terrified, and rushed at the rash Englishman,
playing his pipe like a madman. But our friend
kept away from him, and swung the hissing
cobra in the air. The old man entreated him to
throw it in the box, and after marching all round
the compound and frightening the public by
pretended lunges with it at the faces in the little
crowd, he threw the snake into the blanket.
The boy, in the mean time, had picked up the
others, and returned them to the box. When
he had all in, the old charmer shut the box and
sat on it, and panted. This interruption put an
end to the snake-charming. I do not believe
that the snakes had been tampered with, but our
friend, who has a grip of iron, held the snake he
had seized, so tight, and so close to its head, that
it was powerless. He told us that it nearly got
away, and was almost as bad to hold as an eel.

Our slave in the shawls having taken up his
position in the same place as before, the boy
held in his hand a common basket about two
feet high and a foot across. The old man
announced that he would cause a mango-tree to
grow out of the sand. We had heard this trick
much talked about, and watched it closely. The
conjuror first scraped a little hole in the sand,
and put in it, a mango-seed. When he had
covered it up, he asked us for a little water. I
went out and poured about half a gallon over it,
wetting the sand all around. The old man then
put the basket over the hole, and said he would
have a tree in about twenty minutes. While we
were waiting, he asked for three teacups, and
said he would show some little child's play, as
he called it, to while away the time. He put
the three cups on the ground in front of him,
the hole with the basket over it being on his
right, the boy on his left, and no one else within
at least four yards, except ourselves, and we sat
in the verandah about six feet from him. He
then asked us to mark a piece of chupattie. I
marked a piece with the number of my regiment,
and at his request put it upon his tongue. He
closed his mouth, chewed, swallowed, then
opened his mouth, which we examined, and it
was apparently empty. He then asked which
cup the piece of chupattie should be under. I
whispered to a comrade, "Run and put your
foot on the middle cup before the boy can get
to it." I then answered, " The middle." My
comrade immediately kicked that cup over, and
there was nothing to be seen. We laughed at
the old fellow, but he merely said, " Hai,—It
is there!" and turning to his boy, said, "Scrape
the sand." The boy went on his knees, and
with his fingers scratched the sand till there
appeared a piece of chupattie with one hundred
and fifty-seven on it, and otherwise corresponding
to the piece he had eaten.

The conjuror then took a piece of chupattie,
and in our presence marked it with an Arabic
character or two, and gave it to one of ourselves
to eat. Then walking back, he sat down behind
the cups facing us, and taking some sand in his
hand, shook it over each cup, and said, " Where
is it, my lord?" The one of us who had eaten
it, thought it a sure joke to cry out in answer,
"Under all." But he quietly lifted up each
cup, and under each lay a piece of chupattie
exactly corresponding to the one our friend had
eaten. This trick could not have been done
with apparatus, as the cups were ours, and the
ground was open road. It was pure sleight of
hand. But now it was time to look for the
mango - tree. We stood round when the old
man lifted the basket, and there, from the centre
of the wet patch, rose a green shoot about two
inches high. We went down on our knees and
examined it. We were told not to touch it, as
it was delicate. But it was evidently to our eyes
something growing. The old man then covered
it up, and said, " In ten minutes the tree will be
made."

We now asked after the two huge boas
we had seen the boys dragging along, and
they fetched them from under a piece of old
sailcloth where they had been lying asleep.
They were as large round as a man's thigh,
and apparently about five feet long; but the
charmer said they could stretch themselves to
twelve or fifteen feet. He had had them since
they were a few inches long, when he had found
a nest of them. They were very tame and torpid.
There were no tricks in them. We handled
them, and stroked their skin. The old conjuror
said the only thing they could do worth seeing,
was to eat. He asked whether we had a goat
or a sheep to give them, but we had none. A
couple of dogs were brought in a sack; one a
wretched looking pariah dog with a piece of cloth
tied over his face ; the other a big rough yellow
fellow, wriggling and snapping like a fresh-caught
pike. The moment the dog yapped, the boa
who was to exhibit—one had been taken away,
as, if fed in each other's presence, they are apt
to fasten on each other—became lively and
opened his eyes. A piece of string was fastened
to the dog's hind leg, and the cloth being torn
off his face, he made a rush away, but was
brought up in a few yards by the string. He
turned savagely round to bite at the string,
and caught sight of the boa now approaching
him with rapid wriggles. His jaw dropped,
and he crouched down, casting his eyes about,
and uttering a low snarl as the foam ran out of
his mouth. We pitied the poor brute, and
wanted them to let him go ; but the charmer
said that boa-sahib was rather a ticklish customer
when his gastric juice was stimulated, until he
had got a mouthful. The boa, now close to the
dog, was twisting and writhing in every direction:
at one time shooting himself out until
he was a dozen feet long and hardly as thick as
a man's arm : then shutting up into a mass three
or four feet long and as thick round as a fat
man. At last, raising half his body in the air,
he brought it down with a whack on the
unfortunate beast's back, the dog appearing by this
time almost inanimate. It was thus killed, and
in two or three minutes became a misshapen
mass. The boa then covered the body with saliva,
and, turning his head round, his tail still encircling
the dog, he took the head into his mouth
with one suck. At this moment, one of the boys