CHAPTER VIII

Snakelore, Relics, and Fossils

" I am so fraught with curious business that I leave out ceremony."SHAKESPEARE.

HE snake- charmers of the district are called

ber, reside in a few villages of this district, engagein agriculture during the rains, and in the dry monthswander away to great distances with their curiouspets, which they exhibit, and thus make a precariousliving. I have called them snake- charmers, but theydo not charm with music, for I have yet to see theGouriya like-

" Some chattering snake- tamer

Wind round his wrist the living jewellery

Of asp and nag, and charm the hooded deathTo angry dance with drone of beaded gourd."

They wear the peculiarly twisted narrow turbanwhich is characteristic of the Indian snake- charmer.They have attached to their turbans a few clawsof bears or tigers and the talons of hawks or largebirds of some kind. The snakes usually carriedaround are the Python molurus and two varietiesof the cobra, one with the spectacles and theother without them. The cobra with the mark on

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