THE COBRA 317 



the body, and cook it as we do eels. The flesh is said to be 

 , white and excellent. 



I None of the American snakes inhabit the old world, but in 

 ;i the East Indies and Ceylon other no less dangerous species 

 [ appear upon the scene, among which the celebrated Cobra di 

 ij Capello is one of the most deadly. A few years since, as many 

 of my readers will remember, a cobra in the Zoological Grardens 

 destroyed its keeper. In a fit of drunkenness, the man, against 

 express orders, took the reptile out of its cage, and placing its 

 head inside his waistcoat, allowed it to glide round his body. 

 When it had emerged from under his clothes on the other side, 

 apparently in good humour, the keeper squeezed its tail, when 

 it struck him between his eyes ; in twenty minutes his con- 

 i sciousness was gone, and in less than three hours he was dead. 

 As long as the cobra is in a quiet mood, its neck is nowhere 

 thicker than its head or other parts ; but as soon as it is excited, 

 it raises vertically the anterior part of its trunk, dilates the hood 

 j on each side of the neck, which is curiously marked in the centre 

 ( in black and white, like a pair of spectacles, and then swells out 

 to double its former proportions, and advances against the 

 aggressor by the undulating motion of the tail. It is not only 

 met with in the cultivated grounds and plantations, but will 

 creep into the houses and insinuate it-self among the furniture. 

 Bishop Heber heard at Patna of a lady who once lay a whole 

 night with a cobra under her pillow. She repeatedly thought 

 during, the night that she felt something move, and in the 

 morning when she snatched her pillow away, she saw the thick 

 black throat, the square head, and the green diamond-like eyes 

 of the reptile advanced within two inches of her neck. Fortu- 

 nately the snake was without malice ; but alas for her if she 

 had during the night pressed him a little too roughly. 



This is the snake so frequently exhibited by the Indian 

 jugglers, who contrive, by some unknown method to tame 

 them so far as to perform certain movements in cadence, and 

 to dance to the sound of music, with which the cobra seems 

 much delighted, keeping time by a graceful motion of the head, 

 erecting about half its length from the ground, and following 

 the few simple notes of the conjuror's flute with gentle curves 

 like the undulating lines of a swan's neck. It has been natu- 

 rally supposed, before this could be done, that the poisonous 



