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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in Southern Congo, where the French had a trading-post. But did 

 not the Delphic Pythoness likewise derive her name from a serpent, the 

 great Python of Parnassus, begotten in the ocean-mud of the Deucalian 

 Delude ? The Hebrew word Ob is the equivalent of the Grecian ophis 

 and the Chaldean oheb, a dragon, a serpent ; and in the Vulgate the 

 witch of Endor, the " woman who had an Ob,'''' is described as a muller 

 pythonica ; and the " consulters with familiar spirits " (Deuteronomy, 

 xviii, 11) as "men who worshiped Ob," the temple of Bel (a contrac- 

 tion of Ob-El, the snake-god) was covered with representations of fly- 

 ing serpents, the wings having been added to indicate the swiftness of 

 the miraculous Python perhaps the prototype of the Chinese dragon, 

 of our " old serpent," and possibly of the mediaeval dragon-myths. On 

 one of the temples of Thebes Belzoni discovered " a row of figures 

 representing three human beings resting upon their knees and with 

 their heads struck off. Before them a serpent-god (un dio pythonico) 

 erects his crest on a level with their throats, ready to drink the stream 

 of life as it flows from their veins." Columella, the Roman Huxley, 

 mentions a district of the province of Numidia where the natives tried 

 to break the spell of a summer drought by practicing strange rites with 

 a captive serpent. In the mythology of the Edda the Midgard-snake 

 encircles the globe of the whole earth, and the rupture of its folds will 

 usher in the final return of Chaos. According to Plutarch, the Edo- 

 nian witches of Thrace practiced their charms by the aid of a tutelary 

 deity in the form of a snake, which they carried from hill to hill in 

 search of a propitious conjuncture of times and places ; and among the 

 Veddahs of Ceylon Sir Emerson Tennent (" Ceylon : An Account of 

 the Island, Physical, Historical, and Political ") found traces of a very 

 similar superstition ; The staff of iEsculapius and the caduceus of Mer- 

 cury were entwined with serpents ; and, when the pious iEneas sacri- 

 fices at the tomb of his father, the " genius of the sepulchre " emerges 

 in the form of a miraculous snake. The two mysterious strangers who 

 announce the mission of Buddha vanish in the castle-hall, and when 

 the messengers of the king follow them to the gate two furtive serpents 

 glide forth : " The gods come ofttimes thus." 



Yet Professor Ritter holds that ophiolatry is the oldest form of 

 demonism of devil-worship, the subtile and deadly serpent being the 

 fittest symbol of the tempter. Barthelemy-Sainte-Hilaire inclines to the 

 opinion that the Egyptian god-serpent was the emblem of immortality, 

 the idea being derived from the shedding of his skin ; the caves of 

 Elephantine bristle with serpent-heads ; and the strangest, but possibly 

 the only correct theory, is Sir W. Jones's conjecture that these shapes 

 are nothing but a modification of that rude symbol of the vis genera- 

 tiva the old Indian phallus. 



Monkey-worship is peculiar to Hindostan, and can hardly be ex- 

 plained by the usefulness or the superhuman attributes of poor Hanu- 

 man. Yet its antiquity is attested by the sculptures of Ellora and 



