Dr Livingstone gives some curious examples of the attractive power of fire over various creatures in South Africa, which he attributes to a sort of fascination. "Fire," he says, "exercises a fascinating effect on some kinds of toads. They may be seen rushing into it on the evenings without ever starting back on feeling pain. Contact with the hot embers rather increases the energy with which they strive to gain the hottest parts, and they never cease their struggles for the centre, even when their juices are coagulating and their limbs stiffening in the roasting heat. Various insects also are thus fascinated; but the scorpions may be seen coming away from the fire in fierce disgust, and they are so irritated as to inflict at that time their most painful stings."[182] [164] _Peter Pilgrim._ [165] _Hist. of Carolina._ [166] _Amænit. Acad._ [167] _Hist. of Carolina._ [168] _Dahomey and the Dahomans._ [169] _Visits to Madagascar_, 231. [170] _Zoology of South Africa_--Reptilia. [171] _Oiseaux d'Afrique._ [172] _Times_ Newspaper, November 9, 1852. [173] _Zoologist_, 7273. [174] _Zoologist_, 7382. [175] Quoted in the _Zoologist_, 2397. [176] _Pict. Museum_, ii. 107. [177] _Reptiles_, (Rel. Tr. Soc.,) 206. [178] _Bengal Sporting Mag._ for Oct. 1836; cited in the _Zoologist_, 5070. [179] _Zool._, 5214. [180] _Zool._, 7273. [181] _Zool._ 4049, 4050. [182] _Travels_, 144. IX. SERPENT-CHARMING. From the day when the solemn doom was pronounced,--"I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed," the serpent-form has begotten revulsion and dread in the human breast. And deservedly; for a venomous serpent is a terrible enemy: the direful venom of sin injected by "that old serpent, the Devil," is well symbolised by the most potent of all lethic agencies,--the poison of the rattlesnake or the cobra. And yet in all ages there have been persons in the countries where the most venomous snakes abound, who have professed, and have been believed to enjoy, an absolute immunity from their bites, and even to exercise some inexplicable power over them, whereby their rage is soothed, and they are rendered for the time gentle and harmless. The Holy Scriptures repeatedly allude to this ancient art. The Magicians of Egypt, who turned their rods into serpents, are supposed to have had recourse to a secret known, it is said, to the modern conjurors of the same country, who, by pressing the nape of the neck of the cobra with their fingers, throw it into a sort of catalepsy, by which its whole body becomes rigid like a rod, and from which it is relieved by suddenly throwing it on the ground. Aaron's rod was a veritable rod before and after the transaction, but changed into a serpent by Divine miraculous energy: theirs were serpents made to assume the appearance of rods for the moment by a cunning device.