106 A Sportswoman in India 



extracted first. I am afraid I have lost my faith in 

 snake-charmers, and believe them to be only arrant 

 humbugs. 



One fine day, fresh out from home, one finds a 

 little cobra close to one's bungalow, and suspecting 

 it to be only one of a large family, sighs for a snake- 

 charmer, who would so the servants vehemently assert 

 eradicate the brood. Miraculously the prayer is 

 granted ; a man appears clutching a bagpipe, and is 

 soon piping lustily all over the compound. Suddenly 

 he stops before the wall, and pipes more alluringly 

 than ever : then you see him dart two or three 

 lightning-like shots at an enormous cobra in the 

 brickwork, which is half striking at him and half 

 trying to escape. 



At the third shot the snake-charmer has him by the 

 tail, and instantly running his other hand up to his 

 neck, he holds the cobra close to the head, making it 

 impossible for him to wriggle round and bite. The 

 snake-charmer then proceeds to force a little piece 

 of stick into the snake's mouth, in order to break 

 down the fangs. Fangs, I must tell you, of which 

 there are eight, lie right back on each side of the 

 palate, concealed in a membrane called the " gingival 

 fold," but in the act of striking they become erect, 

 the fold is pushed away, and the keen, white, hard, 

 enamelled teeth are driven deep into the flesh. Below 

 and behind the eye is the poison reservoir, in the 

 cobra about the size of an almond. Each tooth is 

 hollow, and is practically the tube of a syringe, through 



