154 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
rod in the centre,, and upon the top of it a shallow 
wooden bowl. With a sudden spring he seated him- 
self in the howl, balancing the rod so accurately that 
it did not appear to move a hair’s breadth out of the 
perpendicular. In this situation twelve brass balls 
were flung to him ; these he caught and projected 
into the air, keeping them in perpetual motion for 
several minutes : he then sprang upon his feet, stand- 
ing in the bowl, without allowing a single ball to 
reach the ground. When this had been continued 
for another interval of two or three minutes, he leaped 
upon the bamboo, the iron rod and its wooden crown 
falling at the same instant to the ground. The little 
man concluded this clever exhibition by descending 
the ladder upon his hands head foremost amid the 
shouts of the assembled multitude. 
After several other displays of skill, the sports 
were concluded by a native throwing a quoit at a 
mark with astonishing force and precision. The quoit 
used on this occasion was somewhat flatter than that 
generally employed in the rustic games of Europe : 
it was more delicately shaped, and had a sharp cut- 
ting edge all round the exterior circle. The quoit - 
thrower was a short but stout man, nearly as black 
as an African, his whole body covered with hair, and 
his countenance extremely stem and forbidding. 
A wooden frame being placed at one end of the 
enclosure, with three white lines marked upon it, 
an inch and a half broad, the quoit-thrower stood at 
least twenty yards from the mark, and having fixed the 
quoit upon the fore finger of his right hand, he whirled 
it round for several seconds, and then discharged it 
