I saw another instance in Cairo, of the way in which a story accumulates by telling, and the degree in which even sensible Europeans by long residence are induced to give into the beliefs they find around them. The conversation turned one day on the power of charming serpents, supposed to be inherent in certain descendants of the _Psylli_. One of the Consular Staff immediately declared, that a most remarkable instance of the fact had happened in the Consul-General's own courtyard the day before. That one of those gifted men had come into the yard, and declared he knew by his art that there were serpents in the stable; and that he had immediately gone and summoned forth two snakes of the most poisonous kind, which he seized in his hands and brought, in the presence of the relator, to the Consular threshold. Now it happened to me to see the whole of this scene. I was wandering about the Consul's court, gazing at the curiosities scattered around, enough to have set up any European museum with an Egyptian branch, and particularly, I remember, at a lame mummy's crutch, found with him in his coffin, on which it is possible the original owner hopped away from the plague of frogs. An old rural Arab of respectable appearance was standing at the Consul's door, holding in his hand the crooked stick which an Arab keeps to recover the halter of his camel if he happens to lose it while mounted, and presenting altogether a parallel to a substantial yeoman with his riding-whip, come to town to do a little justice business with the Mayor. A stable-keeper came and said, that two snakes had made their appearance in the stable; on which the Arab, being no more in the habit of fearing such vermin than a European farmer of fearing rats, proceeded towards the stable, and I followed him. Sure enough there were two snakes in dalliance in the horse's stall; and my construction was, that it was the poor animals' St. Valentine. The Arab, however, ruthlessly smote them with his gib stick, in a way that showed an exact comprehension of what would settle a snake; and brought them hanging by the tails and still writhing with the remains of life, and laid them at the threshold of the house. I looked at the snakes, and felt a strong persuasion that they were of a harmless kind; but whether they were or not, was of small moment as the Arab treated them.