AN INDIAN SNAKE CHARMER.

Lake County Press, Issue 1065, 21 May 1903, Page 3

AN INDIAN SNAKE CHARMER.

During the Autumn of 1869, while awaiting the arrival of the steamfrigate Colorado, to which he had been assigned, Rear-Admiral Robley P. Evans spent four months at Singapore. With four companions, he hired a bungalow, which was situated on the edge of the jungle. In his autobiographical volume, "A Sailor's Log," he tells this story : ! One morning, as five of us Stat taking our morning fruit and coffee, the Chinese attendant broke into the room, almost paralysed with fear, screaming, "Cobra ! Cobra ! " In a moment we had located a large I vicious-looking reptile in the back jard, and the happy thought came to someone to send for a snake charmer and test his qualities on this specimen, which had evidently I just crawled out of the jungle. In five minutes or possibly less, I the charmer appeared, and proceeded to do the neatest trick I ever witnessed. He was a Mohammedan, about forty years of age, stripped to j the waist, and carrying a sealskin ; bag, with the fur on the inside, in : which he had a large collection of cobras and other snakes. He stood quietly watching the newi * " i comer for a few moments, evidently I sizeing him up, and then, producing j a small reed fife, began blowing it, j making a sharp monotonous noise. j at the same time an assistant, some j yards behind him, beat slowly on a | small tom-tom, or drum. The two advanced slowly to the middle of the j small enclosure, and, when fifteen or j twenty feet from their quest, seated i themselves on the ground, and con- | tinued their music, or, more properly ! speaking, noise. The cobra in the mean time was j much excited, and showed signs of fight. He rapidly coiled himself, ■ raised a foot or two of his body ver- | tically, spread his hood, and i generally looked very ugly. The I monotonous noise of the performers , continued, and the cobra shifted his j position first to the side, and then ! directly towards the charmers, alj ways watching them closely with his I keen scintillating eyes. After half j an hour of this play he was almost j between the feet of the Mohammedan I and as" he raised himself and spread | his hood we all expected to see him : strike and end the performance ; but instead, the man reached out his | hand, slowly seized the cobra by the i neck, and, rising with him, held him limp in the air for a moment, and j then deposited him in the bag with | the other snakes. j The Chinaman had in the mean- ! time bolted ; nothing could induce i him to stay longer in such a dangerI ous spot. The assistant took his departure, and the charmer, with his bag of snakes, stepped into our dining-room for a parting drink.