To introduce the poison into the
blood of a man, or of an animal, the snake must pierce the flesh
with its fangs, not prick with its sting.
The needle-like eye
teeth of a cobra communicate with the poison gland, and if this
gland is cut out the cobra will not live more than two days.
Accordingly, the supposition of some sceptics, that the bunis cut
out this gland, is quite unfounded. The term "hissing" is also
inaccurate when applied to cobras. They do not hiss. The noise
they make is exactly like the death-rattle of a dying man. The
whole body of a cobra is shaken by this loud and heavy growl.
Here we happened to be the witnesses of a fact which I relate
exactly as it occurred, without indulging in explanations or
hypotheses of any kind. I leave to naturalists the solution of
the enigma.
Expecting to be well paid, the cobra-turbaned buni sent us word
by a messenger boy that he would like very much to exhibit his
powers of snake-charming. Of course we were perfectly willing,
but on condition that between us and his pupils there should be
what Mr. Disraeli would call a "scientific frontier."* We selected
a spot about fifteen paces from the magic circle. I will not
describe minutely the tricks and wonders that we saw, but will
proceed at once to the main fact. With the aid of a vaguda, a
kind of musical pipe of bamboo, the buni caused all the snakes to
fall into a sort of cataleptic sleep. The melody that he played,
monotonous, low, and original to the last degree, nearly sent us
to sleep ourselves. At all events we all grew extremely sleepy
without any apparent cause. We were aroused from this half lethargy
by our friend Gulab-Sing, who gathered a handful of a grass,
perfectly unknown to us, and advised us to rub our temples and
eyelids with it. Then the buni produced from a dirty bag a kind
of round stone, something like a fish's eye, or an onyx with a
white spot in the centre, not bigger than a ten-kopek bit. He
declared that anyone who bought that stone would be able to charm
any cobra (it would produce no effect on snakes of other kinds)
paralyzing the creature and then causing it to fall asleep. Moreover,
by his account, this stone is the only remedy for the bite of a cobra.
You have only to place this talisman on the wound, where it will
stick so firmly that it cannot be torn off until all the poison is
absorbed into it, when it will fall off of itself, and all danger
will be past.
- - - - -
* Written in 1879.
- - - - -
Being aware that the Government gladly offers any premium for the
invention of a remedy for the bite of the cobra, we did not show
any unreasonable interest on the appearance of this stone.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 44 of 187
Words from 22471 to 22973
of 96531
