After visiting the sugar-mill our friends went to the market-square of Minieh, where a juggler was amusing a crowd of natives with his tricks. His performances were not remarkable for any particular skill, but they served to entertain the people, though he did not succeed in drawing much money from them. After pretending to swallow knives, coins, and other inconvenient and indigestible things, he drew some snakes from a basket and twined them around his neck.
Everybody was inclined to stand at a respectful distance during this part of the show. Whenever the juggler wished to enlarge the circle of spectators, he put the snake on the ground, and the crowd immediately fell back without being invited to do so. The snake was a huge fellow, seven or eight feet long, and perfectly black. The Doctor said he was not dangerous, so far as his bite was concerned, as he belonged to the family of constrictors, and killed his prey by tightening his coils around it.
A SECURE POINT OF VIEW.
Doctor Bronson farther explained to the youths that the snake-charmers of Egypt are a peculiar class. They give exhibitions in the streets in front of houses, and when they do so the favorite place for seeing the show is an upper window or balcony, as in that case the spectator is out of the reach of any possible harm. There are several snakes in Egypt, but only two or three of them are poisonous. The cobra di capella, the famous hooded snake of India, is often carried about by the performers; but he is imported from the land of his nativity, and does not belong to the Valley of the Nile. Before he is used for show purposes he is deprived of his fangs, and is therefore harmless, but it is not a pleasing sight to see him strike as though he meant serious business.
The Egyptian snake-charmers have a way of making a living by going to houses, and pretending to discover that snakes are concealed about the walls. They offer to remove them for a stipulated sum, and their proposal is generally accepted. Then they begin a sort of incantation, calling upon the snake to come forth, and threatening him with death if he does not. In a little while the snake falls from the ceiling or from a crack in the wall, and is picked up by the performer and exhibited to the family as proof of his skill, and that he has earned his money.
"Of course it is strongly suspected," the Doctor continued, "that the charmer secretly liberates the snake, or hires a confederate to do so, in order that he may obtain pay for catching him. This is undoubtedly the case in many instances, as the performer generally operates in a room where there is little light, and nobody is inclined to come near him for fear of being bitten. But not infrequently he has to perform in an open court-yard where there are many spectators, and sometimes he is taken suddenly to a house, and carefully examined before he begins operations. His trick, if it be one, has never been discovered, and the Egyptian snake-charmer may be considered, on the whole, quite as skilful as his fellow-craftsman in India."
One of the most deadly serpents of Egypt is the asp, which was made famous centuries ago by Cleopatra. There is another poisonous snake called the naya; it is of a greenish-brown color, and has a hood that expands like that of the Indian cobra when the snake is enraged. Some authorities suppose that the serpent with which Cleopatra killed herself, after the death of Marc Antony, is none other than the naya. This is the snake which appears so often among the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and it was worshipped as the representative of one of the divinities in the days of the Pharaohs. A person who is bitten by a naya generally dies in a few minutes, and thus far no antidote has been discovered for its poison.
Sight-seeing among the temples and tombs of Upper Egypt began at Beni-Hassan, about fifteen miles above Minieh. The boat touched at the landing-place, and the natives came down in dozens, bringing their donkeys for the tourists to ride to the tombs, three miles away. The natives had a most villainous appearance, and the donkeys, while no doubt more honest than their owners, were, if possible, less respectable, so far as looks were concerned. The people at Beni-Hassan have long had a bad reputation, and they were so notorious for their thievery during the reign of Ibrahim Pacha that he sent a military force to destroy their village and scatter its occupants. The village has been rebuilt, and the people have assembled again, but neither has improved by the severe lesson given by the son of Mohammed Ali.