1869-71 SERPENT-CHARMING 213 
corned — on entering the second room I noticed 
that a doorway led from it to a darkened apart- 
ment without other entry or exit. The charmer 
stood at this doorway, his legs apart, his arms on 
the lintel, his turbaned visage poked forward, and 
the incantation and whistling becoming more 
emphatic. I tried to get into the place, but there 
was no passing without shoving the fellow aside, 
and the boy loudly protested against my proximity 
and disturbance. The charmer next stretched 
forward the hand carrying his stick and tapped 
the wall of the darkened room ; then, suddenly 
turning round to us, exclaimed, according to my 
interpreter, “ The snake, my cousin, there he is ! ” 
and stepped down into the room. We followed, 
and a small specimen of the common harmless 
house-snake of Egypt {Cohiber atrovirens), half 
coiled in seemingly a semi-torpid or sluggish 
state, lay on the floor. On the supposition that 
it had been coaxed out of a chink in the wall, I 
should have expected to see some movement of 
the reptile or endeavour to escape ; but we were 
given to understand that it was charmed. The 
boy seized it behind the head, and, after I had 
inspected it, popped it into his bag, which 1 ob- 
served to contain others, apparently of the same 
kind. 
‘ We visited four or five other houses, in two 
of which a serpent on the floor was the result of 
the incantations and movements exhibited by the 
