We rather liked Hissing Sid. He was a snake; a four foot long olive brown snake about as fat as a garden hose. Not a cobra as he there was no widening around his throat. Not an adder as he didn’t have a ‘V’ shaped head. He was some sort of a grass snake; I forget which, but I believed him to be harmless.
In fact Hissing Sid did not hiss. Puff Adders, Night Adders and Berg Adders hiss. We would not permit them anywhere near our house, but we sometimes greeted Sid as he rested on the cleared and swept baked mud area around our house. Sid would silently disappear into the grass.
Our African neighbors and the missionary nuns would sometimes tell us about the big snake in our garden or by our front door. We would thank them and explain that he was often around the house.
One day when we got home there has a large snake in the bookshelf. He was cornered. So with an raised head and wide open mouth he warned me off. To my shame I found the broom and battered the snake to death in our living room. It was Hissing Sid. In my post mortem investigation I confirmed he was at worst only mildly poisonous.