HPB-Caves-7: Difference between revisions

Before the temple there were rows of small shops and of tents, where could be bought all the requisites for the usual sacrifices – aromatic herbs, incense, sandal wood, rice and ''gulab'', the red powder with which the pilgrim sprinkles first the idol and then his own face. Fakirs, bairagis, hosseins, the whole body of the mendicant brotherhood, was present among the crowd. Wreathed in chaplets,  daubed their faces with bluish soot, with long uncombed hair twisted at the top of the head into a regular woman’s chignon, and with bearded faces, they presented a very funny likeness to naked apes. Some of them were awfully wounded due to self mortification of the flesh. We also saw some ''bunis'' (snake-charmers) with dozens of cobras, furzenas, and snakes round their waists, necks, arms, and legs – models well worthy of the brush of a painter who intended to depict the image of a male “fury”. One ''jadugar'' (sorcerer) was especially remarkable. His head was crowned with a turban of cobras. Expanding their hoods and raising their leaf-like dark green heads, these cobras hissed continuously with a heavy hiss of a dying person and so loudly that the sound was audible a hundred paces off.  Swiftly showing their thin stings<ref>The expression, “the sting of a snake,” is universal, but it does not describe accurately the process of bite. The “sting” of a snake (or its tongue) is perfectly harmless. To introduce the poison into the blood of a man, or of an animal, the snake must pierce the flesh with its fangs, not prick with its sting, something no snake ever do. Its needle-like eye teeth  communicate with a small bag (a poison gland under palate), and if this gland is cut out the cobra will not live more than two or three days. Accordingly, the supposition of some sceptics, that the ''bunis'' cut out this gland, is quite unfounded. </ref> they glittered with their small eyes with anger at the approach of every passer-by...  

Expecting probably to be well paid, the cobra-turbaned ''buni'' sent us a boy with the offer to exhibit his powers of snake-charming. Not willing to loose the opportunity, we agreed, but on condition that between us and his pets there should be what Mr. Disraeli would call a “scientific frontier.” We selected a spot about fifteen paces from the “magic circle.” I will not describe all the tricks and wonders that we saw, but will proceed at once to the main fact. With the aid of a ''vaguda'' (a kind of musical pipe of bamboo) the ''buni'' caused all the snakes to fall into a sort of cataleptic sleep. The melody that he played, monotonous, low, and original to the last degree, nearly sent us to sleep ourselves. At all events we all grew extremely sleepy without any apparent cause. We were aroused from this half lethargy by our friend Gulab-Sing, who gathered a handful of some grass, and advised us to rub our temples and eyelids with it. Then the ''buni'' produced from a dirty bag a kind of round stone, something like a fish's eye, or a black onyx with a white spot in the center, not bigger than a grivennik<ref>''Grivennik'' – a coin of 10 kopeek value, 1/10 of rouble. – Ed.</ref>. He declared that anyone who bought that stone would be able to charm any cobra (it would produce no effect on snakes of other kinds) paralyzing the creature and then causing it to fall asleep. Moreover, by his account, this stone is the only remedy for the bite of a cobra. You have only to place this talisman on the wound, where it will stick so firmly that it cannot be torn off until all the poison is absorbed into it, when it will fall off of itself, and all danger will be past...

“But the Government offers a reward for an antidote to the poison of the cobra. Why then do the ''bunis'' not claim it, rather than let thousands of people die helpless?”<ref>In India, from ''two'' to ''three thousand'' people die every year from being bitten by snakes. Last year, up to 15,000 people died because of tigers and snakes.</ref>

I do not take upon myself to offer, either a defense, or an explanation of the virtues of the “stone.” I simply state the facts and leave the future career of the story to its own fate. The skeptics may deal with it as they will. Yet I can easily find people in India who will bear witness to my accuracy. When Dr. Fayrer, who lately published his Thanatophidia, a book on the venomous snakes of India, a work well known throughout Europe, he categorically stated in it his disbelief in the wondrous snake-charmers of India and the following had happen. About a week or a fortnight after the book appeared among the Anglo-Indians, a cobra bit his own cook. A ''buni'', who happened to pass by, readily offered to save the man's life. The celebrated naturalist was going to order to push a ''buni'' out of threshold, but Major Kelly and other officers urged him to permit to ''try'' the experiment. Declaring that in spite of all, ''in an hour'' his cook would be no more, he gave his consent. But it happened that in an hour the cook was quietly preparing dinner in the kitchen for the honored scientist and his guests, and professor himself was going to  throw his book into the fire...