remember, at a lame mummy’s crutch, found with him in his coffin, on which it is possible the original owner hopped away from the plague of frogs.  An old rural Arab of respectable appearance was standing at the Consul’s door, holding in his hand the crooked stick which an Arab keeps to recover the halter of his camel if he happens to lose it while mounted, and presenting altogether a parallel to a substantial yeoman with his riding-whip, come to town to do a little justice business with the Mayor.  A stable-keeper came and said, that two snakes had made their appearance in the stable; on which the Arab, being no more in the habit of fearing such vermin than a European farmer of fearing rats, proceeded towards the stable, and I followed him.  Sure enough there were two snakes in dalliance in the horse’s stall; and my construction was, that it was the poor animals’ St. Valentine.  The Arab, however, ruthlessly smote them with his gib stick, in a way that showed an exact comprehension of what would settle a snake; and brought them hanging by the tails and still writhing with the remains of life, and laid them at the threshold of the house.  I looked at the snakes, and felt a strong persuasion that they were of a harmless kind; but whether they were or not, was of small moment as the Arab treated them.

I remember in India once driving one of the snake-jugglers to discovery.  He told the servants there were snakes in the stable; and offered to produce one.  He accordingly went, with piping and other ceremonies, and soon demonstrated a goodly cobra de capello struggling by the tail.  He secured this in his repertory of snakes, and said he thought there was another; on which he went through the same operations again.  Though he had been too quick for me on both occasions, I offered him a rupee to produce a third, which he agreed to; and this time I saw the snake’s head, struggling rather oddly in his nether garments.  He ran into the horse’s stall, rushed forward with a shriek to distract attention, and then I saw him jerk out a snake of some four feet long, and drag it backwards by the tip of the tail as if desperately afraid of it.  Knowing his snakes must be an exhaustible quantity, I proffered a second rupee for another, taking care to keep between him and the snake-basket; which he declined.  But on turning round and giving him a chance to communicate with his receptacle, he quickly presented himself with the assurance that now he thought he knew where a serpent might be lodged.  The Indian servants all devoutly believed in his skill; but it is impossible not to be ashamed of Europeans, who adorn their books with marks of similar gullibility.—­Abridged from Tait’s Edinburgh Mag.

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Notes of a Reader

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RECREATIONS IN THE LAW.