THE SERPENT These clamourings of the populace did not alarm Hamilcar's daughter.

She was disturbed by loftier anxieties: her great serpent, the black python, was drooping; and in the eyes of the Carthaginians, the serpent was at once a national and a private fetish.

It was believed to be the offspring of the dust of the earth, since it emerges from its depths and has no need of feet to traverse it; its mode of progression called to mind the undulations of rivers, its temperature the ancient, viscous, and fecund darkness, and the orbit which it describes when biting its tail the harmony of the planets, and the intelligence of Eschmoun.
Salammbo's serpent had several times already refused the four live sparrows which were offered to it at the full moon and at every new moon.

Its handsome skin, covered like the firmament with golden spots upon a perfectly black ground, was now yellow, relaxed, wrinkled, and too large for its body.

A cottony mouldiness extended round its head; and in the corners of its eyelids might be seen little red specks which appeared to move.