My friend once sat beneath the shade of a spreading tree, and was amusing himself with his flageolet, an instrument on which he performed with much skill; he had not been thus employed above an hour, when a native, happening to come up the approach to his residence, suddenly started, and began muttering prayers as fast as he was able. My friend could scarcely refrain from laughing at this singular exhibition, being entirely ignorant of its cause, and was about to rise up, when the stranger called out to him to remain where he was, and keep playing upon his instrument if he valued his life, for that imminent danger threatened him. This announcement, instead of producing the desired effect, only confirmed my friend in the supposition that the strange Hindoo was some mad fakir, who, half knave and half crazy, was endeavouring to play upon his feelings, as he so frequently and successfully did upon those of his silly countrymen. He accordingly sprang to his feet; but what his consternation was, you, reader, may judge. As he rose, a prodigious Cobra de Capella presented itself to his astonished and affrighted gaze, hanging by its tail from the tree, its gleaming eyes and hooded head not more than two feet from his own! For a moment he felt as it were fascinated, rooted to the spot; but in a second afterwards, terror acted in her more legitimate manner: he sprang several paces backward, and running to the house, procured assistance, on which he again sallied forth, accompanied by several natives, who by their cries and hooting succeeded in inducing the snake to beat a retreat. He was watched, however, in his departure, and traced to a hole; a guard was placed over it, and that too of Europeans, so that no confederacy could exist. A snake-catcher was procured from a distance of ten miles; he approached the hole, played upon his instrument, and at length the reptile crawled forth, and was captured and secured in the usual manner.
I think that even this brief and hurried account must have compelled my readers to cast from their minds all notion of the snakes being _laid in the proper places_ by the jugglers beforehand, as preparatory to a performance, as I have shown in the instances above mentioned that no such thing could have been done. And the idea of the creature’s having been previously rendered harmless, is also overturned by the circumstance of the Cobra de Capella, handled one day with impunity by Forbes, having on the following morning bitten a young woman, who died of the effects of the poison within an hour. I trust, then, that I have brought you to admit that the art of snake-charming is a _genuine_ art, whether simple or not remains to be proved when the true secret shall have been found out; and that the professors of this secret are not impostors, at least not in this particular, but at the very least as respectable characters as the rat-catchers of our native country, who, my readers are of course aware, pretend likewise to possess the secret of charming and enticing rats from any place. In my next paper I shall conclude this subject of _charming_, and endeavour to explain some of the modes by which various animals are thus seduced.