Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/511

Rh men, one to keep up the fire and turn the wheel, and the other to direct and hold the nozzle-pipe. It was also requisite that a third man should stand by with a stick, to kill the snake bolting from its hole. We turned out with the apparatus properly manned, lighted the fire to get up smoke, and applied the nozzle to a hole in a bank near the stable, which was supposed to hold a snake. The smoke was injected, and out there bolted a terrified rat. The man with the stick struck at the rat and broke the nozzle-pipe. The man at the nozzle-pipe jumped back against the man who was turning the wheel, and in their fright they both tumbled down. The rat escaped, but if it had been a snake instead of a rat it is very probable that one of the three operators might have been bitten. The men lost confidence in the machine, and declined to work it. It was taken indoors, and put into an anteroom, where the native night-watchman usually took up his quarters. One cold night the watchman closed the doors of the room and lit a quantity of the medicated paper to warm himself. In the morning a well-asphyxiated watchman was found, but luckily he was brought round with deluges of cold water. This, however, was the end of the official career of the Duke of Argyll's snake-asphyxiator in Bengal.

Although most people have a natural aversion to snakes, and would on no account touch them, there are some persons who are accustomed to handle snakes (tractare serpentes), and will pick up a wild poisonous snake from the ground with impunity. George Borrow, the author of "The Gypsies in Spain," had this faculty; and I knew two officers, one of whom was a captain in a Scotch regiment, while his brother was the doctor, who said that this faculty of handling snakes had been born in them. In a work published not long ago by Mr. F. B. Simson, a retired Indian civilian, he gives the following prescription for catching cobras: "When you come upon your cobra, make him rear up and expand his hood. He generally does this quickly enough; but should he delay, whistle to him, imitating the snake-charmers. He will then certainly raise his head. Then with a small cane or stick, or the ramrod of a gun, gently press his head to the ground. The snake will not object; he seems rather to like it. When you press his head lightly to the ground with the stick in your left hand, you should seize the snake firmly with your right, close behind the head, holding his neck rather tightly; then let go the stick and catch hold of the tail. The snake is powerless, and you can do what you like with it. You should have an earthen pot brought and let the snake pass into it, as snakes will always go into any dark place." On the whole this prescription does not seem inviting. I have never tried it, and should hardly care to see any one try it.