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created, all producing fruit, which Jahangueir declares was exquisite to the taste. Nor was this all:— Before the trees were removed there appeared among the foliage birds of such surprising beauty in colour, and shape, and melody of song, as the world never saw before. At the close of the operation, the foliage, as in autumn, was seen to put on its variegated tints, and the trees gradually disappeared into the earth from which they had been made to spring. resplendent mirror, by the radiance of which a light so powerful was produced as to have illuminated the hemisphere to an incredible distance round; to such a distance, indeed, that we have the attestation of travellers to the fact, who declared that, ona particular night, the same night on which the exhibition took place, and at the distance of ten days’ journey, they saw the atmosphere so powerfully illuminated as to exceed the brightness of the brightest day they had ever seen. Another of their feats is curious:— They placed in my presence a large seething-pot, or cauldron, and, filling it partly with water, they threw into it eight of the smaller mauns of Irak of rice, when, without the application of the smallest spark of fire, the cauldron forthwith began to boil. Ina little time they took off the lid, and drew from it nearly a hundred platters full, each with a stewed fowl at top! The following is more extraordinary still: — 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 Incredible as this relation appears, we have the assurance of Major Price, the distinguished Orientalist, by whom Jahangueir's memoirs were translated, that he has himself witnessed kindred operations on the western side of India, but that a sheet was employed to cover the process. "I have, however," he adds, "no conception of the means by which they were accomplished, unless the jugglers had the trees about them, in every stage, from the seedling to the fruit." From another of the "specious miracles" narrated by the Emperor we might suspect that these famous conjurers had anticipated the modern discovery of the lime or electric light:— One night, in the very middle of the night, when half this globe was wrapped in darkness, one of these seven men Stripped himself almost naked, and, having spun himself swiftly round several times, he took a sheet with which he covered himself, and from beneath the sheet drew out a had never received wound — or injury whatever. WP ie Any, self: 2 — {— ee fe Pe sha e ig ae ® pee i a or But even this 62 = NEXUS the distance of a bow-shot from the other, the doors or entrances being placed exactly opposite; they raised the tent-walls all around, and desired that it might be particularly observed that they were entirely empty. Then fixing the tent-walls to the ground, two of the seven men entered, one into each tent, none of the other men entering either of the tents. Thus prepared, they said they would undertake to bring out of the tents any animal we chose to mention, whether bird or beast, and set them in conflict with each other. Khaun-e-Jahaun, with a smile of incredulity, required them to show us a battle between two ostriches. In a few minutes two ostriches of the largest size issued, one from either tent, and attacked each other with such fury that the blood was seen streaming from their heads. They were, at the same time, so equally matched that neither could get the better of the other, and they were therefore separated by the men and conveyed within the tents. In short, they continued to produce from either tent whatever animal we chose to name, and before our eyes set them to fight in the manner I have attempted to describe. He then goes on to tell that the performers were furnished with a bow and about fifty steel-pointed arrows:— One of the seven men took the bow in hand, and shooting an arrow into the air, the shaft stood fixed at a considerable height; he shot a second arrow, which flew straight to the first, to which it became attached; and so with every one of the remaining arrows to the last of all, which, striking the sheaf suspended in the air, the whole immediately broke asunder and came at once to the earth. process, astounding as it In flexibility and physical vigour the seems, is outdone jugglers of India are to this day unrivalled. by what are next Mr. Fane assures us that at Delhi he saw described, which several fellows jump down into a well must have been ninety feet deep in pursuit of a rupee o p tic al_ thrown in to tempt them. There was a deceptions:— slanting passage on the opposite side, by They which they got out; but the perpendicular caused two plunge was performed again and again with tents to be set the utmost eagerness both by men and up, the one at boys. www.nexusmagazine.com OCTOBER —- NOVEMBER 2007