INDIA AND ITS NATIVE PRINCES. 
ugal force which stretches the thread out 
straight like a ray shooting from the circum- 
ference of the circle. One after another the 
eggs are thrown out in these slip nooses 
until they make a horizontal aureole or halo 
about the dancer’s head. Then the dance 
becomes still more rapid, so rapid in fact 
that it is difficult to distinguish the features 
of the girl ; the moment is critical ; the least 
false step, the least irregularity in time, and 
the eggs dash against each other. But how 
can the dance be stopped ? There is but 
one way, — that is, to remove the eggs in the 
way in which they have been put in place. 
This operation is by far the more delicate of 
the two. It is necessary that the dancer, by 
a single motion, exact and unerring, should 
take hold of the egg, and remove it from 
the noose. A single false motion of the 
hand, the least interference with one of the 
threads, and the general arrangement is 
suddenly broken, and the whole performance 
disastrously ended. At last all the eggs are 
successfully removed ; the dancer suddenly 
stops, and without seeming in the least diz- 
zied by this dance of twenty-five or thirty 
minutes, she advances to the spectators with 
a firm step, and presents them the eggs. 
