38 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



them, med bankar ocli bord uti, which were now all 

 full of swarming crowds of people, folk-skackar, of 

 both sexes. 



[T. I. p. 404.J The 16th May, 1748. 



Ormar handterade med hander. Snakes handled 



with hands. 



We saw to-day as well as on the previous days a 

 common man clad in rags, who had a large collection of 

 living Vipers and snakes, Hugg-ormar och Snokar, 

 which he went and carried about in the streets, dem 

 han gick och bar omkring pa gatorna, to show to 

 folk for money, at visa at folk for penningar. He 

 could handle them with his hands quite quietly, and 

 without the snakes offering in the least to bite him, 

 utan at Ormarne bodo det ringaste til, at hugga 

 honom. He had a bag, pase, in which he laid them, and 

 when anyone gave him " en halfpence," he took them out 

 with his hands, either one after another or also by the hand- 

 full, as many as he could hold. Often to awaken more 

 astonishment, he stuffed either a viper or a snake whole 

 into his mouth, antingen en Huggorm eller en 

 Snok helt och hallen in uti munnen pa sig, and 

 kept his mouth shut for a little while, and then opened 

 his mouth and let the snake crawl out of it. When he 

 slipped them on the ground they sought to run away. He 

 said he had sometimes been bitten in the thumb by -them 

 when he had caught them ; but he knew such an antidote 

 for it, et sadant bot derfore, that it could not do him 

 any harm ; yet he would not make known what it con- 

 sisted in. That the snakes, snokarne, did not do him 

 any harm was no wonder, but how he managed with the 

 vipers, men huru han bar sig at med Huggor- 

 marna, I know not. This I saw, that they not only did 

 not offer to bite him but also when a stick was pointed 



