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. One Siddeshur Mitter, writing to the
Calcutta paper, gives a thrilling account of a conjurer's feat which he
witnessed recently in one of the villages of the Hooghly district. He saw
the whole thing himself, he tells us, so there need be no question about
the facts. On the particular afternoon when he visited the village the
place was occupied by a company of male and female jugglers, armed with
bags and boxes and musical instruments, and all the mysterious
paraphernalia of the peripatetic Jadugar. While Siddeshur was looking
on, and in the broad, clear light of the afternoon, a man was shut up in a
box, which was then carefully nailed up and bound with cords. Weird spells
and incantations of the style we are all familiar with were followed by
the breaking open of the box, which, "to the unqualified amazement of
everybody, was found to be perfectly empty." All this is much in the usual
style; but what followed was so much superior to the ordinary run of
modern Indian jugglery that we must give it in the simple Siddeshur's own
words.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 998 of 1256
Words from 271655 to 271964
of 342071
