In her interesting "Letters from Egypt," Lady Duff-Gordon gives an amusing account of the manner in which she was formally initiated into the mysteries of snake-charming, and made ever afterwards impervious to the bite of venomous Serpents:-- "At Kóm Omboo, we met with a Rifáee darweesh with his basket of tame snakes. After a little talk, he proposed to initiate me: and so we sat down and held hands like people marrying. Omar [her attendant] sat behind me, and repeated the words as my 'wakeel.' Then the Rifáee twisted a cobra round our joined hands, and requested me to spit on it; he did the same, and I was pronounced safe and enveloped in snakes. My sailors groaned, and Omar shuddered as the snakes put out their tongues; the darweesh and I smiled at each other like Roman augurs." She believed that the snakes were toothless; and perhaps on this occasion they may have been so. Extracting the teeth of the Serpent is an easy business in experienced hands, and is conducted in two ways. Those snake-charmers who are confident of their own powers merely grasp the reptile by the neck, force open its jaws with a piece of stick, and break off the fangs, which are but loosely attached to the jaw. Those who are not so sure of themselves irritate the snake, and offer it a piece of cloth, generally the corner of their mantle, to bite. The snake darts at it, and, as it seizes the garment, the man gives the cloth a sudden jerk, and so tears away the fangs. Still, although some of the performers employ mutilated snakes, there is no doubt that others do not trouble themselves to remove the fangs of the Serpents, but handle with impunity the cobra or the cerastes with all its venomous apparatus in good order. We now come to the second branch of the subject, namely, the influence of sound upon the cobra and other Serpents. The charmers are always provided with musical instruments, of which a sort of flute with a loud shrill sound is the one which is mostly used in the performances. Having ascertained, from slight marks which their practised eyes easily discover, that a Serpent is hidden in some crevice, the charmer plays upon his flute, and in a short time the snake is sure to make its appearance. As soon as it is fairly out, the man seizes it by the end of the tail, and holds it up in the air at arm's length. In this position it is helpless, having no leverage, and merely wriggles about in fruitless struggles to escape. Having allowed it to exhaust its strength by its efforts, the man lowers it into a basket, where it is only too glad to find a refuge, and closes the lid. After a while, he raises the lid and begins to play the flute. [Illustration: TEACHING COBRAS TO DANCE.]