A little after four o'clock my husband arrived, and, seated on the steps of the "Aviary," we witnessed some most astonishing performances. Before beginning his music, and while the women were girding themselves for action, the snake-charmer paid us some very startling and original compliments. All at once, seizing his bagpipe-like instrument and puffing out his polished black cheeks, he produced the same queer melody that I had first heard, with its endless reverberations, creating a strange effect upon one's nerves. The women kept time to these sounds by motions the most gently waving that one could conceive of. When the sounds were low and faint they waved their arms and bent downward in graceful undulating curves; then again, as the sounds began to be shrill and piercing, they raised their arms aloft, turned up their faces to the sky, and, poised on tiptoe, beat a rhythmic movement to the sound. The dance was in itself a wonder of grace and flexibility. But, strangest sight of all, the serpents were equally moved. In raising their heads they had thrown off the covers of the baskets, and presently every snake, large and small--and there were no less than six--had begun to take part in this dance, their eyes glistening, their forked tongues extended, their hoods spread to the utmost; they raised themselves on the abdomen and swayed their heads to and fro, following the movements of the charmers and seemingly ravished with the strange sounds. There was not a doubt in my mind, as I watched the serpents, that they distinguished the varieties of sound, for with every rise and fall of the music they kept time with their inflated hoods and slender forms.