The first of these is the worship paid to the serpent by the high-caste Brahmans, who adopted the early serpent-worship from the non-Aryan populations, placing the serpent, as a symbol of the masculine energy of the world, in the hand and sometimes around the head of Brahma, the chief god of their trinity; they adroitly represent that on the day sacred to the serpent, Krishna, their last incarnation, slew the great serpent Kali, who was just in the act of swallowing up the sun and moon. The second is the worship made to the serpent-gods carved in their temples by the non-Aryan and low-caste races of India, by whom the serpent is regarded in the light of a benefactor and friend, and to whom it was at one time customary to offer annually a human victim to propitiate its deadly sting. And, last of all, is the worship paid to it by the professional snake-charmer, to whom the art of taming the serpent has been transmitted from father to son, and in whose eyes the serpent is an oracle of wisdom, the harbinger of all good things, and last, but not least, a means of livelihood to the tribe. On the last day of the waning moon at the end of July we rode out, accompanied by a party of friends, to the native part of the city, where we were told the chief of the serpent-worshippers were assembled. Here we found an immense throng of men and women gayly dressed, bands of handsome dancing-girls in flowing veils and glittering jewels, and rows of young maidens beautifully attired, with offerings of rice and milk, and some with fruit and flowers tastefully arranged in baskets which they carried on their heads; others with baskets filled with such flowers as serpents are reported to delight in--the champu, the marigold, the water-lily, the tuberose, and quantities of the snake-plant commonly called _sampkèmah_, "the mother of the serpent." We passed through the crowd and succeeded in reaching the centre of a great _maidan_, or open plain, where we stood. Not far off clustered a vast number of serpents, with their charmers and worshippers. Immediately behind this curious assembly was a temple dedicated to the snake-god. From within these walls the lights, kept burning in great numbers, could be seen pale and ghastly amid the daylight, and the sounds of the tomtom and gongs beat in honor of the idol were heard; some noble old peepul trees surrounded the temple. Right in front of the temple were placed great basins containing milk and a preparation of rice and milk called _khir_, for the serpents. Those, however, that fed out of the basins were mostly all tame; they coiled in and out and round about the worshippers in a careless and easy manner. But farther on, beyond the stone basins and amid flowers and floods of sunshine, women dancing and men and boys singing, might be seen the deadly cobra de capellos now and then inflating their hoods and keeping time to the music.