454 ^^^y^O^ ^if ^^^^ Novara. 



the performances of some 30 Indian jugglers and acrobats, 

 on a large lawn in the park. These, as may be conceived, 

 had been selected from among the most athletic and skilful. 

 They presented a singularly-picturesque appearance, from 

 the diversities of age, agile boys, athletic young men, 

 slender voluptuous-looking Bayaderes, old grey-headed men, 

 and marvellous-looking old hags, with streaming white hair, 

 and dark, piercing, gleaming eyes, recalling in their manners 

 and appearance our own gipsies. All played at once, and 

 performed with the most astonishing precision a succession 

 of breakneck feats, that set the spectator's hair on end. It 

 was a spectacle entirely sui generis, thoroughly Indian in 

 short, to behold these wild-looking brown figures, unawed 

 by the presence they were in, going through their various 

 performances and feats of agility. In front of us knelt 

 an old man who played with a dozen knives, which he 

 kept circling around him with wild yells, apparently without 

 looking at them, till he finally turned them in such a 

 manner that it seemed as though the sharp points of the 

 knives had transfixed his hand. Next youthful acrobats 

 sprang through paper balloons set on fire, — girls in boys' 

 dresses chmbed up bamboo poles 100 feet high, in the midst 

 of continual yells, — boys executed on the damp meadow 

 ground the most extraordinary feats of agility and con- 

 tortions of the limbs, while one old fellow, to the intense 

 astonishment of the assembled children, swallowed swords, 

 as also tow and other combustible matter, whereupon flames 



