The Sun.
London, England, 1834-07-09 00:00:00

SNAKE-STONES.

It is well known to sojourners in India, that a certain
class, or caste, as we call it, of Hindus, are snake charm-
ers, or catchers. They are called Sanzpoori—and perhaps
by other names, derived from their " dreadful trade," as it.
may seem to be. But they "bear a charmed life," as they
tell you, by virtue of the " snake-stone ;" this being taken
out of the head of the reptile, he is no longer venomous.
It is the beautiful species that the Portuguese, and we
after them, call cobra capel, which exclusively, I believe.
" wears the precious jewel in its crown." It is usual for
the samporee, when exhibiting his tamed snakes to griffin,.
as newly-imported writers and cadets are called ; and who,
by their air, gape, &c., are at once known to the shrewd
impostor—to suffer himself to be bitten by the seemingly
enraged reptile, till he bleed. He then, in haste, terror,
and contortion, seeks a " snake stone," which he is never
without, and sticks it on the wound, to which it adheres.

Ina minute or two the venom is extracted, the bitten re-
covers, and the stone falls off, or is removed. If put into
a glass of wafer, it sinks, and emits small bubbles every
half-score seconds. This is the usual test of its genuine-
ness ; and it is odd if no one will give a rupee, or half a
rupee, for such a curiosity. I have bought several when I
could ill afford it. They are usually of a dark hue ; but
not always of one colour ; flat, like a tamarind stone, and
about the size, and nearly round. These are the genuine
ones ; and I declare that I am by no means certain at this
day, although I have called the sanzpuri an impostor, that
they are not genuine ; that is, not actually taken out of
the reptile's head. Be that as it may, I have been suffi-
ciently often imposed on by my friends the sampuri, to
warrant my application of the term. I will add a word
or two of particulars. After having purchased, perhaps,
half-a-dozen genuine snake-stones of the above descrip-
tion, duly tested, one of these gentry brought me one
nearly transparent. This I bought ; and another, and an-
other, till I acquired a score or two, of different sorts and
sizes—and I began to suspect I was not one of the wisest
men in the world. I still retain the box of stones, and have
not altogether relinquished the suspicion. Those beautiful
creatures, the cobra capella, sometimes lodge in or about
your house or out-houses. On being seen or sus-
pected—your shrewd servant may suspect, on being feed by
the sampori—you send for the artist, who, on promise that
you will not kill the snake, proceeds to catch him. This he
effects by piping on a calabash all about your premises, espe-
cially about your diminished poultry-yard, diminished, pos-
sibly, by the carryings of your said servant. When you may
not be very intently observing, a sudden shout, spring, and
fall by the sanzpori, announce the caption of your intrusive
neighbour. He is produced—the exulting captor holding
him at arm's length by the nape of the neck, the eyes of
both sparkling and starting ; the reptile writhing and wrig-
gling itself round the man's arm, neck, &c., till the col-
lected family are frightened half out of their wits. The
victor now squats down, and, with an iron stile, forces open
the jaws of the snake ; and, before your face, compels bins
to disgorge the bloody " precious jewel." If bitten, he ap-
plies it as before described ; and reluctantly accepts half a
rupee for it, if more cannot be obtained. The reader man,
or may not, guess that this is all a farce. There was no,
snake. The servant ate the fowls ; got a quarter of a rupee
from a friendly samporee, who brought a snake in his
sash ; and at a favourable unobserved moment loosed it,
and at another favourable unobserved moment caught it.
Amid the writhings of the snake, and its suitable accompaiui'
ments, a little manual dexterity is sufficient to elude your
vision ; and the stone is, or seems to be, cleverly extracted.
But sometimes there is a snake really domiciled with you.
I lived at Byculla, two miles from the fort of Bombay.
The foundation of my nice little house was raised a foot or
two with masonry ; and, from between two large stones in
the front, we often saw and watched the protrusion of a
snake's head and shoulders. We could never find him
wholly out, so as to give any chance of chace and capture ;
nor could I catch him with a noosed string. I did not
choose, from certain feelings or prejudices, to have him shot,
and resolved to send for a sampuri to catch him. My old
and esteemed friend General Benjamin Forbes, then a
captain in the 75th Highlanders, was my very near neigh-
bour ; and I invited him to come and see the tanuzsha, or
amusement, of catching my snake, at whose head and
shoulders he had more than once wished to direct his
gun. The sanzpori came—and, after due piping, seduced
the snake from his hiding place, caught him, and extracted
the stone, in the way already described, before our faces.
A clever Parsee servant had reminded us that we had
lately lost many fowls, adding that he should not wonder if
there was another sanzp, somewhere near the fowl-house.
Thither we went ; and, after the usual ceremonials, sure
enough another was caught. I smelt a rat ; and, causing
the exulting catcher to bring his writhing captive into the
veranda, watched narrowly the lithotomic process. At the
proper moment, I, to the great astonishment of my friend
Forbes and the other spectators, seized the snakeless hand
of the operator, and there found, to his dismay, perdue in
his well-closed palm, the intended-to-be-extracted stone.
The fellow made a full and good-humoured confession of
the trick, as touching the second snake and the concealed
stone ; but stoutly maintained that he fairly caught the
first ; and that, although the semi-transparent, amber-like
stones were altogether fictitious, the opaque concretion was
sometimes, though not often, found in the reptile's head ;
and that it really had some of the virtues ascribed to it.
He good-humouredly blamed me for exposing him, hinting
that credulity was the easy parent of craft ; and some-
what slyly said something Hudibrastically equivalent to the
assertion that—

.The pleasure is as great

In being cheated, as to cheat.
After all, I repeat my confession that I, unphilosophically,
retain a portion of my early belief, that some individuals of
the serpent tribe elaborate a concretion in their palate ; nor
can I entirely shake off the belief that it has some anti-poi-
sonous virtue. lam clearly no chemist. If any such have
a desire to analyse snake-stones—(J never read of its
been hav-
ing
sem-
semi-transparent
les are,confessedly,sedly, of a composition
mine shall be at his disposal.
The
called in India, and, I believe, in England, sandarac-1a or
false amber.—Oriental Fragments.

Yesterday afternoon, while some men were em-
ployed in digging the ground in front of a new house in a
Eagle-place,msikshtielyen,tedoenis.coosfTvoaemhreeemrdea,suno removing
:fah: ige murderedatf: leeram'ciert former custom, circumstance
ali
street leading from Jermyn-street to a stable-yard,
and others, was es-tYiard'll some hair
on the head ; but it was evident that the bodythemeuartst hhat:embakeene
Thoving
committed suicide, were many conjectures respect
interred mail), years.
posed it to be the remains o
that it was of an individual w
attended the anhederhoassd-rote.n berhurie7l, accordhig
umation, prior to a Coroner's
body. inquest on
parish bea