512 SNAKES. 



of highly-favoured persons, or those whose Hves had been of 

 remarkable purity and goodness, — another motive for their 

 being protected. It is still the same in many parts of 

 Africa, where the natives think ill luck follows the death 

 of a python. 



In works where medical statistics are given, such as 

 Fayrer's Thanatophidia, we learn the fatal results of these 

 superstitions. When the natives find a cobra in their 

 houses, as is not unfrequently the case, says Fayrer, 'they 

 will conciliate it, feed and protect it, as though to injure it 

 were to invoke misfortune on the house and family. Even 

 should the death of some relative, bitten by accident, occur, 

 the serpent is not killed, but caught and deferentially 

 deported to the field or jungle, where it is set free.' No one 

 can peruse the above without seeing how largely the per- 

 centage of deaths is traceable to native superstition. Fayrer 

 also shows us the fatal consequences of the confidence 

 placed in the snake ' charmers,' who are considered to be 

 especially favoured by their deities, and endowed with 

 curative powers. Much interesting reading, apart from 

 medical science, will be found in the TJianatophidia on the 

 Hindoo faith in the milntras or spells and incantations used 

 by the charmers in cases of snake-bite. Out of some ninety 

 such cases selected by Fayrer from returns sent in by 

 medical officers in the Bengal Presidency, nearly half proved 

 that either no remedies at all were tried, or that recourse 

 was had to native nostrums or viilntras. Briefly to 

 enumerate a few of the reports : ' Boy bitten by keautiah, 

 charms and incantations ; died in half an hour.' ' Man 

 keeping a krait (Bungarus) for " Poojah " (worship) was 



