REPTILES AND SNAKE- STONES. 15 



he man died. The stone was broken by a very clever but 

 unscrupulous native physician, who procured it to look at 

 it, as he said, but who broke it in halves, and subjected 

 one half to the most severe tests, totally failing, however, to 

 discover its component parts. The fracture of the stone has 

 slightly impaired its curative power, and in consequence I 



have heard the physician, Dottore , railed at in no very 



measured language by the Greeks. 



Sir Emerson Tennent gives an account of the 

 Pamboo Kaloo of Ceylon, which is employed for 

 the same purposes as the above, and the know- 

 ledge of such a use he thinks was probably 

 communicated to the Singhalese by the itinerant 

 snake-charmers of the Coromandel coast. " On 

 one occasion/' he writes, " in March, 1854, a 

 friend of mine was riding with some other civil 

 officers of the Government along a jungle path 

 in the vicinity of Bintenne, when they saw one 

 of two Tamils, who were approaching them, sud- 

 denly dart into the forest and return, holding in 

 both hands a cobra de capello, which he had 

 seized by the head and tail. He called to his 

 companion for assistance to place it in their 

 covered basket ; but in doing this he handled it 

 so inexpertly that it seized him by the finger 

 and retained its hold for a few seconds, as if 

 unable to retract its fangs. The blood flowed, 

 and intense pain appeared to follow almost im- 

 mediately ; but with all expedition the friend of 

 the sufferer undid his waistcloth, and took from 



