There are many extraordinary men in India. In Benares especially, but also in any other town, the shrivelled self-torturers called "fakirs" may be seen in the streets. They are stark naked save for a small loin-cloth. They are miserable and thin as skeletons, and their whole bodies are smeared with ashes. They sit motionless at the street corners of Benares, always in the same posture. One sits cross-legged with his arms stretched up. Try to hold your arms straight up only for five minutes, and you will feel that they gradually grow numb. But this man always sits thus. His arms seem to become fixed in this unnatural position. As he never uses them they wither away in time. Compared with his large head they might belong to a child. Another purposely extinguishes the light of his eyes by staring day after day straight at the sun with wide-open eyes. Among the curiosities of India are also the snake-charmers. There are several varieties of them, and it seems difficult to distinguish exactly between them. Some appear to be themselves afraid of the snakes they exhibit, while others handle them with a remarkable contempt of danger. Some pull out the snake's poison fangs so that they may always be safe, while others leave them in, and then everything depends on the charmer's skill and dexterity and the quickness with which he avoids the bite of the snake. It frequently happens that the charmer is bitten and killed by his own snakes. It is not true, as was formerly believed, that the snake-charmer can entice snakes out of their holes by the soothing tones of his flute and make them dance to his piping. The dancing is a much simpler affair. When the captured snake rears up and sways the upper part of his body to and fro, the charmer holds out some hard object, perhaps a fragment of brick. The snake bites, but hurts himself, and after a while gives up biting. Then the charmer can put his hand in front of the snake's head without being bitten. But when the snake is irritated he still assumes the same attitude of defence, swaying to and fro, and thus he seems to be dancing to the sound of the flute.