100 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
opinion among their superstitious dupes, that they 
always continue to retain an influence as morally per- 
nicious as it is socially degrading. 
Mr. Forbes, in his Oriental Memoirs, relates a cir- 
cumstance which completely eclipses the magnetising 
of Mesmer, and leaves the question still one to be an- 
swered, whether other mortals besides Faust have not 
their Mephistophiles. “ At Baroche,” says he, “I was 
intimate with a Banian, named Lullabhy, the richest 
man in the city, and of great influence in the Pur- 
gunna. He was universally believed to possess the 
power of curing the bite of venomous serpents by a 
knowledge peculiar to himself, which he never im- 
parted to another. By this art he certainly recover- 
ed many natives from a desperate state, after being 
wounded by the Cobra de Capello and the scarlet snake 
of Cubbeer-Bur, without touching the patient, or pre- 
scribing anything inwardly. The talent of Lullabhy 
seemed to have no affinity with that of the ancient 
Psylli, or the modern snake-charmers, but probably 
was not unlike the science professed by Mesmer and 
Doctor de Mainoduc. Be that as it may, his fame for 
effecting these cures was everywhere established. Mr. 
Perrott, then second in council, and some other of the 
civil servants at Baroche, were satisfied with a cure of 
which they had been frequent witnesses/’ 
“ Of all the Europeans I am acquainted with in 
India, Mr. Robert Gambier, at that time chief of 
Baroche, was, perhaps, the most incredulous respect- 
ing talismans, charms, divinations, and preternatural 
pretensions of the Brahmins. His opinion of Lulla- 
bhy’s talent was publicly known. A circumstance in 
