their venom. Celsus, however, maintains that this power consisted in
an acquaintance with the fact, now well known, that animal poisons are
hurtful only when mingled with the blood. They may therefore be taken
into the mouth with perfect impunity. With reference to so great an
authority, however, there is more in the art and mystery of
serpent-charming than this.

When Lucian describes the Babylonian magician as walking abroad, and
calling to him all the serpents that were near, with certain ceremonies,
such as the utterance of sacred words from an ancient book, lustrations
made with sulphur and a torch, and solemn marchings in a circle, and
when he asserts that the venomous reptiles, _nolentes volentes_,
presented themselves harmless at his feet,--he describes a scene which
is sufficiently familiar to European travellers in Egypt and India. And
so, when Silius Italicus speaks of Atyr, instructed how to disarm
serpents of their dire venom, and to lull to sleep the terrible
water-snakes with his magic touch, he refers, whether truly or falsely,
to something of a more potent character than the feat by which Queen
Philippa saved the life of her royal husband.

Immunity from the poison of serpents, and serpent-charming, are two
things. The former, so far as it depends on the natural law already
mentioned, scarcely comes within the province of this work. But is there
not an innate immunity residing in some persons, and even in some
peoples, by which, without the operation of any recognised natural law,
or even any effort, they are securely protected either against the bites
of venomous serpents, or, at least, against the fatality which is the
ordinary result of being bitten?

The Psylli, according to Pliny, were so characteristically endowed with
this immunity, that they made it a test of the legitimacy of their
children; for they were accustomed to expose their new-born babes (only
in doubtful cases, we may suppose) to the most venomous serpents they
could find; assured that if their paternity was pure Psyllic, they would
be quite unharmed. Of this tribe was the ambassador Hexagon, who,
boasting of his power before the Roman consuls, submitted to the
crucial test which they suggested, of being inclosed in a vessel
swarming with poisonous reptiles, which, says the legendary story, hurt
him not.

The same historian tells us that the Psylli, who formerly inhabited the
vicinity of the Greater Syrtis,--that is, the modern T