146 THIRTY FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. 



and at these times the serpents are attracted towards them 

 by the scent, and the patients, looking upon them as their 

 welcome benefactors, willingly stretch out their hand or foot, 

 when the reptile is advancing towards them ; alter the 

 serpent has bitten them it retires, and the patient then 

 feels relieved. The greater part of such patients are, ouce 

 a year, viz., in July or August, visited, wherever they may 

 be, by their reptile friends. I met with only a small 

 number who required to be bitten twice a-year ; and with 

 only one indeed who wanted to be bitten monthly. What 

 I have related is certainly a singular fact, and highly in- 

 teresting to naturalists. But how is it that this disease is 

 peculiar to the Punjab ? The natives assert, that the bite 

 ( when it is with young ) of the Aniphishcena ( erroneously 

 called Dumuha^ two-mouthed sepent ), which is generally 

 believed not to be venomous, is the cause of the disease, 

 and that the virus at certain periods ferments in the 

 human frame. This species of serpent being indigenous 

 in America, it is worth inquiry, whether the disease is not 

 also to be found in that part of the world ? A patient 

 thus afflicted told me, on one occasion, that he was advised 

 as a curative process, to seiz*^ the serpent at the moment 

 it approached him, and having previously wrapped a cloth 

 round its head, to bite it off. By neglecting to envelope 

 the serpent's head, he was told that he would lose two of his 

 front teeth. 



Some hakims at Lahore recommended as a remedy, 

 the fruit of Crataeva Tapia, mixed with oil, which is used 

 externally as an ointment. 



After this digression about serpents, the relation of which 

 may have been of some interest, it will probably not appear 

 superfluous, if I explain the meaning of the expression 

 used by the faqueer who performed the experiments with 

 the vipers, in calling the maharajah, the "son of a 

 laundress." 



One of the wives of Runjeet Sing gave birth to a girl, 

 at Vetalah, and in those countries the birth of a female 

 child is not considered as a happy or fortunate event. 



