ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 295 



all lands, and the juggler was bidden to describe them as 

 one by one Mr. W. took them out of his pocket. This the 

 man did without a single failure, giving the minutest details 

 of each device on coins from countries of which it cannot 

 be supposed he had ever heard, as Mexico, Denmark, and 

 others. It was not through bodily eyesight that he did it, 

 for he was seated too far off for that ; besides, when Mr. W. 

 closed his hand over some familiar Indian coins, that made 

 no difference, he read them off as easily as the rest. More- 

 over, in the case of a ' Halli Sicca ' rupee, before it was well 

 out of Mr. W.'s pocket the juggler's face brightened in 

 pleased recognition, that rupee being the coinage of the 

 Deccan, from which state he hailed. Telepathy, I imagine, 

 is the solution in this case, and it would have been interesting 

 and instructive if some one else had handled the coins, 

 some one who could not know them by heart or by mere 

 touch, as did Mr. W. himself, unaware of it the while ; for 

 though he might think now and again that he had forgotten 

 some, still their representations, or rather his knowledge 

 of them, would be latent in the back of his mind for all time. 

 The juggler, however, offered no explanation ; he only said 

 that he had never done exactly that sort of thing before, 

 but knew that he could not be set anything beyond his 

 powers. 



It would please me to think that a word of mine could 

 induce any one who has hitherto regarded a juggler — Indian 

 or other — as a superior kind of mountebank, to change his 

 opinion and accord him a meed of respect ; for, at any rate, 

 he can do what the rest of us cannot, except one be a 

 reincarnation of Cagliostro. 



' I cried when I was born, and I have been finding out 

 why ever since.' That is an Indian saying met with in 

 many tongues, alike in bleak Himalayan villages and 

 amongst dwellers in glowing Ceylon ; and with the excep- 



