Edgar Jepson and Captain David Beames

“ It can poison as mortally and strangle as surely as any snake in the world. The Egyptian cerastes attacks and bites; the fer-de-lance of St. Lucia drops from the tree, vicious and fatal, on the horseman. But they are not constrictors. The great hamadryad rears its green length of active, twofold, ferocious death in unparalleled dreadfulness.
Anant Ram threw up his arms over his head as the double horror rushed hissing at him: in a breath its coils were round him, its fangs tearing his arms. He flung himself down at the pain ”

“ He has never dreamed of lessening the mortality from that pest by revealing the secret of his own immunity. It was never expected of him, indeed, by his fellow brown men. The native of India sets little store by utility compared with a tamasha—an entertainment. To his mind utility is for the daily round; and in that, what was good enough for his father is good enough for him. It is only the mad Sahibs who try to find a use for things, and cannot enjoy a tamasha quietly.
In course of time there came a Sahib, a doctor named Souter, to Ganeshpura, and saw the feats of Anant Ram. ”

“ At last Souter came to the end of his patience, and bade them peremptorily play or pay. Thereupon Anant Ram set a small cloth on the ground very gently, and called loudly to have the first go. The “Lord of Devils” did not stand upon the order of his going; agreed on the instant; and his two pupils turned up a large basket in the middle of the ring and shook out of it about nine feet of that poisonous constrictor, the great hamadryad or King Cobra.
It is the only snake in India that attacks of itself at all times. ”

“ The ever-spreading fame of Anant Ram had reached and vexed the ears of the great snake-charmer of Madras, one Vencatanaiadooswamy. He lived near Metapollium, and was called by his admirers “the Lord of Devils.” And when his vexation became the popular talk, all the gamblers in the Presidency urged him to challenge the Nāg Rājā to a trial of skill, They succeeded: the challenge was sent and accepted; and the terms of the contest were virtually those of a duel. Each man was to bring as many varieties of deadly snakes as he chose. ”