Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > British minstrel, and musical and literary miscellany

MUSICAL AND LITERARY MISCELLANY.
formance of the celebrated composition. But when
Duvemoy took up his horn to try the effect of his
fascinating powers on the animal — when he played
a few bars of" Chartnante Gabrielle," the creature,
all attention, mored nearer and nearer tu the
player, and was soon so wholly engrossed in the
"concord of sweet sounds," that it even condescended
to take a part in the performance, correctly marking
the time by agitating its ponderous trunk from riglit
to left, balancing to and fro its unwieldy body — nay,
even in producing from time to time some tones in
perfect unison with the instrument. When the
music had ceased, it knelt down, as if to render
homage to the performance of Monsieur Duvernoy,
caressed him with its trunk, and, in short, en-
deavoured, after its own manner, to express the
pleasure it had experienced from the unrivalled
talent of the performer. Hence it results that the
elephant is decidedly a lover of music ; but that it
prefers the soft simple strains of melody to the more
elaborate combinations of harmony, cannot be
doubted. His is a weighty suffrage; nor can one
accuse such an amateur of having no ear.
Professor Luigi Metoxa, of Rome, has published
an account of some singular experiments made by
him on snakes, in order to ascertain the truth of the
assertion of the ancients respecting those creatures
being affected by musical sounds. In the month
of July, 1822, he put into a large box a number of
different kinds of snakes, all vigorous and lively.
" An organ in the same room being then sounded,"
Bays the Professor, " the snakes no sooner heard
the harmonious tones than they became violently
agitated, attached themselves to the sides of the
box, and made every effort to escape." The elaphis
and the coluber esculapii, it was remarked, turned
towards the instrument. This experiment, it seems,
has since been several times repeated, and always
with the same results. — Dr. Busby's Orchestral
Anecdotes.
The following interesting narrative on the sub-
ject of" Snake Charming," by means of music, we
take from " Hours in Hindostan," a series of papers
in Bentley's Miscellany : —
I confess, when I heard that the snake-charmer
had arrived in the cantonment I was quite delight-
ed. Curious beyond measure to behold a specimen
of his powers, I repaired early to the Commandant's,
where I had agreed to breakfast, and afterwards
became one of the spectators of his attempts to en-
trap, by fascination, some of these reptiles. It had
long been suspected that Colonel E 's garden
was infested by more than one of these dreaded
monsters ; we therefore repaired thither, where we
found the juggler awaiting us. The man had
nothing extraordinary in his appearance — nothing
attractive in his eye or manner. He was as com-
mon a looking native as I had ever seen. To what
caste these people belong I know not; I rather sus-
pect a very low caste.
When we entered the enclosure, we at once de-
sired him to set about his task, which he did thus .
— He placed himself immediately in front of the
hole in which one of the serpents was supposed to
lurk, placing at the same time a kedyerec pot (an
earthen jar) near him, and desiring his assistant to
cover the reptile with it on a certain signal being
given. He then took Irom his kumerband (sash) a
small pipe, which he instantly began to play on, in
a style which, [ confess, seemed to me anything 6«f
likely to charm. Its noise was that of tlie smallest
and shrillest sized fife, only differing from that in-
strument in being played upon at the end, in the
same manner as a flageolet. The tune he per-
formed was monotonous and disagreeable.
For about ten minutes the piping of our juggler,
which he accompanied with strange contortions, had
no effect, and we were once or twice on the point
of turning away, when he entreated us by his looks
to remain, and watch the result. At the end of that
time we could see, by the fixedness of the man's eye,
that he saw his victim approaching; in another
instant the head of a large cobra capella peered from
the hole. We naturally shrank back. The charmer,
however, seemed rather delighted than dismayed as
the monster emerged from its earthy home. Pre.
sently its whole length appeared. A more magnifi-
cent snake I had never seen ; and I must admit that
it seemed fascinated bythe juggler, who now slowly
retreated a few paces, to show his power. As he
moved, the serpent moved ; when he stopped, the
serpent did the same. The eye of the snake seemed
magnetically riveted on that of the charmer, de-
pending on, and watching his every movement.
The man assured me afterwards that, had he ceased
to play for a single instant the cobra capella would
have sprang on him, and destroyed him. I cer-
tainly never saw anything more curious ; but I
must confess that the very close proximity of this
death-dealing monster was by no means pleasing to
my feelings.
When the man, followed at about five yards' dis-
tance by the snake, arrived at a smooth spot in the
middle of the garden, he suddenly squatted down,
and began to play louder, and more energetically
than before. The animal paused for a moment,
then raising itself, stood upright, reared on its tail,
in the same position as that which it often assumes
previous to making the fatal spring. Imagining
this to be the case, a trembling shudder went round
that portion of the party who had never before wit-
nessed a similar exhibition. The old hands, the
regular Qui His (a nickname given to Bengalees,)
stood perfectly unmoved. They were aware of what
was about to follow. The snake, thus painfully
poised, began a sort of bounding up and down,
keeping its eye steadily fixed on the musician, al-
most in time to the tune he was playing. Euro-
peans, who have never visited British India, may
doubt the fact ; but those who have been in the
East will bear me out in the truth of the following
assertion. The cobra capella actually danced for
several minutes on its tail, apparently charmed with
the uncouth music the juggler was playing. In the
meantime the native boy stole round, and on a cer-
tain signal given by his master, suddenly dropped
the kedgeree yot on the snake. A strong waxed
cloth was passed under it, drawn up, and tied.
The fatigued musician got up, salamed to the com-
pany, and earned his captive into the house, where
he had several others similarly imprisoned. In
about half an hour the same thing was repeated
with precisely similar effect. Out of the four snakes
said to lurk in the garden, one only escaped his fas.
cination, and this one failure he ascribed to the
presence of an evil eye amongst our followers.
Even in these remote parts the same superstition
respecting the " Evil Eye" exists, that tinges the
minds of half the students in the German Univer-
sities.