UNKNOWN TONGUES. 247 



African desert, who, with their eyes' glances alone, could 

 rule over serpents. That race of men is lost ; but many 

 a Nubian may be seen at the upper falls of the Nile, who 

 can imitate, with surprising precision, the call of the rep- 

 tiles, and tempt them to come forth from every corner 

 and crevice. 



Vipers, also, and adders, are neither deaf nor dumb, 

 and cannot help listening to the voice of temptation. 

 They were, it is well known, formerly much used in medi- 

 cine; and the precious theriak, known even at the time 

 of Nero, and still manufactured in Venice, Holland, and 

 France, consists mainly of the flesh of vipers. So, poor, 

 persecuted animals, they are caught in all countries, and 

 who would have thought it ? almost always by means 

 of their acute hearing. In Italy, grim, swarthy men, of 

 gipsy cast, are seen to stand in the centre of large hoops, 

 and then to indulge in strange, fanciful whistlings. After 

 a while, an adder is seen gently to glide up ; another, 

 and still another, appears, no one knows whence ; and all 

 gazing with glittering eye at the quaint musician, raise 

 their spotted bodies up against the magic hoop. The de- 

 ceiver takes them, one by one, with a pair of tongs, and 

 thrusts them into a bag that hangs on his shoulder. The 

 poor, deluded vipers are then carried to town, and kept 

 by druggist and doctor, or sent in boxes, filled with saw- 

 dust, alive all over the world. The French, of all nations 

 on earth the most cruel to animals, have a still more 

 wicked way of catching adders. They take the first they 

 obtain, or any other snake they can seize upon, and, 

 throwing it into a kettle of boiling oil, there roast it 



