saying: _Huzoor_, look! [3] _Hawa_, in Canarese, is the name of Rahu. [4] I did not count them, but there were several dozen, nearly all different. I have reason to believe that this man must have been one of the disciples of a former very celebrated snake charmer, who was known all over India. He leaned over, and administered with his bare hand a vicious dig to a magnificent hamadryad, that lay coiled upon itself in its open basket. The creature instantly sat up, with a surge of splendid passion, hissing, bowing, and expanding angrily its great tawny hood. The _garuda_ put his _pungi_ to his lips, and blew for a while upon it a low and wheezy drone,--the invariable prelude to a little _jadoo_, or black art,--which the beautiful animal appeared to appreciate: and then, pointing with the end of his pipe to the "spectacles" on its hood, he said, with that silky, insinuating smile which is characteristic of the scamp: _Huzoor, dekho, namas karta_[5]:-- _Nagki phani, chand ka dukh Uski badi, ap ka sukh_[6]. [5] _See, he makes obeisance._ [6] Which we may roughly render: _Hood of snake brings joy and rue, this to moon and that to you._ In all Oriental saws, jingle counts for much. I did not understand his lunar allusion, but, judging that his rhyming gibberish, like that of the rascally priests in Apuleius, was a carefully prepared oracle of general application, kept in stock for the cozening of such prey as myself, I repeated to him my favourite Hindu proverb[7], and gave him, in exchange for his benevolent cheque on the future, a more commonplace article of present value, which led to our parting on the most amicable terms. But I did him injustice, perhaps. Long afterwards, having occasion to consult an astronomical chart, with reference to this very story, all at once I started, and in an instant, the golden evening, the walls of Delhi, and my friend of the many snakes and sinister eyes, suddenly rose up again into my mind. For there, staring at me out of the chart, was the mark on the cobra's head. It is the sign still used in modern astronomy for "the head and tail of the dragon," the nodes indicating the point of occultation, the symbol of eclipse. [7] "_Tulsi, in this world hobnob with everybody: for you never know in what guise the deity may present himself._" In the original it is a rhyming stanza. What then induced or inspired the _garuda_ to connect me with the moon? Was it really black art, divination, or was it only a coincidence?