CERASTES. 393 



serpent, only some from sex, and some from want 

 of age, had not the horns, though in every other 

 respect they could not be mistaken. Ibn Sina, 

 called by the Europeans Avicenna, has described 

 this animal very exactly. He says it is frequent 

 in Schem (that is, the country about the south of 

 Damascus), and also in Egypt ; and he makes a 

 very good observation on their manners ; that they 

 do not go or walk straight, but by contracting 

 themselves ; but in the latter part of his descrip- 

 tion he seems not to have known the serpent he is 

 speaking of, because he says its bite is cured in 

 the same manner as that of the Viper and Cerastes, 

 by which it is implied that the animal he was de- 

 scribing was not a Cerastes, and the Cerastes is 

 not a Viper, both of which assertions are false." 



A long dissertation," adds Mr. Bruce, "would 

 remain on the incantation of serpents. There is 

 no doubt of its reality : the Scriptures are full of 

 it : all that have been in Egypt have seen as many 

 different instances as they chose. Some have 

 doubted that it was a trick, and that the animals so 

 handled, had been first trained, and then disarmed 

 of their power of hurting ; and, fond of the disco- 

 very, they have rested themselves upon it, without 

 experiment, in the face of all antiquity. But I 

 will not hesitate to aver, that I have seen at Cairo 

 (and this may be seen daily, without trouble or 

 expence), a man who came from above the Cata- 

 combs, where the pits of the mummy birds are 

 kept, who has taken a Cerastes with his naked 

 hand, from a number of others lying at the bottom 

 V. III. p. II. 26 



