France 1892-1893
Edward Harrison Barker, Two Summers in Guyenne: A Chronicle of the Wayside and Waterside, 1894. .
Chapter: The Upper Dordogne. When I again reached the Dordogne there was no longer any road, but only a rough path through high bracken, heather and broom. Snakes rustled as I passed, and hid themselves among the stones. To my mind they were much more to be dreaded than the boars, for these stony solitudes swarm with adders, of which the most venomous kind is the red viper, or aspic. Its bite has often proved mortal.
Chapter: The Desert of the Double. The vibration of my footsteps disturbed the vipers that lay near the hot road; they slid down the banks and curved out of sight amongst the roots of the heather. These reptiles abound in the Double; conditions that are baneful to men are healthful to them.
