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Updated: June 2, 2025
The street so quietly peaceful on Sunday, by Wednesday was a throbbing thoroughfare, with autos, wagons and horses whirling by in clouds of dust The main street, a block away, was a noisy, active, flourishing, carnival city, with fortune-tellers, two-headed dogs, snake-charmers, minstrels and all the other street-fair habitues in full possession.
The Boo-habeeba. A Domestic Picture. The Bey's Diversions. The Bastinado. Concealed Treasure. Nefta. The Two Saints. Departure of Santa Maria. Snake-charmers. Wedyen. Deer Stalking. Splendid view of the Sahara. Revolting Acts. Qhortabah. Ghafsa. Byrlafee. Mortality among the Camels Aqueduct. Remains of Udina. Arrival at Tunis. The Boab's Wives. Curiosities. Tribute Collected.
The coffee-house of the Moors beyond the gate was already lit up, and the door was open, but the floor was empty. No snake-charmers, no jugglers, no story-tellers, with their circles of squatting spectators, were to be seen or heard. These professors of science and magic and jocularity had never before been absent. Even the blind beggars, crouching under the town walls, were silent.
Cobra de Capello. The cobra de capello is the only one exhibited by the itinerant snake-charmers: and the truth of Davy's conjecture, that they control it, not by extracting its fangs, but by courageously availing themselves of its well-known timidity and extreme reluctance to use its fatal weapons, received a painful confirmation during my residence in Ceylon, by the death of one of these performers, whom his audience had provoked to attempt some unaccustomed familiarity with the cobra; it bit him on the wrist, and he expired the same evening.
"But is the story really true?" asked Fanny. "It is at all events as well authenticated as many other anecdotes," answered the laird. "By-the-by, Mrs Vallery, I should like to witness the performances of the snake-charmers in India. Have you ever seen them?" "Frequently," answered Mrs Vallery.
I left and went out to the gate where the snake-charmers were juggling with a dozen hissing cobras. It was pleasanter to look at them. That night an eminent English artist, temporarily in Benares, discoursed to me at length though vaguely on the beauties of Hindu religious theory, but what I had seen during the day did not help his argument.
This is the beast that figured in the competition between Aaron and Pharaoh's conjurers, and it remains the favourite of modern African snake-charmers, who catch it after first irritating it by means of a woollen cloth wherein the fangs are embedded and broken. It is also, no doubt, the dreaded species which Sallust describes as infesting the region of Gafsa.
His arms seem to become fixed in this unnatural position. As he never uses them they wither away in time. Compared with his large head they might belong to a child. Another purposely extinguishes the light of his eyes by staring day after day straight at the sun with wide-open eyes. Among the curiosities of India are also the snake-charmers.
Ann Maria Bromwick had the part of Elizabeth Eliza, and Agamemnon too was represented; and there were many sets of "little boys" in India-rubber boots, going in and out with the Hindu snake-charmers. Mr. Peterkin had studied up his Latin grammar a little, in preparation for his part of Julius Cæsar. Agamemnon had reminded him that it was unnecessary, as Julius Cæsar in Shakspeare spoke in English.
I think, perhaps, after all, the most remarkable being exhibited in the reptile house is Tyrrell. I don't think much of the Indian snake-charmers now.
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