Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/637

Rh and asks for bakshish. This fellow is succeeded by two other jugglers, who spread a cloth before you over the sand, and in some mysterious way cause a fine large branch of the mango-tree to appear, and grow up under the cloth. It is a curious fact that in Egyptian history we read of the same trick with the lotus-tree as this with the mango-tree.

Now we come to the snake-charmers, the most wonderful race of men in the whole of India. They take up a cobra, the most deadly of all reptiles, and still hardly ever are bitten. There is the photograph of these snake-charmers before you. The snakes are never still. The poison-bag is in the roof of the mouth; and, by certain means, this bag is pressed, and the poison ejected. But, when you remember that two hours is about the limit one lives after the bite of a cobra, you cannot help wondering at the carelessness of these fellows. And though nowadays they say that by ejecting certain alkali, ammonia, or something of the kind, into the blood, the bite can be cured and the poison destroyed, yet still, in the wilds of India, who would be able to do this in the short space of time allowed to live after having been bitten? There is one little animal alone that enjoys exemption from the fearful bite of the deadly cobra. It is a favorite amusement to some people to watch the struggle. They will turn a large cobra loose in the room, and then immediately place a mongoose before it. The mongoose instantly attacks the cobra, and a desperate fight ensues; the cobra bites the mongoose over and over again, but the poison seems not to have the slightest effect on it, and the battle will certainly result in the death of the cobra. If the mongoose dies, it is from sheer loss of blood and exhaustion, and not from the effects of the poison, as thousands can testify. Dr. Short has held for many minutes the mouth of a cobra fixed on to a mongoose, but it has got up and run away, without any hurt. What peculiar antidote he possesses science has not yet been able to discover.

Having now taken a cursory view of Madras and its people, and the jugglers, such as they are, we pass on to consider their religion and their temples.

First, I must tell you that the word temple does not exist in India. It is merely a word imported by us. The word they use is devila, and means the house of God. A temple does not consist of one, but four component parts. What we generally call a pagoda is nothing but the gopurum, answering to the Egyptian pylon over the door. The four parts of each temple are the gopurum, or door; the mundapum the teppa kolum, or tank; the vimanum, or sanctuary.

Now, I propose to show you these, and give you some idea of what they are. We will take the train at night from Madras, and at twelve next day we find ourselves at Trichinopoly, close to which is one of the largest and finest temples in all India. The view is taken from the gateway at the south entrance. The pyramids are called the gopura,