APPENDIX 405 



the momentary differences in feeling; and had the way in 

 -which flie died not been ordinary and ufual, flie certainly 

 would not have applied herfelf to the invention of a new 

 one. We are therefore to look upon her dying by the bite 

 of the Ceraftes, as only following the manner of death which 

 Ihe had feen commonly adopted by thofe who were intend- 

 ed to die without torment. 



Galen fpeaking of the Afpic in the great city of Alex- 

 andria, fays, I have feen how fpeedily they (the afpics) occa- 

 •fioned death. Whenever any perfon is condemned to die 

 whom they wifh to end quickly and without torment, they 

 put the viper to his breaft, and fufFering him there to creep 

 a little, the man is prefently killed. Paufanias fpeaks of 

 particular ferpents that were to be found in Arabia among 

 the balfam trees, feveral of which I procured both alive 

 and dead, when I brought the tree from Beder Hunein ; 

 but they were ftili the fame fpecies of ferpent, only fome 

 from fex, and fome from want of age, had not the horns, 

 though in every other refped they could not be miftaken. 

 Ibn Sina, called by Europeans Avicenna, has defcribed this 

 animal very exactly ; he fays it is frequent in Shem (that is 

 the country about and fouth of Damafcus) and alfo in 

 Egypt ; and he makes a very good obfervation on their 

 manners ; that they do not go or walk ftraight, but 

 move by contracting themfelves. But in the latter part of 

 his defcription he feems not to have known the ferpent he 

 is fpeaking of, becaufe he fays its bite is cured in the fame 

 manner as that of the viper and Ceraftes, by which it is 

 implied, that the animal he was defcribing was not a Ceraf- 

 tes, and the Ceraftes is not a viper, both which aiTertions 

 are falfe. 



E e 2 The 



