Instantly the beautiful snake lifts its head, expands its hood--a loose
skin about the neck which it makes large or small at pleasure--and creeps
out, waving its body gracefully while the music lasts, and when it ceases,
dropping down again into the basket.
Some people have power to charm serpents; I have read a story of a man who,
by his music cleared a house of the snakes which infested it; having got
into the empty rooms, and hidden themselves in the crevices in the walls.
It was a strange sight to see them creep from their hiding-places at the
sound of the pipe; but sometimes serpents are deaf both to the voice and
music of the charmer--"like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which
will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely" to
which David compares the wicked.
Since the bite of the cobra is so deadly, it is well that travellers are
not likely to meet it; for in the day-time it sleeps in the depths of
the forest, gliding silently out at night in search of food. The bold
naturalist, of whose alligator-ride you have heard, says that he never saw
any snake pursue a retreating prey; so that when a man, threading the mazes
of a forest, sees a serpent gliding towards him, he has but to turn into a
side path, and be safe. But if a snake is trodden upon, or otherwise roused
to anger, it will dart forward upon its enemy, in self-defence; also, if
one of the enormous snakes comes upon a man, it may seize him before he
has time to run away.
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