In Central Africa, the short, stocky, reddish-haired white man who reached Manhattan on a slow transatlantic boat last week is known as The Young Python. But his passport, the Social Register, the 1914 Harvard Classbook, the tax rolls of Rockland County, N. Y. and the corporation registry of Lugene (swank Manhattan opticians) all list him as Frederic Grosvenor Carnochan. Always well off, he could afford to become an amateur ethnologist. During the past decade he concentrated on the Wanyamwesi, a long-nosed, curly-haired tribe of 4,000,000 members who inhabit 30,000 sq. mi. south of Lake Victoria (in Tanganyika Territory, which Premier Hertzog of the Union of South Africa fortnight ago suggested Great Britain should return to Germany's control).
The doctors and scientists of the Wanyamwesi belong to a secret association called the Empire of the Snakes. Mr. Carnochan became a member, received the guild name Young Python, rose in knowledge and proficiency until only Kalola, the late great emperor of the Snake-Men, out ranked him.
As a Snake-Man Mr. Carnochan was made immune to snake venom. At least the same procedure made natives immune.
They caught cobras, mambas and other deadly serpents with their bare hands, were frequently bitten, but suffered no bad effect. Young Python Carnochan never was bitten, hopes never to be bitten, yet is positive he was immunized by lukago. Lukago is a black sticky medicine made from the heads of venomous snakes and the eyes, brains, tongues and other body parts of eagles, lions, owls, hyenas. In immunizing the Young Python, his Snake-Men colleagues lightly slashed his forehead, arms, back and legs, and into the gashes rubbed lukago. The treatment gave him a terrific headache.
The powder of the kingo root paralyzes the will of anyone poisoned by it and makes him the slave of the poisoner. When Mr. Carnochan got his first & only dose of kingo, he took the precaution of barricading himself in his hut so that no native might take advantage of his willlessness. His experiences, which he described in a report published last month* and again by radio last week:
"I put a canvas-backed armchair in front of my table. On it I put an alarm clock, my shaving-mirror, a pencil, a memorandum pad, a glass of water and a teaspoonful of the powder. I slipped into the chair, faced the mirror, poured the powder into the water—drank it, looked at the clock, took the pencil and wrote on the pad: 'Took powder one minute past two o'clock.' Then I leaned back and waited for things to happen.
''The clock ticked noisily for two minutes while I watched my eyes in the mirror. . . . My eyes did not change. My head felt a little funny. I started to make a notation: 'Three minutes past two o'clock . . , my head. . . .' That was as far as I got. My hand fell upon the table and the pencil rolled to the floor.