The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 32, June, 1860: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 32, June, 1860: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
"I will tell you, Sir. A minar was chased by a small hawk, and, in despair,
came and perched itself on the top of a most lofty tomb at which I was at
work. The hawk, with his eyes fixed intently on his prey, did not, I fancy,
see the snake lying motionless in the grass; or, if he did see him, he did
not think he was a snake, but something else,--my crowbar, perhaps. After a
little while, the hawk pounced down, and was just about to give the minar a
blow and a grip, when the snake suddenly lifted his head, raised his hood,
and hissed. The hawk gave a shriek, fluttered, flapped his wings with all
his might, and tried very hard to fly away. But it would not do. Strong as
the eye of the hawk was, the eye of the snake was stronger. The hawk, for a
time, seemed suspended in the air; but at last he was obliged to come down
and sit opposite the old gentleman, (the snake,) who commenced with his
forked tongue, and keeping his eyes on him all the while, to slime his
victim all over. This occupied him for at least forty minutes, and by the
time the process was over the hawk was perfectly motionless. I don't think
he was dead,--but he was very soon, however, for the old gentleman put him
into a coil or two and crackled up every bone in the hawk's body. He then
gave him another sliming, made a big mouth, distended his neck till it was
as big round as the thickest part of my arm, and down went the hawk like a
shin of beef into a beggar-man's bag." [Footnote: _Household Words_,
Jan. 23, 1858, vol. xvii., P. 139.]
The same writer, in another paper, relates a case in which he was cured of
a violent attack of _tic-douloureux_, from which he "suffered extreme
agonies," by the steady gaze of a native doctor, who was called in for the
purpose. He used no other method than a fixed, steady gaze, making no
mesmeric passes; and in this way he cured his patients by "locking up their
eyes," as he termed it. His power seemed to have been very great; and what
is curious is, that, "with one exception, and that was in the case of a
Keranu, a half-caste, no patient had ever fallen asleep or had become
'_beehosh_' (unconscious) under his gaze." He related several cases, one of
which was of "a sahib who had gone mad," drink-delirious. "His wife would
not suffer him to be strapped down, and he was so violent that it took four
or five other sahibs to hold him. I was sent for, and at first had great
difficulty with him, and much trembling. At last, however, I locked his
eyes up as soon as I got him to look at me, and kept him, for several
hours, as quiet as a mouse. I stayed with him two days, and whatever I told
him to do he did immediately. When I got his eyes fixed on mine, he could
not take them away,--could not move."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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