22 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
sails catching the sunbeams, and, as they approached 
nearer to the shore, casting a thousand fantastic 
shadows upon the liquid plain over which they were 
so placidly ploughing their way. 
At the village where we first halted, we were 
vastly amused by a party of itinerant jugglers, and, as 
I had frequently heard of their extraordinary physical 
capabilities and skill in legerdemain, I was glad to 
have the opportunity of witnessing both. As many of 
their tricks are well known, and most of them have 
been frequently described, I shall confine myself to a 
description of two of their performances, one an act 
of manual dexterity, the other, one of the most ex- 
traordinary juggles perhaps ever practised ; as I be- 
lieve they are not commonly known, and have cer- 
tainly never been witnessed by Europeans, except 
by those who have visited India. After they had ex- 
hibited a number of their ordinary tricks, such as 
swallowing a sword, blowing fire from the mouth, 
throwing the balls, &c., which are common to the 
most unskilful among them ; one of the party, a 
woman, young and beautifully formed, fixed on her 
head a fillet of a stiff, strong texture, to which were 
fastened, at equal distances, twenty pieces of string 
of equal lengths, with a common noose at the end 
of each. Under her arm she carried a basket, in 
which twenty fowl’s eggs were carefully deposited. 
Her basket, the fillet, and the nooses, were severally 
examined by my companions and myself — there was 
evidently no deception. It was broad daylight, the 
basket was of the simplest construction, the eggs and 
strings were all manifestly what they were repre- 
