286 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



CHAPTER XXIV 



Jugglers — Initiates — Hypnotism — Telepathy — Indian impressions. 



Few, I suppose, who have looked their last on India but 

 give an occasional backward thought to those mysterious 

 sons of hers, the jugglers. 



No one would use that word as descriptive of European 

 conjurers and their bewildering tricks, but I know no other 

 so fitting here. 



The Western conjurer has an array of all sorts of stage 

 illusions at his back ; the Eastern juggler has no stage except 

 the lawn or gravel, whereon he sits cross-legged in front of 

 one's bungalow. I do not say that there are no illusions. The 

 conjurer may pull his sleeves up and down to prove that 

 they hold no rabbits or bowls of goldfish ; the juggler wears 

 no sleeves. He unconcernedly lets any who will walk all 

 round him, but none would be permitted to make so free 

 with the conjurer, who has his helpers behind the scenes 

 or maybe among the spectators. The juggler's troupe 

 consists merely of himself and his boy, the latter carrying 

 a basket on his head with a few necessaries. 



Some may think that the last word has surely been said 

 about the ' mango-tree ' trick, and the ' basket ' trick (with 

 its reappearing murdered boy), and many others. They 

 have been imitated in European lands successfully enough 

 as to results, but under such contrasting circumstances and 

 surroundings as to rob them of all glamour for those who 

 have seen the originals. For the benefit of those who have 

 not done so, the wonders as shown in India may be briefly 

 described. Before your eyes a mango stone is buried in 



