2-888-715 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Serpent-Charmers at the Gardens of the Zoological Society, Regent's-Park, [London], 1850. 'These remarkable persons...state that they are of the tribe called Rufaiah, who hand down the mystery of serpent-charming from father to son, and whom the most venomous species have no power to injure...the Rufaiah now in this country handle the Egyptian cobra - which they call taban nouascher - in a manner which evinces their entire fearlessness of its bite. They irritate it, soothe it, receive its open-mouthed attack, or its gentle caress, as their own caprice or the request of the spectators may suggest. The boy is the most active operator, and generally monopolises nearly the whole of the performance; the old man, Jabar Abou Haijab, occasionally supporting him. Jabar is held in Egypt to be the father of the profession...and has been conversant with snake- lore from his earliest youth'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.