IX. cap. XII. et lib. xvi. cap. ii. — Strabo. lib. xiii. — Aelian. De

Nat. Animal, lib. i. cap. lvii. et lib. xii. cap. xxxix.
t Ascensius. Not. in A. Gell. Noct, Attic, lib. xvi. cap. ii.
X Aelian. libr. de Theriac. ad Pison.
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that fraud and address had, alike, been put into practice at all times. The assertion of the physician of Pergamus is not destroyed by a well known anecdote in the history of Heliogabalus.* This Emperor made the Marsian priests collect serpents, and caused them to be thrown into the circus at the moment when the people came there in crowds. Many of them perished from the bites of these serpents, which the Marses had braved with impunity.
TraveDers worthy of credence have at length arisen, and have said to us, " I have seen." Thus says Bruce, Hasselquist, and Lempri6re,t and they have been con- vinced by their own eyes, that in Morocco, in Egypt, in Arabia, and above all, in Sennaar, there are many men who have such a peculiarity of habit that they disregard the bites of vipers and the sting of scorpions; and both not only handle these reptiles with impunity, but also throw them into a state of stupor. To complete their resemblance to the ancient Psylli, they assured Bruce they were born with this marvellous faculty. Others pretended to owe it to a mysterious arrangement of letters, or to some magic words, which resembled the ancient songs, used for charming serpents; and furnished a new example of the habit so prejudicial to science, of con- cealing a physical secret, in attributing its effects to in- significant and superstitious practices.
Doubts upon this subject, if they could have existed,
* Lamprid. in Ant> HeliogabaL
t Bruce. Travels to discover the sources of the Nile, voL x. pages 402 — 403 — 412 — 447. Hasselquist. Voyage in the Levant. voL I. pages 92 — 93 — 96 — 100. Lempri^re, Voyage dans Vempire deMaroc etle royaume de Fez, en 1790 — 1791. pages 42 — 43.
350 INFLUENCE OVER ANIMALS.
were removed for ever at the time of the brilliant expe- dition of the French into Egypt; and the following relation is attested by thousands of eye-witnesses. The Psylli who pretended, as Bruce had related, to possess the faculty which distinguished them, went from house to house to offer their assistance to destroy serpents of every kind, whidi were almost common there. If we may believe them, a wonderful instinct drew them at first towards the place in which the serpents were hid- den. Furious, — ^howling, and foaming at the mouth, they hurried there, and then, rushing upon the reptiles, they seized and tore them asunder with their nails and teeth.
Let us place to the account of charlatanism, the bowl- ings, the foaming, and the fury, in fact, all that recals the painful efforts which the Marses feigned, in repeating the songs, proper for destroying the reptiles ;* still the instinct which warned the Psylli of the presence of the serpents has in it something more real
In the Antilles, the negroes discover by its odour a serpent which they do not see ; a power in fact owing solely to the nauseous odour which the serpent exhales-f In Egypt, the same tact, formerly possessed is still enjoyed by men, brought up to it from their infancy, and born, as with an assumed hereditary gift, to hunt serpents, and to discover them even at a distance too great for the effluvia to be perceptible to the dull organs of an Eiwo- pean. The principal fact above all others, the faculty of rendering dangerous animals powerless, merely by touch-
* Venas intendens omnes. Lucil. Satyr, lib. xx. t Thibaut de Chanvallon. Voyage ct la Martinique.
INFLUENCE OVER ANIMALS. 351
ing them, remains well verified ; and we shall, perhaps, never understand better the nature of this secret cele- brated in antiquity, and preserved to our time, by the most ignorant of men.*
Some reflections on this subject will not, perhaps, seem here out of place.
The senses of animals resemble our own, but the re- semblance is not complete ; we cannot perceive some sub- stances which affect them strongly ; and they do not seem differently affected by those which appear to us the most dissimilar. This is true of the sense of smelling.f The dog who possesses so exquisite a nose, so susceptible of delicate impressions, of which nothing can give us a correct idea ; — the dog seems to make no difference in the pleasure derived from a sweet perfume and a fcetid or
* It is extraordinary to find an individual so little credulous as our author, respecting circumstances of a marvellous character, believing the possibility of rendering poisonous serpents powerless, merely by touching them. If we can believe the existence of such a power, upon what ground can we venture to deny the reality of any apparent miracle, which we may see, or read of, however, contrary to the course of nature? The fangs of serpents are equally defensive and offensive weapons ; and as the instinct of the reptOe leads him to regard man as his enemy ; it is not likely that he would submit to his control, unless as the result of a long course of training, which is the most probable explanation of the phenomenon mentioned in the text. I cannot credit the possi- bility of such an effect being produced upon newly caught ser- pents, utter strangers to the juggler ; and, therefore, the perform- ance must be placed amongst the numerous other feats, which attest the high degree of perfection in the deceptive art, to which these serpent tamers have attained. — Ed,
t Aelian. de Nat, Afdm. lib. vi. cap. xxxiii.
352 INFLUENCE OVER ANIMALS.
an infectious odour. So marked a difference existing between our sensations and those experienced by animals, explains why they may be acted upon by causes which are inadequate to affect the senses of men. At Rome^ dogs never entered the temple of Hercules ; the smell of the club, which the God had, formerly, left at the door, was sufficient, after fourteen centuries, to banish them from it.* The priests, no doubt, were careful to renew, from time to time, the odour which perpetuated the mirade, and which was not apparent to the sense of men. Albertus Magnusf possessed a stone which attracted serpents. If any part of this tale could be true, we should attribute it to an analogous cause: reptiles, like many insects, are susceptible of being much affected by odorous emanations.
Galen had, I think, been deceived by a false de- claration, which the Marses and the Psylli had made
* Solinus, cap. ii.
t Albertus the Great, or Magnus, the word Groat, hi% hnalj name, the Dutch for Great, being thus Latinized, was a Dominican, bom in Swabia ; and who, after he had been made Bishop of Ratisbon, abdicated, and returned as a plain monk to his convent at Cologne, where he died in 1282, in his 77th year. His Hktoria Animalium is the most remarkable of his works. Numerous prodigies have been attributed by the multitude to him : among others, that he made an earthenware head that could answer questions ! Thomas Aquinas is said to have been so terrified when he saw it, that he broke it in pieoes ; upon which the mechanist exclaimed, " There goes the labour of thirty years !'" If tiie apparent speaking of this head, and similar speaking heads, was not the result of ven- triloquism, no idea can be formed of the means employed to effect the prodigy — ^Ed.
* Brewster on Natural Magic, p. 159.
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for the better concealment of their secret, when he says that they owed their power over serpents to the habit of nourishing themselves with the flesh of vipers and venomous reptiles.* Pliny, Aelian, SiKus, Italicus, have more correctly ascribed it to the employment of an odorous substance which stupified the serpents, and with which it appeared their enemies rubbed their bodies.f ^ This proceeding inspired the Psylli with so much confidence, that they did not hesitate to expose new-bom infants to the bites of serpents, under the plea of assuring th^nselves of their legitimacy ;| or
* Galian. De Art. Curator. Kb. ii. cap. xi.
t " Ut odore sopirent eos (serpentes.)" PUn. Hist. Nat. lib. vii. cap. II. The same author observes, that the Ophiog^nes of the isle of Cyprus, above all, exhaled, in spring, a strong poisonous odour. Lib. xxviii. cap. iii. Aelian. De Nat. Anim, lib. xii. cap.