who had carried the animal ran up, and with a
chopper cut off the four legs of the dog at the
knees. We were told they were apt to disagree
with the snake, and make him sulk. In fact, the
fewer bones the boa eats, the better for him.

It was rather a sickening sight, and we urged
them to let the other dog go. They did so, and
the poor brute ran away at a great rate when
they started him.

We left the boa to gorge his dog, which was
slowly disappearing, and went back to the basket
where the mango was growing, and on which
some of us had been keeping our eyes all the
time. The conjuror lifted it up, and there
appeared a little mango-shoot; in fact, a young,
tree, about a foot high. We touched and pulled
off several of the leaves and ate them. They had
the peculiar scented taste of the mango.  I
wanted to pull it up and see whether it had any
roots, but the old man would not consent to that
on any terms. We wished to see more tricks,
or I fear I should have pulled it up in spite of
him. However, he sent for an old pot, carefully
transplanted the mango, taking up a good ball
of earth, and sent it away by one of his boys.
He said it was to have it planted in some garden.

This is the most famous trick in Hindostan,
and is done in all parts, I believe. The jugglers
throughout Asia are all of one clan, and their sons
become jugglers or musicians, their daughters
dancing-girls, the secrets of the trade being
handed down from father to son. Certainly the
tree had every appearance of growing; it was
bright and fresh-looking, and its leaves and
stalks were stiff. There was none of that
draggled appearance which hangs about anything
just transplanted or stuck in the ground.

The old conjuror now said that, for his next
trick, he must be somewhere out of the glare of
the sun, and sheltered from any air which might
be stirring. We accordingly adjourned to the
verandah. The conjuror spread a piece of
matting, and squatted, produced from his shawls
a bag, and emptied it ori the stone in front of
him. The contents were a quantity of little bits
of wood; some, forked liked branches of a tree;
some, straight; each a few inches long; besides
these, there were some fifteen or twenty little
painted wooden birds, about half an inch long.
The old man chose one of the straightest and
thickest of the bits of wood, and, turning his
face up in the air, poised it on the tip of his
nose. The little boys who sat by him henceforth
handed him whatever he called for. First, two
or three more pieces of wood, which he poised
on the piece already there, then a forked piece,
to which he gradually made additions, until he
had built upon his nose a tree with two branches.
He always kept its balance by adding
simultaneously on each side, holding a piece in each
hand, and never once taking his eyes off the
fabric. Soon the two branches became four, the
four eight, and so on, until a skeleton of a tree
was formed about two feet high, and branching
out so as to overshadow his whole face; he could
just reach with his hands to put the topmost
branches on. It was a wonderful structure, and we
all held our breath as he added the last bits. But
it was not done yet. The boys now handed him
the little birds, and, still two at a time, one in
each hand, he stuck them all over the tree. The
complete immobility of his head and neck while
he was balancing this structure on the tip of his
nose, was something wonderful, and I think he
must have breathed through his ears, for there
was not the slightest perceptible motion about
nose or mouth. After putting all the birds on,
he paused, and we, thinking the trick was
finished, began to applaud. But he held up his
forefinger for silence. There was more to come.
The boys put into one of his hands a short
hollow reed, and into the other some dried peas.
He then put a pea in his mouth, and using the
reed as a pea-shooter, took aim and shot off the
branch one of the birds. The breath he gave
was so gentle and well calculated that it gave no
perceptible movement to his face; it just sent
the pea far enough to hit a particular bird
with perfect aim, and knock it over. Not
another thing on the tree moved. Another pea
was fired in the same way, and another bird
brought down, and so on until all the birds were
bagged. The fire was then directed at the
branches and limbs of the tree, and, beginning
from the topmost, the whole of this astonishing
structure was demolished piecemeal even more
wonderfully than its manner of erection.

He now said he would like to show us his
son, who had a wonderful skin inside and
out: it being, he assured us, "leather." He
then shouted out for him, calling some
outlandish name; but his followers, who evidently
knew whom he wanted, shouted " Leather-
fellow!" In a few moments a yellow-skinned
boy of about twelve or fourteen, appeared,
dressed only with a bit of red calico round his
loins. The old man asked whether we had any
heavy weights, and we produced two bags of
shot weighing about fourteen pounds each. He
tied a piece of string to each of these, and a fish-
hook at the other end of the string; then, telling
the boy to go down on his hands and knees
and put his head close to the ground, he put a
fish-hook through the lobe of each ear, and the
boy, slowly lifting his head, raised the shot-bags
from the ground and moved along on his hands
and knees. The ears did not bleed, but were
drawn to a considerable length, and I expected
to see the hooks tear out; but nothing happened.
After he had crept some twenty yards, he
returned, and the hooks were taken out of his
ears. The next operation was more horrible to
look at. The hooks were actually inserted in
the upper eyelids, near the inner corner, and as
the boy raised his head the eyelids were drawn
half way down his cheeks. But he raised the
bags by his eyelids, and moved along as before.
A little of this sort of performance went a long
way, and we soon cried, " Enough!"

He now announced that the boy would swallow
a sword. We had heard stories about the sword-
blade's pushing up into the hilt, and so forth.
We examined the sword closely, therefore, when
it was produced. It was a common two-edged