CERASTES. 395 



washing themselves (it is not anointing) with an 

 infusion of certain plants in water. One day, 

 when I was sitting with the brother of Shekh 

 Adelan, prime minister of Sennaar, a slave of his 

 brought a Cerastes, which he had just taken out 

 of a hole, and was using with every sort of fami- 

 liarity. I told him my suspicion that the teeth 

 had been drawn, but he assured me they were not, 

 as did his master Kitton, who took it from him, 

 wound it round his arm, and at my desire ordered 

 the servant to carry it home with me. I took a 

 chicken by the neck, and made it flutter before 

 him ; his seeming indifference left him, and he bit 

 it with great signs of anger : the chicken died 

 almost immediately * : I say his seeming indiffer- 

 ence, for I constantly observed, that, however 

 lively the viper was before, yet upon being seized 

 by any of these barbarians, he seemed as if taken 

 with sickness, and feebleness, frequently shut his 

 eyes, and never turned his mouth towards the arm 

 of the person that held him. I asked Kitton how 

 they came to be exempted from this mischief? He 

 said they were born so, and so said the grave and 

 respectable men among them. Many of the 

 lighter and lower sort talked of enchantments by 

 words and by writing, but they all knew how to 

 prepare any person by medicines, which were de- 

 coctions of herbs and roots. I have seen many 

 thus armed for a season, do pretty much the same 



* Might not this have happened from the tooth piercing the, 

 spinal marrow; and would not the same effect have happened, had 

 the chicken been pierced with a pin ? 



