cobras. These he professes to charm from their holes
by playing upon an instrument which may have some hereditary connection
with the bagpipe, for it has an air-reservoir consisting of a large
gourd, and it makes a most abominable noise. As soon as the cobra shows
itself the charmer catches it by the tail with one hand, and, running
the other swiftly along its body, grips it firmly just behind the jaws,
so that it cannot turn and bite. Practice and coolness make this an easy
feat. Then the poison fangs are pulled out with a pair of forceps and
the cobra is quite harmless. It is kept in a round, flat basket, out of
which, when the charmer removes the lid and begins to play, it raises
its graceful head, and, expanding its hood, sways gently in response to
the music.

Scientific men aver that a snake has no ears and cannot possibly hear
the strains of the pipe, but that sort of science simply spoils a
picturesque subject like the snake-charmer. So much is certain, that all
snakes cannot be played upon in this way: there are some species which
are utterly callous to the influences to which the cobra yields itself
so readily. No missionary will find any difficulty in getting a
snake-charmer to appreciate that Scripture text about the deaf adder
which will not listen to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so
wisely.

To these two occupations the snake-charmer adds that of a medicine man,
for who should know the occult potencies of herbs and trees so well as
he? So, as he wanders from village to village, he is welcomed as well as
feared. But one wealthy tourist is worth more to him than a whole
village of ryots, so he keeps his eye on every town in which he is
likely to fall in with the travelling white man. And the travelling
white man would be sorry to miss him, for he is one of the few relics of
an ancient state of things which railways and telegraphs and the
Educational Department have left unchanged.

The itinerant jeweller and the Sind-work-box-walla are unmistakably
being left behind as the East hurries after the West, and we shall soon
know them no more. Showy shops, where the inexperienced traveller may
see all the products of Sind and Benares, and Cutch and Cashmere, spread
before him at fixed prices, are multiplying rapidly and taking the bread
from the mouth of the poor hawker. But the snake-charmer seems safe from
that kind of competition. It is difficult to forecast a time when a
broad signboard in Rampar