
Gambrino contrived three large nooses from this rope, which he elevatedhorizontally, on bamboo poles, to the height of his window, and carriedthe drawing ends of the nooses inside the hut.
This was done after the operator had ascertained that at times thesnake would come about the house and raise its head as if it heard theviolin.
Some time later the python was beguiled by the music into raising itshead inside one of the nooses, which a native, who was on the watchwhile Gambrino played, instantly jerked tight.
What followed was exciting. The reptile resented the trick with vigor,and showed itself possessed of far more strength than they had expected.
The rope had been made fast to a beam inside, and the snake nearlypulled the entire structure down, making it rock and creak in a waythat caused Gambrino and his native ally to leap to the ground in hastefrom a back entrance. The reptile coiled its body about the posts andpulled desperately to break away. Altogether, it was a wild night atthis little remote telegraph station.
The next morning a crowd of natives collected; and as the python had bythis time exhausted itself, they contrived to hoist its head as high asthe roof of the hut and to secure its tail.
It was then lowered into a molasses hogshead, which was covered overand trussed up securely with ropes.
In this condition the python was drawn to Padang on a bullock cart. Itis said to weigh more than four hundred pounds.