SERPENT STONE. Shi-hwang, CHIN. The bezoar. Tavernier says (Tr. p. 155) some are almost oval, thick in the middle, and thin about the sides. "The Indians,' he says, 'report that it is bred in the head of certain serpents, but he supposed it rather to be a story of the idolaters' priests, and that the stone is rather a composition of certain drugs. Whatever it be, he says it is of excellent virtue to drive any venom out of those that are bit by venomous creatures. If the person bit be not much wounded, the place must be incised, and the stone being applied thereto, will not fall off till it has drawn all the poison to it. To cleanse it, you must steep it in woman's milk, or for want of that, in cow's milk ; after the stone has lain ten or twelve hours, the milk will turn to the colour of an apostemated matter.' The Arch bishop of Goa, eat rying Tavernier to his cabinet of rarities, showed him one of these stones, and after he had assured him of the rare qualities it had, gave it to Tavernier. Once as he crossed a marsh in the island of Salsette, where Goa stands, one of the men that carded his pallequis, being half naked, was bit by a serpent, and healed at the same time. He bought several, but there were ii oue but the Brahmans that sold them, which made him believe that they compound them. ' There
are,' he says, ' two ways to try whether the serpent stone be true or false. The first is by putting the stone in your mouth, for then it will give a leap, and fix to the palate. The other is, by putting it in a glassful of water ; for if the stolie be true, the water will fall a-hoiling, and rise in little bubbles up to the top of the glass. There is .
another stone, which is called the serpent stone with the hood. This is 'wk. 1 of serpent that has a. kind of hood hanging d behind the head.
iikce Behind this hood the stone is ' und, many times as big as a pullet's egg.' There p. ,rme serpents both in Asia and America of ,A. monstrous size, 25 feet long ; as was that, the skin whereof is kept in Batavia, which had swallowed a maid of ten years of age. These stones are not found in any of those serpents that are not at least 2 feet long. This stone being rubbed 4,ainst another stone, yields another thine, which being drunk in vvater by the person that has the poison In his body, powerfully drives it out. These serpents are nowhere to be found but upon the coasts of Melinde ; but for the stOnes you may buy them of the Portuguese mariners mid soldiers that come from .Mozambique.—Tavernier's Tr. 155.