Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1886 — Tunisian Snake-Charmers. [ARTICLE]

Tunisian Snake-Charmers.

A few days after this, however, while walking in the suburbs of the city with the interpreter of the English legation, we came across a crowd of Arabs and Bedouins who were witnessing some kind of a performance or show that evidently was of intense interest. Pushing our way through the crowd as best we could to see what the attraction was, we found another seance of snakecharming in progress, this time presided over by two wild, weird-looking Bedouins, who the interpreter informed me were the most famous snakecharmers in the regency of Tunis. The ground in front of them was literally covered with snakes, of a larger and evidently of a fiercer species than those of the Ethiopian. Several of them, the interpreter informed me, were very venomous, and one of the Bedouins, in a wild, incoherent speech, was endeavoring to impress the fact upon his audience, and also that their poisonous fangs had not been extracted. Picking up one of the largest and most savagelooking, he would hold it at arm’s length and tantalize it until it would spring back and fasten its fangs into his face or some part of his body. Dropping it, he would then draw out from under his bernouse a small box of ointment and apply it to the wound, which, he claimed, removed all the poisonous effects. By the time he had finished this part of the entertainment the crowd of Arabs had largely increased, and had so far encroached upon the open space or ring where the show was being held that there was scarcely room for the snake-charmers to move about. To make the crowd fall back, one of the Bedouins adopted a quick and most effective remedy. Grasping from the ground the ugly fellow that had just been exhibiting its savage nature and venomous fangs, and which must have measured eight feet in length, he commenced running around the ring, and thrusting its angry head into the frightened faces of the spectators. The snake was standing out in a horizontal line, and the Bedouin was holding it about twothirds the distance from the head. As it came near the Arabs it would spring at them with its wide, open mouth, and its eyes flashing fire in a most diabolical manner. There was no hesitation in obeying the Bedouin’s command to fall back. I never saw a crowd gathered around a street show expand so suddenly as this. One tall Arab, who was on his knees leaning forward, intently watching the performance, not getting out of the way in time, was seized by the savage reptile, which fastened its fangs into the hood pf his bernouse, in close proximity to his nose. During the excitement that followed, and while the two Bedouins were endeavoring to unfasten the fangs of the serpent from the Arab’s hood, to which it was clinging with a deathlike grip, the other serpents on the ground commenced gliding quickly away in different directions, close at the heels of the panicstricken Arabs, who were running different ways, as if the poisonous serpents were in full chase, ready to fasten on to their bare feet.