THIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. 133 



died, and was burned according to the custom of the country. 

 His elopement with this woman may serve as a proof 

 ( in contradiction to other statements ) that he was neither 

 an eunuch nor a hermaphrodite. 



Doubtless, it is a difficult task, and not within the 

 power of every one to acquire the skill neaessary for the 

 performance of this experiment, and those who do succeed 

 must undergo a long and continual practice of preparatory 

 measures. I was informed that such people have their 

 froenulum linguce cut and entirely loosened, and that they 

 get their tongue prominent, drawing and lengthening it by 

 means of rubbing it with butter mixed with some pellitory of 

 Spain, in order that they may be able to lay back the tongue 

 at the time they are about to stop respiration, so as to cover 

 the orifice of the hinder part of the fosses nasales, and thus 

 ( with other means for the same purpose, which I shall 

 mention ) keep the air shut up in the body and head.* 

 Novices, in trying the experiment, shut their eyes, and 

 press them with their fingers, as also the cavities of the 

 ears and nostrils, because the natural warmth of the body 

 might cause such an expansion of the enclosed gas as 

 otherwise to produce, by the violence of its pressure, a rupture 

 of some of those delicate organs not yet accustomed by 

 practice to endure it. This, I am told, is especially the 

 case with the eyes and the tympan of the ear. For the 

 better acquisition of this power, they are accustomed to 

 practise the holding of the breath for a long period. 

 They swallow a small strip of linen, in order to cleanse the 

 stomach, and by a tube draw a quantity of water through 

 the anus into the intestines to rinse them. This is per- 

 formed while sitting in a vessel filled with wa er to the 

 height of the arm-pits. It is said that the faqueer in 

 question, a few days previous to his experiments, took some 

 kind of purgative, and subsisted for several days on a 

 coarse milk regimen. 0;i the day of his burial, instead of 



* A similar process is explained in some of the Encyclopcedias, in the 

 article on " Engastrimythe," or the mechanism of the ventriloquists. 



