These Are Men From India,
Persons Of Deep Wisdom, Well-Conducted, And Of The Gravest Morals.
They
are usually acquainted with magic arts, and depend on the counsel and aid
of demons; they exhibit many
Illusions, and predict some future events.
For instance, one of eminence among them was said to fly; the truth,
however, was (as it proved), that he did not fly, but did walk close to
the surface of the ground without touching it; and would seem to sit down
without having any substance to support him." This last performance was
witnessed by Ibn Batuta at Delhi, in the presence of Sultan Mahomed
Tughlak; and it was professedly exhibited by a Brahmin at Madras in the
present century, a descendant doubtless of those Brahmans whom Apollonius
saw walking two cubits from the ground. It is also described by the worthy
Francis Valentyn as a performance known and practised in his own day in
India. It is related, he says, that "a man will first go and sit on three
sticks put together so as to form a tripod; after which, first one stick,
then a second, then the third shall be removed from under him, and the man
shall not fall but shall still remain sitting in the air! Yet I have
spoken with two friends who had seen this at one and the same time; and
one of them, I may add, mistrusting his own eyes, had taken the trouble to
feel about with a long stick if there were nothing on which the body
rested; yet, as the gentleman told me, he could neither feel nor see any
such thing.
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