A SNAKE STORY.

Western Star, Issue 2152, 30 October 1897, Page 6

A SNAKE STORY.

General Campbell, in his “ Indian Journal,” says that when bo was on General Dulrymple’s staff at Tricbinopoli there was a dry well in the garden, which was a favourite hauut of snakes. One morning he discovered a large cobra-de-capello at the bottom of the well, basking in the sun. He ran to fetch his gun, but meanwhile some of the native servants pelted the snake with stones and drove it into its hole in ti e brickwork. General Campbell sent for the snake charmers to get it out. He continues— Two of thess worthies having arrived, we lowered them into the well by means of a rope. One of them, aftet performing sundry incantations, began to play a shrill, monotonous ditty upon a pipe ornamented with shells, biass rings, and beads, while the other stood on one side of the snake’s hole, holding a rod furnished at one end with a noose

At first the snake, which had been considerably annoyed before it took refuge in its hole, was deaf to the notes of the charmer ; but after half-an-hour’s constant playing the t-pell began to operate, and the snake was heard to move. In a few minutes more its head was thrust out, and the horsehair noose was dexterously slipped over it and drawn tight. We hoisted up the men, dangling the snake in triumph. They carried it to an open space and released it from the noose. The enraged snake immediately a rush at the bystanders, putting to flight a crowd of native servants who had assembled to witness the sport. The snake-charmer, tapping it on the tail with a switch, induced it to turn upon himself, at the same time sounding his pipe. The snake coiled itself up, raised its heid, expanded its hood, and appeared about to strike ; but instead of doing so, it remained in the same position, as if fascinated by the music, darting out its slender, forked tongue, and following with its head the motion of the man’s knee, which he kept moving from side to side within a few inches of it, as if tempting it to bite. No sooner did the music cease than the snake dashed forward with such fury as to require great agility on the part of the man to avoid it, and then immediately the snake ran off as fast as it could go. The sound of the pipe, however, invariably made it stop, and it remained in an upright position as long as the man continued to play. The charmer now offered to show ns hia method of catching snakes. With his left hand he seized the reptile, which was about five feet long, by the point of the tail, slipped his right along its body with lightning-like swiftness, and grasping il by the throat with his finger and thumb, held it fast and forced it to open its jaws and display its poisonous fangs. Having now gratified my curiosity, X proposed that the snake should be destroyed, or at least that its fangs should be extracted, an operation easily performed with a pair of forceps; but the snake being a remarkably fine one, the charmer was unwilling to extract its teeth, as he said the operation sometimes proved fatal; and he begged so hard to be allowed to keep it as it was that I at last suffered him to put it in a basket and carry it off. After this he frequently brought the snake to the house, still with its fangs entire, as I ascertained by personal inspection, but so tame that he handled it freely without fear. But one day the snake bit the charmer and ended his life.