(It Was The Hottest Season Of The Year, And We Were Outside In
The Middle Of The Palace Court.) There
Now remained only a little of the
end of a thong in the conjuror's hand, and he desired one of
The boys who
assisted him to lay hold of it and mount. He did so, climbing by the
thong, and we lost sight of him also! The conjuror then called to him
three times, but getting no answer, he snatched up a knife as if in a
great rage, laid hold of the thong, and disappeared also! By and bye he
threw down one of the boy's hands, then a foot, then the other hand, and
then the other foot, then the trunk, and last of all the head! Then he
came down himself, all puffing and panting, and with his clothes all
bloody, kissed the ground before the Amir, and said something to him in
Chinese. The Amir gave some order in reply, and our friend then took the
lad's limbs, laid them together in their places, and gave a kick, when,
presto! there was the boy, who got up and stood before us! All this
astonished me beyond measure, and I had an attack of palpitation like that
which overcame me once before in the presence of the Sultan of India, when
he showed me something of the same kind. They gave me a cordial, however,
which cured the attack. The Kazi Afkharuddin was next to me, and quoth he,
'Wallah! 'tis my opinion there has been neither going up nor coming
down, neither marring nor mending; 'tis all hocus pocus!'"
Now let us compare with this, which Ibn Batuta the Moor says he saw in
China about the year 1348, the account which is given us by Edward Melton,
an Anglo-Dutch traveller, of the performances of a Chinese gang of
conjurors, which he witnessed at Batavia about the year 1670 (I have
forgotten to note the year). After describing very vividly the basket-
murder trick, which is well known in India, and now also in Europe, and
some feats of bamboo balancing similar to those which were recently shown
by Japanese performers in England, only more wonderful, he proceeds: "But
now I am going to relate a thing which surpasses all belief, and which I
should scarcely venture to insert here had it not been witnessed by
thousands before my own eyes. One of the same gang took a ball of cord,
and grasping one end of the cord in his hand slung the other up into the
air with such force that its extremity was beyond reach of our sight. He
then immediately climbed up the cord with indescribable swiftness, and got
so high that we could no longer see him. I stood full of astonishment, not
conceiving what was to come of this; when lo! a leg came tumbling down out
of the air. One of the conjuring company instantly snatched it up and
threw it into the basket whereof I have formerly spoken. A moment later a
hand came down, and immediately on that another leg. And in short all the
members of the body came thus successively tumbling from the air and were
cast together into the basket. The last fragment of all that we saw tumble
down was the head, and no sooner had that touched the ground than he who
had snatched up all the limbs and put them in the basket turned them all
out again topsy-turvy. Then straightway we saw with these eyes all those
limbs creep together again, and in short, form a whole man, who at once
could stand and go just as before, without showing the least damage! Never
in my life was I so astonished as when I beheld this wonderful
performance, and I doubted now no longer that these misguided men did it
by the help of the Devil. For it seems to me totally impossible that such
things should be accomplished by natural means." The same performance is
spoken of by Valentyn, in a passage also containing curious notices of the
basket-murder trick, the mango trick, the sitting in the air (quoted
above), and others; but he refers to Melton, and I am not sure whether he
had any other authority for it. The cut on this page is taken from
Melton's plate.
[Illustration: Chinese Conjuring Extraordinary.]
Again we have in the Memoirs of the Emperor Jahangir a detail of the
wonderful performances of seven jugglers from Bengal who exhibited before
him. Two of their feats are thus described: "Ninth. They produced a man
whom they divided limb from limb, actually severing his head from the
body. They scattered these mutilated members along the ground, and in this
state they lay for some time. They then extended a sheet or curtain over
the spot, and one of the men putting himself under the sheet, in a few
minutes came from below, followed by the individual supposed to have been
cut into joints, in perfect health and condition, and one might have
safely sworn that he had never received wound or injury whatever ...
Twenty-third. They produced a chain of 50 cubits in length, and in my
presence threw one end of it towards the sky, where it remained as if
fastened to something in the air. A dog was then brought forward, and
being placed at the lower end of the chain, immediately ran up, and
reaching the other end, immediately disappeared in the air. In the same
manner a hog, a panther, a lion, and a tiger were successively sent up the
chain, and all equally disappeared at the upper end of the chain. At last
they took down the chain and put it into a bag, no one ever discovering in
what way the different animals were made to vanish into the air in the
mysterious manner above described."
[There would appear (says the Times of India, quoted by the Weekly
Dispatch, 15th September, 1889) to be a fine field of unworked romance in
the annals of Indian jugglery.
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