Scientific men aver that a snake has no ears and cannot possibly hear the strains of the pipe, but that sort of science simply spoils a picturesque subject like the snake-charmer.  So much is certain, that all snakes cannot be played upon in this way:  there are some species which are utterly callous to the influences to which the cobra yields itself so readily.  No missionary will find any difficulty in getting a snake-charmer to appreciate that Scripture text about the deaf adder which will not listen to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.

To these two occupations the snake-charmer adds that of a medicine man, for who should know the occult potencies of herbs and trees so well as he?  So, as he wanders from village to village, he is welcomed as well as feared.  But one wealthy tourist is worth more to him than a whole village of ryots, so he keeps his eye on every town in which he is likely to fall in with the travelling white man.  And the travelling white man would be sorry to miss him, for he is one of the few relics of an ancient state of things which railways and telegraphs and the Educational Department have left unchanged.

The itinerant jeweller and the Sind-work-box-walla are unmistakably being left behind as the East hurries after the West, and we shall soon know them no more.  Showy shops, where the inexperienced traveller may see all the products of Sind and Benares, and Cutch and Cashmere, spread before him at fixed prices, are multiplying rapidly and taking the bread from the mouth of the poor hawker.  But the snake-charmer seems safe from that kind of competition.  It is difficult to forecast a time when a broad signboard in Rampart Row will invite the passer-by to visit Mr. Nagshett’s world-renowned Serpent Tamasha, Mungoose and Cobra Fight, Mango-tree Illusion, etc.  Entrance, one rupee.

XI

CURES FOR SNAKE-BITE

In a little book on the snakes of India, published many years ago by Dr. Nicholson of the Madras Medical Service, the conviction was expressed that the snake-charmers of Burmah knew of some antidote to the poison of the cobra which gave them confidence in handling it.  He said that nothing would induce them to divulge it, but that he suspected it consisted in gradual inoculation with the venom itself.  Putting the question to himself why he did not attempt to attest this by experiment, he replied that there were two reasons, which, if I recollect rightly, were, first, that he had a strong natural repugnance to anything like cruelty to animals, and, secondly, that he had observed that as soon as a man got the notion into his head that he had discovered a cure for snake-bite, he began to show symptoms of insanity.