Would you like to know something more about these great snakes? Many stories are told of them, but the trouble is that these are not all true. Thus we are told of pythons forty feet long and able to kill and swallow a goat or antelope, horns and all. The fact is, that they are never seen more than twenty feet long, usually little more than ten. And though they can kill a goat or antelope, they cannot swallow any animal larger than a small dog.
The python and the boa-constrictor are much alike, but they do not live in the same countries, the python dwelling in the Old World and the boa in the New World. They lurk near water, hiding in the bushes or in the trees, where they are ready to seize small animals that come to drink. These they slowly swallow. Winding their tails around the limb of a tree, they can hang down and seize any animal passing beneath.
But it was not these big snakes, but the doings of the snake charmers, I set out to talk about and to this I must return. We hear of snakes being charmed as we hear of forty foot pythons, but the fact is that there seems to be no charming of the snake at all. When the snake goes through what is called "dancing" one would suppose it had been trained. We know that this is not the case from the fact that the moment a snake has been captured a snake-charmer is able to make it "dance."
Reproduced by Permission of the Philadelphia Museum
Hindu Snake Charmers with the Deadly Cobras
What is called the snake dance is a natural habit of the cobra, which raises its head and one-third of its body above the ground and sways about in the air while the charmer is playing on his pipe. The cobra has poor sight and poor hearing and certainly no ear for music. What it lifts itself in this way for is a chance to strike its enemy. It can strike only with the part of its body that is lifted up and this the charmer knows and can easily keep out of reach.
The cobra is a very deadly serpent. It kills thousands of persons every year in India with its fatal bite. Yet it can be tamed and taught to make itself at home. It can even be made to take the part of a house dog. At any rate Major Skinner, an English officer in India, tells us this snake tale:
"In one family near Negombo cobras are kept as protectors in the place of dogs, by a wealthy man who has always large sums of money in his house, and this is not a solitary case of the kind.... The snakes glide about the house, a terror to the thieves, but never attempting to harm the inmates."