of the jerboa; and I have already said, that I never but once found any animal in the viper's belly, but one jerboa in a gravid female cerastes. "I kept two of these last mentioned creatures in a glass jar, such as is used for keeping sweetmeats in, for two years, without having given them any food; they did not sleep, that I observed, in winter, but cast their skins the last days of April. The ce. rastes moves with great rapidity, and in all directions, forward, backward, and sideways. When he inclines to surprise any one, who is too far from him, he creeps with his side towards the person, and his head averted, till judging his distance, he turns round, springs upon him, and fastens upon the part next to him; for it is not true what is said, that the cerastes does not leap or spring. I saw one of them at Cairo, in the house of Julian and Rosa, crawl up the side of a box, in which there were many, and there lie still as if hiding himself, till one of the people who brought them to us, came near him, and though in a very disadvantageous posture, sticking, as it were, perpendicular to the side of the box, he leaped near the distance of three feet, and fastened between the man's fore-finger and thumb, so as to bring the blood. The fellow shewed no sign of either pain or fear, and we kept him with us full four hours, without his applying any sort of remedy, or his seeming inclined so to do. To make myself assured that the animal was in its perfect state, I made the man hold him by the neck, so as to force him to open his mouth, and lacerate the thigh of a pelican, a bird I had tamed, as big as a swan. The bird died in about thirteen minutes, though it was apparently affected in fifty seconds; and we cannot think this was a fair trial, because, a very few minutes before it had bit the man, and so discharged part of its virus; and it was made to scratch the pelican by force, without any irritation or action of its own. "I apprehend this to be the aspic, which Cleopatra employed to procure her death. Alexandria, plentifully supplied by water, must then have had fruit of all kinds in its gardens: the basket of figs must have come from thence, and the aspic or cerastes that was hid in them, from the adjoining desert, where they are plenty to this day; for to the westward in Egypt, where the Nile overflows, there is no sort of serpents whatever that I ever saw; nor, as I have before said, is there any other of the mortal kind that I know, in those parts of Africa adjoining to Egypt, excepting the ce rastes. It should seem very natural for any one, who, from mo. tives of distress, has resolved to put a period to his existence, especially women, and weak persons, unaccustomed to handle arms, to seek the gentlest method to free themselves from the load of life now become insupportable. This, however, has not always been the case with the ancients. Arria, Poetus's wife, stabbed herself with a dagger, to set her husband an example to die, with this memorable assurance, after giving herself the blow, Patus, it is not painful! Porcia, the wife of Brutus, died by the barbarous, and not obvious way of perishing, by swallowing fire; the violent agitation of spirits prevailing over the momentary difference in the suffering. It is not to be doubted but that a wo man, high-spirited like Cleopatra, was also above the momentary differences in feeling; and had the way in which she died not been ordinary and usual, she certainly would not have applied herself to the invention of a new one. We are therefore to look upon her dying by the bite of the cerastes, as only following the manner of death which she had seen adopted by those who intended to die without torment. Galen, speaking of the aspic in the great city of Alexandria, says, I have seen how speedily they (the aspics) occasioned death. Whenever any person is condemned to die whom they wish to end quickly and without torment, they put the viper to his breast, and suffering him there to creep a little, the man is presently killed. Pausanias speaks of particular serpents that were to be found in Arabia, among the balsam-trees, several of which I procured, both alive and dead, when I brought the tree from Beder unein; but they were still the same species of serpent, only some from sex, and some from want of age, had not the horns, though in every other respect they could not be mistaken. Ibn Sina, called by the Europeans Avicenna, has described this animal very exactly. He says it is frequent in Schem (that is, the the country about the south of Damascus), and also in Egypt; and he makes a very good observation on their manners; that they do not go or walk straight, but by contracting themselves; but in the latter part of his description he seems not to have known the serpent he is speaking of, because he says its bite is cured in the same manner as that of the viper and cerastes, by which it is implied that the animal he was describing was not a cerastes, and the cerastes is not a viper, both of which assertions are false. "A long dissertation," adds Mr. Bruce, "would remain on the incantation of serpents. There is no doubt of its reality: the scriptures are full of it; all that have been in Egypt have seen as many different instances as they chose. Some have doubted that it was a trick, and that the animals so handled, had been first trained, and then disarmed of their power of hurting; and, fond of the discovery, they have rested themselves upon it, without ex. periment, in the face of all antiquity. But I will not hesitate to `aver, that I have seen at Cairo (and this may be seen daily, with. out trouble or expence), a man who came from above the cata. combs, where the pits of the mummy birds are kept, who has taken a cerastes with his naked hand, from a number of others lying at the bottom of the tub, has put it upon his bare head, covered it with the common red cap he wears, then taken it out, put it in his breast, and tied it about his neck like a necklace; after which it has been applied to a hen, and bit it, which has died in a few mi. nutes; and, to complete the experiment, the man has taken it by the neck, and, beginning at the tail, has ate it, as one would do a carrot or a stock of celery, without any seeming repugnance. "We know from history, that where any country has been remarkably infested with serpents, there the people have been screened by this secret. The Psylli and Marmarides of old were defended in this manner. Ad quorum cantus mites jacuere Cerastæ*. Sil. Ital. lib. 3. "To leave ancient history, I can myself avouch, that all the black people in the kingdom of Sennaar, whether Funge or Nuba, are perfectly armed against the bite of either scorpion or viper. They take the Cerastes in their hands at all times, put them in their bosoms, and throw them at one another as children do apples or balls, without having irritated them by this usage so much as to bite. The Arabs have not this secret naturally, but from their in. fancy they acquire an exemption from the mortal consequences. attending the bite of these animals, by chewing a certain root, and washing themselves (it is not anointing) with an infusion of certain plants in water. One day, when I was sitting with the brother of Shekh Adelan, prime minister of Sennaar, a slave of his brought a cerastes, which he had just taken out of a hole, and was using with every sort of familiarity. I told him my suspicion that the teeth * Tame at whose spell the charm'd cerastes lay. had been drawn, but he assured me they were not, as did his master Kitton, who took it from him, wound it round his arm, and at my desire ordered the servant to carry it home with me. I took a chicken by the neck, and made it flutter before him; his seeming indifference left him, and he bit it with great signs of anger; the chicken almost died immediately*; I say his seeming indifference, for I constantly observed, that, however lively the viper was before, yet upon being seized by any of these barbarians, heseemed as if taken with sickness, and feebleness, frequently shut his eyes, and never turned his mouth towards the arm of the person that held him. I asked Kitton how they came to be exempted from this mischief? He said they were born so, and so said the grave and respectable men among them. Many of the lighter and lower sort talked of enchantments by words and by writing, but they all knew how to prepare any person by medicines, which were decoctions of herbs and roots. I have seen many thus armed for a season, do pretty much the same feats as those who possessed the exemption naturally; the drugs were given me, and I several times armed myself, as I thought, resolved to try the experiment; but my heart always failed me, when I came to the trial; because among these wretched people it was a pretence they might very probably have sheltered themselves under, that I was a Christian, and that therefore it had no effect upon me. I have still remaining by me a small quantity of this root, but never had an opportunity of trying the experi ment." The cerastes often makes its appearance among the numerous hieroglyphic figures on the various remains of Egyptian antiquity; and is particularly conspicuous on a pair of large sculptured stones brought from Alexandria, and preserved in the British Museum, and which, probably, made a part of the cornice of some magnificent temple. This animal, like some other poisonous serpents, is supposed to be viviparous. * Might not this have happened from the tooth piercing the spinal marrow; and would not the same effect have happened, had the chicken been pierced with a pin ? SECTION XI. Spectacle or Hooded Snake. Coluber Naja.-LINN. THE Coluber naja, or cobra de capello, is a native of India, where it appears to be one of the most common, as well as most noxious, of the serpent tribe; very frequently proving fatal, in the space of a few minutes, to those who unfortunately experience its bite. Its remarkable form and colours are such as to distin. guish it with great ease from almost every other snake. Its gene. ral length seems to be three or four feet, and the diameter of the body about an inch and a quarter: the head is rather small than large, and is covered on the fore part with large smooth scales; resembling, in this respect, the majority of innoxious ser. pents: the back part, sides, and neck, with smaller ovate scales; and the remainder of the animal, on the upper parts, with small, distinct, oblong-oval scales, not ill resembling the general form of a grain of rice. At a small distance beyond the head is a lateral swelling or dilatation of the skin, which is continued to the distance of about four inches downwards, where the outline gradually sinks into the cylindric form of the rest of the body. This part is extensile, at the pleasure of the animal; and when viewed from above, while in its most extended state, is of a somewhat cordated form, or wider at the upper than the lower part: it is marked above by a very large and conspicuous patch or spot, greatly re. sembling the figure of a pair of spectacles; the mark itself being white with black edges, and the middle of each of the rounded parts black. This mark is more or less distinct in different indi. viduals, and also varies occasionally in size and form, and in some is even altogether wanting. The usual colour of the animal is a pale ferruginous brown above; the under parts being of a blueish white, sometimes slightly tinged with pale brown, or yellow: the tail, which is of moderate length, tapers gradually, and terminates in a slender, sharp-pointed extremity. This formidable reptile has obtained its Portuguese title of Cobra de Capello, or hooded snake, from the appearance which it presents when viewed in front in an irritated state, or when preparing to bite; at which time it bends the head rather downwards, and seems hooded, as it were, in some degree, by the ex |