force of spells or skill, compel the cobra di capello, the most deadly and terrible of reptiles, to rear himself in spiry volumes, and dance, or rather wriggle, like a Nautch girl, for the amusement of the crowd. But the Egyptian charmers did something better with serpents and other reptiles than teaching them to dance; they converted them into articles of food; and Dr. Shaw was assured that in Cairo and its neighbourhood there were not less than forty thousand persons who subsisted entirely upon serpents and lizards. Locusts are a delicacy in Barbary; crickets, fried in sesamum oil, in Siam; and a dish of human brains is an Apician morsel in New-Zealand. Nay, we are told that certain Roman epicures, who were very far from regarding themselves as cannibals, were in the habit of drowning slaves in their fish-ponds, that by feeding upon their bodies the fish might acquire a superior flavour and richness. The Abyssinians, who cut beef-steaks from a living cow, belong to this family of gourmands; and those rebel janizaries of Tunis who cut their bey into kabobs, and ate him for a relish, as Dr. Shaw relates, may be said to have pushed this strange, irregular appetite nearly as far as it can be carried. However, the serpent-eaters of Cairo, besides the gratification of their preposterous fancy, have a religious motive, as the being addicted to this curious diet entitles them, among other religious privileges, to the honour of attending more immediately upon the hanging of black silk which is annually sent to the temple of Mecca.
In reiterated endeavours to discern through the mists of three thousand years the ancient condition of Egypt, physical and moral, our traveller consumed the time between July and September, in which month he departed from Cairo on his visit to Mount Sinai and the Red Sea. All travellers who have journeyed through this wilderness speak with terror of the dreary desolation and barrenness of the scene. Vegetation is
