The red book of animal stories/An Egyptian Snake Charmer

AN EGYPTIAN SNAKE CHARMER

Every one has heard of snake charmers. There are many of them in India, and not a few in Egypt too. They walked about the streets of Cairo—or used to do so, for I am speaking of a good many years ago—with boxes and baskets, which contained every imaginable kind of reptile. Whenever they came to what seemed a convenient spot for a performance of their art, they would sit down on the ground, and whilst two or three of them beat on tambourines, a couple more would fill their mouths with a herb, smelling rather like mint, and puff out perfumed clouds of smoke on every side.

When these preparations had been duly made, the sacks, boxes, or baskets were opened; the snakes shook themselves, hissing and wriggling, and began to dance a kind of jig, balancing themselves on the lower part of their bodies, in a way which delighted the spectators.

Besides giving these exhibitions, the snake charmers often go to houses, and after poking all round, at last tell the owners that they feel sure there are snakes hiding there. This is quite enough to cause alarm, for, naturally, no one likes to have such fellow-lodgers, and the snake charmer is paid a certain sum for each reptile he may catch, besides being given the snake itself. He pops it into a bag, and in due time it forms part of his corps de ballet.

Now the chief snake charmer in Cairo, whose name was Abd-el-Kerim, had for some time been prowling about the French Consulate, peering in at the doors and windows, and shaking his head in a manner which was far from encouraging.

The French Consul just then was a Monsieur Delaporte, and after a time the report reached him that the Consulate was infested by snakes.

Now, in the course of business, M. Delaporte had come across a good many centipedes, and a certain number of scorpions, but not even the tiniest little asp; so that he had considerable doubts as to the truth of the snake charmer's story. However, at the wish of some anxious friends who trembled at the dangers he might be running, M. Delaporte at last consented to send for Abd-el-Kerim.

The snake charmer was a man between fifty and sixty years of age, clad in a green turban and black robe—grave and dignified—as became his age and profession.

He saluted Delaporte by crossing his hands over his breast, and bowing low before him. Then he waited to be questioned.

'I have sent for you,' said the Consul, who spoke Arabic like a native, 'because I hear a report that there are several serpents in the house.'

The Arab turned his face to the wind, sniffed it up several times, and answered gravely: 'It is true: there are.'

'Oh, indeed! There are serpents?'

'Yes.' And the snake charmer sniffed again, and added, after a moment:

'I may even say that there are several—six of them at least.'

'You surprise me!' said Delaporte; 'and you will undertake to destroy them?'

'I will call them, and they will come.'

'Do so; I should like to see that.'

'You shall see it.'

So Abd-el-Kerim went out from the Consul's room, where this conversation had been held, and fetched in his three companions from the outer chamber. All four men sat down silently on the floor, and after placing their tambourines between their legs, filled their mouths with herbs and began to puff out sweet-scented clouds of smoke, crying: 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' all the time, while Abd-el-Kerim made a hissing, whistling sort of sound, which was intended to attract the serpents.

This went on for three or four minutes without any apparent result; but at the end of that time Delaporte saw about a score of scorpions crawl down the walk or from under the furniture and wriggle up to Abd-el-Kerim.

The Consul's unbelief was rather staggered by the sight of this strange procession. Some of the scorpions came down the mosquito curtains, some down the window blinds, others down the walls; till the thought of sleeping in such a haunted room was enough to make anyone shudder. But wherever they might come from, the scorpions all gathered round Abd-el Kerim, as sheep round a shepherd, and he picked them up by handfuls, and popped them in a goatskin sack.

'You see?' he asked Delaporte.

'Certainly, I see!—I see scorpions, and a great many scorpions, too; but I don't see any snakes.'

'You will see some,' replied Abd-el-Kerim.

And he began whistling in another key, whilst his companions re-doubled their clouds of smoke and their cries of 'Allah!'

And, true enough, to the extreme surprise of the Consul, in a little time a hissing sound, very much like the one Abd-el-Kerim was making, was heard from the sleeping alcove, and from under his bed M. Delaporte beheld a serpent more than four feet long advancing towards the snake charmer, head erect and unrolling his green coils as he glided along.

Delaporte had no difficulty in recognising the species. It was one of those deadly reptiles which the Arabs call taboric, and Europeans Cobra Capella.

Abd-el-Kerim seized the snake without ceremony by the throat, and was about to stuff it into his bag, when Delaporte stopped him.

'One moment,' he cried.

'What is it?' asked Abd-el-Kerim.

'That serpent was really in my room?'

'You saw it yourself.'

'Very good. Then, as whatever is found in my room belongs to me, be so good, instead of putting the serpent into your goatskin bag, to place it in this bottle.'

And he held out to Abd-el-Kerim a large, wide-necked glass jar filled with spirits of wine, of which he kept a supply in a cupboard ready for the preservation of some of the curious Nile fish sometimes brought him by the fishermen.

'But ——' began Abd-el-Kerim.

'There's no but in the matter,' said Delaporte. 'The serpent was in my house, consequently it is my property, not to mention that I pay you thirty piastres for it. Take care! If you raise any difficulties in the matter I shall begin to think that you put the creature there beforehand, and that it only came to your call because you had tamed it.'

Abd-el-Kerim saw that resistance was useless, and let the serpent glide from his hands into the jar.

Delaporte had a cork and string ready at hand; the cork was firmly tied down on the jar, and the serpent secured inside it.

'Any more?' asked Delaporte.

'Yes,' said Abd-el-Kerim, who did not choose to own himself beaten, and sure enough, after renewed cries and more clouds of smoke, a second serpent, a little smaller than the first, issued from beneath the chest of drawers, and came to Abd-el-Kerim.

Delaporte seized a second glass jar: 'Good,' said he, 'that will make a pair.'

Abd-el-Kerim drew a long face; but he was caught, and there was nothing for it but to give up the second serpent as he had done the first.

'Any more still?' inquired Delaporte.

'No, not here.'

'Where then?'

The snake charmer turned towards the next room.

'I smell one there,' said he.

The next room was the drawing-room.

'Let us go there, then,' said Delaporte. And taking a glass jar under each arm, he gave two others to his servant to carry, and led the way to the drawing-room.

There was one there. This one seemed to be a musical serpent, for he had taken refuge under the piano, and in spite of Abd-el-Kerim's manifest reluctance, this snake also promptly found its way into the jar.

'That is the third,' said Delaporte. 'And now, tell me, where are the rest? '

'There are three in the kitchen,' replied Ahd-el-Kerim, rather sadly.

'Very good,' said the Consul; 'that will just make up the half-dozen. Let us go to the kitchen.'

At the first call a serpent crawled from under the water-butt.

Abd-el-Kerim placed it in the fourth jar, with a deep sigh.

'Come, come, courage! I want my half-dozen!' said the Consul cheerfully.

'Enta tafessed el senaa!' cried the enraged Arab in reply, which, being translated, means 'Certainly you are a spoil sport.' But it was no use.

The snake charmer had to own himself beaten, and in order to save the last two serpents confessed his tricks.

Then Delaporte took pity on him and gave him forty francs, which Abd-el-Kerim pocketed greedily, but could not help murmuring: 'Four serpents which danced so well! They were worth more than that!'