ON SYMPATHY AND FASCINATION. 



237 



sensorial power is exhausted. There are various other cases, however, in 

 which, to this moment, we are as ignorant, and as little capable of tracing it, 

 as mankind must have been in regard to the animals before us, antecedently 

 to a discovery of the electric aura. And I here particularly allude to the 

 torpid effects produced upon poisonous serpents and scorpions in Africa and 

 America, on their being handled by persons of two different descriptions ; the 

 one possessing this torpifying power naturally and hereditarily, and the other 

 acquiring it by artificial preparation; such as chewing the roots or other 

 parts of certain plants, rubbing them in their hands, or bathing the body in 

 aqueous infusions of them, and thus impregnating the body of the operator 

 with their virtues. 



There appears to be no country in the world so much infested with ser- 

 pents of this kind as the ancient Cyrenaica, or that part of Africa which lies 

 northward of the great desert of Sahara. Among the different tribes that 

 formerly inhabited this region, one of the most celebrated was the Psylli ; 

 and as this tribe seems to have been in full possession of this power, either 

 from art or nature, and to have given the strongest and most extraordinary 

 proofs of its having possessed it, all persons capable of exerting a similar 

 effect were denominated Psylli by the Greek and Roman writers. And hence 

 Plutarch tells us, that when Cato pursued his march through the Cyrenaic 

 desert in search of Juba, he took with him a variety of these Psylli to suck 

 out the poison from the wounds of such of his soldiers as should be bitten by 

 the numerous serpents of the country. 



It appears most probable that the Psylli were not naturally protected against 

 this venom, but from long and skilful practice were acquainted with the vir- 

 tue of those plants which, as I have just hinted, answer both as a preserva- 

 tive against the bite, and as an antidote after the bite has been inflicted : and, 

 being strongly addicted to divination or pretended magic, as all the historians 

 who have given us any account of them affirm them to have been, affected to de- 

 rive their power of subduing poison from this preternatural source alone, and 

 inculcated the belief that they could only exercise it, by muttering or chant- 

 ing some potent verse or spell over the person who was affected. And hence 

 the disarming a serpent of his capacity of poisoning, or disarming the poison 

 itself of its deadly effect after a wound had been received, was denomi- 

 nated charming or incantation. So Silius Italicus,* in allusion to the Psylli, 

 or their neighbours, the Marmarides, lib. iii. : 



Ad quorum cantus mites jacufire Cerastes. 

 The horned snake lies harmless at their song. 



This sort of power, derived from art or nature, and probably originating m 

 this quarter of the world, appears to have been known in the remotest ages, 

 and to have been uniformly ascribed to the same influence of certain magical 

 words or verses chanted, or uttered in recitative ; and it appears also to have 

 been very generally conjectured, that there exists some kinds or species of 

 poisonous serpents that are capable of shutting their ears against the sounds 

 thus uttered, and that will not hearken to or be charmed by the voice of the 

 enchanter, however skilful the enchantment. 



The sacred books abound in allusions to this popular tradition ;f they are 

 equally to be met with in the writings of the Greek and Roman poets, and 

 even in the Sanscrit moralists, as, for example, in the Hitopadesa of Vishnu- 

 sarman, probably of a higher antiquity than the Psalmist himself, who tells us 

 in his book of aphorisms, that " as a charmer draweth a serpent from his 

 hole, so a good wife, taking her husband from his place of torture, enjoyeth 

 happiness with him."J 



* See also Virgil, JEn. vii. 753, in which he ascribes the salutiferous power both to the song and touch of 

 the enchanter. 



Vipereo generi et graviter spirantibus hydris 

 Spargere qui somnos cantuquk manuque solebat, 

 Mulcebatque Iras, et morsus arte levabat. 

 t Ps. Mil. 5, as also Jer. viii. 17, Deut. xviii. 11. % Transl. of Sir William Jones. 



