to result to their trade and interests from such a
notion, they vehemently asserted that it was not the envenomed bite
which had killed him. "No, no; he only forgot one little word--one small
portion of the charm." In fact, they declared that he was not dead at
all, but only in a sort of swoon, from which, according to the rules of
the cabalistic art, he would recover in seven days. But the officers of
the barracks, close to which the deceased had lived, interfered in the
matter. They put a guard of one or two men on the house, declaring that
they would allow the body to remain unburied for seven days, but would
not permit any trickery. Of course the poor serpent-charmer never came
to life again. His death, and the manner of it, gave a severe blow, as
has been already hinted, to the art and practice of snake-charming in
Madras.

Roberts also mentions the instance of a man who came to a gentleman's
house to exhibit tame snakes, and on being told that a Cobra, or Hooded
Snake was in a cage in the house, was asked if he could charm it; on his
replying in the affirmative, the Serpent was released from the cage,
and, no doubt, in a state of high irritation. The man began his
incantations, and repeated his charms, but the Snake darted at him,
fastened upon his arm, and before night he was a corpse.

These failures, rare and abnormal as they confessedly are, do not by any
means disprove the reality of snake-charming; they certainly shew that
the men believe in their own powers. It may be, as some Europeans have
maintained, that in India, the exhibitors usually practise upon tame
snakes, from which they have already extracted the fangs, or even
eradicated the poison sacs,--an operation performed without difficulty
by making an incision beneath and behind each eye. Or it may be that the
power of music over these reptiles is ordinarily relied on, and that in
rare instances this fails. I have myself taken fierce and active
lizards, in Jamaica, by a noose of string, while whistling a lively
tune. As soon as the whistling commenced, the lizard would become still
on the trunk or the branch of a tree, and so remain unmoved, with a
sleepy look all the while I was searching up the string, preparing the
noose, and presenting it to him, giving just a backward glance of his
eye, as the noose slipped over his head, the whistling going on
vigorously all the time, of course, till the cord being jerked tight, he
suddenly found himself dangli