The Power of Music / In which is shown, by a variety of pleasing and instructive anecdotes, the effects it has on man and animals.

by Anonymous

THE DANCING SNAKES.

The dancing snakes are carried in baskets throughout Indostan, and procure a maintenance for a set of people, who play a few simple notes on the flute: with which these snakes seem much delighted, and keep time by a graceful motion of the head, erecting about half their length from the ground, and following the music with gentle curves, like the undulating lines of a swan’s neck. It is a well attested fact, that when a house is infested with these snakes, and some others of the coluber genus, which destroy poultry and small domestic animals, as also by the larger serpents of the boa tribe, the musicians are sent for; who, by playing on a flageolet, find out their hiding places, and charm them to destruction: for no sooner do the snakes hear the music, than they come softly from their retreat, and are easily taken. It is imagined, that these musical snakes were known in Palestine, from the Psalmist comparing the “ungodly to the deaf adder, which stoppeth her ears, and refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.”

When the music ceases, the snakes appear motionless, but, if not immediately covered up in the basket, the spectators are liable to fatal accidents.

M. de Chateaubriand.