THE SNAKE-CHARMERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 59, 1 June 1927, Page 14

THE SNAKE-CHARMERS

The many jugglers and snake-charm-ers to be found in India are always a source of interest and amusement to travellers.

The snake generally used in these performances is the Cobra, which, when full grown, may be five or six feet in length. It is very poisonous, and has the power of swelling out the upper part of the neck into the form of a hood, while on the outer side is a mark of the shape of a pair of spectacles. When the charmer has brought the snakes out of the bags he keeps them in, his assistant begins playing on his pipes and the “dance” begins. The fangs of the snakes used in these performances have, as a rule, been extracted, and consequently the reptiles are quite harmless. The real business of a professional snake-charmer, however, is not to exhibit them, but to catch them, ridding bungalows and other houses of these dangerous creatures. In winter there are few snakes about, and the “charmers” find times bad, so they go round to the hotels and other places where strangers are to be found and give exhibitions, bringing with them, sometimes, a mongoose to make the show more interesting. A mongoose is a little grey animal of the cat tribe, some eighteen inches in length, with a long bushy tail. It is the mongoose’s great desire to .kill every snake he sees. A fight between a mongoose and a snake is, for an extra rupee or two. easily arranged. All the snakes but one are cleared out of the ring, and the mongoose, looking very unconcerned, appears from his box. Instantly the eyes of the two creatures meet, the snake sitting erect while the mongoose begins running round the reptile in a circle of about six feet in diameter. Little by little the pace is quickened, little by little the circle is decreased, the eyes of the snake never leaving his enemy. Now the speed of the mongoose is tremendous; round and round the circle he flies, till suddenly, with a spring so quick that the eye cannot see it, he seizes the snake at the back of the neck just below the hood, knowing well that that is the only spot where he will be safe from its fangs. Over and over roll the two, the snake quite helpless, but winding his coils round the mongoose—trying to crush him. But the mongoose holds on, and soon his sharp little teeth have severed the spine of the snake, and the creature rolls over dead.