XVI. 39.

II Philostract. tit HirdiCm
§ Tzetz^s. Chiliad, in. n. 113.
% Laing. Travels among the Timaunies the Kouranko, etc. p. 244 —246.
*• I shall quote the passage, to show the extraordinary influence which the Soolimana jugglers possess over serpents. " A droll- looking man," says M. Laing, *' who played upon a sort of guitar.
342 INFLUENCE OVER ANIMALS.
Guinea, there are women who have the occupation of divi- neresses, one of the proofs of whose supernatural art is to tame the serpent, papa or ammoditey a reptile of large dimensions but which is never dangerous ; and to make it descend from a tree only by speaking to it.*
the body of which was a calabash, commenced a sweet air, and accompanied it with a tolerably fair voice. He boasted that by his music he could cure diseases ; tliat he could make wild beasts tame, and snakes dance : if the white man did not believe him, he would give him a specimen. With that, changing to a more lively air, a large snake crept from beneath a part of the stockading in the yard, and was crossing it rapidly, when he again changed his tune, and pla3ring a little slower, sung, ' Snake, you must stop : you run too fast ; stop at my command, and give the white man service/ The snake was obedient, and the musician continued, ' Snake, you must dance, for a white man b come to Falaba ; dance, snake, for this is indeed a happy day.' The snake twisted itself about, raised its head, curled, leaped, and performed various feats, of which I should not have supposed a snake capable." L. c. p. 245.
In India the snake charmers are equally adroit, and play many tricks to excite the astonishment of Europeans who have shortly arrived in the country. They also pretend to catch snakes, when these reptiles get into houses. Those who practise lids employ- ment are called Sampoori ; but they are great rogues, and gene- rally take the snake, which they pretend to catch, with them. Among other tricks, they assert that they take a stone from the head of the snake, which has the virtues of an amulet. Major Moor gives an amusing anecdote of his having detected this im- position of extracting a" snake- stone, jn a Sampoori, whom he employed to catch a snake in his fowl-house. " At the proper moment," says he, " I seized the snakeless hand of the operator, and there found, to his dismay, perdue, in his well closed palm, the intended to be extracted stone. The fellow made a free and good humoured confession of the trick." — Ed.
* Stedmann. Voyage in Surinam. \x)l. iii. p. 64 — 65.
INFLUENCE OVER ANIMALS. 343
. Even the Asp,* so justly dreaded, may be tamed with- out trouble. In Hindostan, sugar and milk, whidi are given to it every day, suffice to work this miracle. The reptile returns regularly at the accustomed hour to take the repast which awaits him, and never injures any one.t Was it not by an analogous artifice that the Egyptian priests caused inoffensive Asps to come forth from the altar of Isis ? And by which, so often in Greece
* The Asp,Vipera Haje, PuflF Adder ? is a snake of a green colour, about five feet in length, marked ^th brown bands ; and which like the Cobra de Capella, has the power of swelling its neck externally when it raises itself to strike its victim. Its venom is most deadly, and is supposed to be that which Cleopatra employed to terminate her existence after the loss of her imperial paramour, llie reptile, although most venomous, yet possesses remarkable social qualities, never living alone, and revenging the death of its fellow with the utmost fury. The jugglers of Grand Cairo possess the art of taming it, and of depriving it of its poison bag. They have also the art of throwing it into a state of catalepsy, by pressing the nape of the neck with their fingers, so that it becomes stiff and immoveable like a rod. The rods of the Egyptian priests who con^ tended with Aaron,were probably real cataleptic Asps, which regain- ed animation when thrown upon the ground. The Asp erects itself when approached, a circumstance which led the ancient Egyptians to assume that it thus guarded the plaqe it inhabited ; and to ve- nerate it as the emblem of the Divinity protecting the world. It is found sculptured on their temples, erect, on each ^de of a globe.
The poison of the Asp is secreted at some distance from the fiangs, and is conveyed to diem by a tube which terminates in the pulp cavity, at the base of the fang, where a groove commences, superficial at first, but gradually sinking into the substance of the tooth, and terminating in a longitudinal fissure near its apex. Through this groove the poison is ejected and infused into the wound. — Ed.
t Paulin de St. Barth^lemi. Voyages au^ Indes Onentales, vol. i, p. 477.
344 INFLUENCE OVER ANIMALS.
and in Italy, sacred serpents came to devour the presents disposed upon the altars of the Gods, thus giving to the people, a certain presage of happiness and of victory.
There are few stories more common than those of genii being metamorphosed into the form of serpents, and placed to guard subterranean treasures. This belief is still popular in Brittany, in the district of Lesneven.* It is general in Hindostan : and there, at least, it is supposed it is not always without foundation. Forbes, an English observer, who is generally quoted with confidence in his veracity, relates the following anecdote. In a village of Hindostan, a vault, placed under a tower, contained, it was said, a treasure guarded by a genii, under the form of a serpent. Guided, even by the workmen who had built the vault, Forbes caused it to be opened : it was of considerable depth and, he discovered there an enor- mous serpent, which he compared, by its size, to the cable of a vessel. The reptile, unrolling itself slowly, raised itself towards the opening made in the upper part of the vault. The workmen immediately threw into it some lighted hay, and the serpent died from suffocation. Forbes found there its carcase, but not the treasure ; the proprietor having probably carried it away.f The reader will observe, that the construction of the vault was not ancient. The serpent, that had been placed there, had already attained to a large size, and it must have been weQ tamed, and very docile, to allow itself to be con- fined there : it also must have known its master well
* Cambry. Voyage dans le d^artement du Finisth'e, vol. ii. p. 25.
t Oriental Fragments, p. 84.
INFLUENCE OVER ANIMALS. 345
since the latter was able to carry off his riches, without having any thing to fear from the sentinel, which watched over them ; and whose life he should then have saved, by restoring it to liberty.
The most dangerous serpents, with the exception of those which are terrible from their strength, cease to be hurtful from the time when they lose their fangs, which are destined by nature to convey the poison, with which they are armed, into the wounds that they make. To make them bite several times, a piece of rag or some stuff, such as felt^ is held out to them ; and thus the reservoirs of venomous liquid are drained, a circumstance which is often sufficient to prevent their bite, for one or more days, from carrying with it any danger. In the capi- tals of Europe, and in the savage interior of Africa,* one or other of these secrets is used by those impostors, who play with snakes before the eyes of a frightened crowd.t
* Voyages and discoveries in Africa ; &c. by Oudney, Denham, and Clapperton. vol. iii. pages 39 — 40.
t Our author labours to prove, that the serpents played with by the Indian, and Egyptian jugglers, are either harmless serpents, or those from which, as the Abb^ Dubois would lead us to believe, the venom £uigs have been extracted.' But there can be no doubt that the ancient Fsylli had some method of fascinating all kinds of serpents ; and the art may be still known to their successors in Egypt, and Hindostan. — In the Psalms (chap, lviii. v. 4), we find the words " like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear ; which wiU not hearken to the voice of the charmers, charming ever so wisely ;" a proof that the art was formerly practised. The ser- pent usually exhibited by the Hindoo charmers is the Hooded Serpent, Cobra de CapeUo, (Naja lutescens of Laurenti) one
■ Description of the People of India, p. 469—479.
346 INFLUENCE OVER ANIMALS.
Both will explain the gentleness of the serpent, which, a hundred years ago, was seen by two French travellers,* in Upper Egypt ; and which superstition represented, by turns, as an angel ; as one of the benevolent genii ; and as the demon who formerly strangled the first six hus- bands of the wife of the young Tobias.
Hindoo jugglers, says a traveller, allow themselves to be bitten by snakes ;f and when the strength of the
of the most venemoos of the tribe. Music, which seems to be peculiarly delightful to that description of serpent, is the power by which they appear to be fascinated. The reptile raises itself from the ground, and keeps time by the most graceful movements and undulations of the head and body, to the notes of the flute. When the music ceases, it sinks Aavm, as if exhausted, in a state of almost insensibility; when it is instantly transferred to the charmer's basket. That such snakes are still poisonous is verified by a fact, related in Forbes* Oriental Memoirs, (vol. i. p. 44. vol.