Let me tell you something : the Black Mamba is a very ugly customer.

Aggressive as hell, and if he doesn’t like the look of you, he’ll go for you. And keep going. He’ll chase you from one end of the country to the other.

And if you kill his mate, watch out. He’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth, and you’ll find no escape. He’ll smell you out. He’ll smell you in Seattle. He’ll smell you on the moon. And if you ever get to Sirius, he’ll smell you there too.

One day in May, 1964, Drywer Frik Niemand was driving his steam locomotive, pulling the daily passenger train, north along the Natal Sugar Coast line. An area infested with mambas. The mambas are very necessary to the sugar farmers, otherwise the rats would eat all their sugar cane.

As he came round a corner, Frik spotted a huge mamba snoozing right on the rails.