After offering the rope for thorough examination Shah Mahommed took the two ends and manipulated the rope in such a manner that when it was held out to be cut it was in this wise:--

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Held at A by the left hand and at B by the right. It was cut at x and consequently was in two pieces not of equal length, but of which one was practically the whole length of the rope while the other was the piece AX, or possibly some six inches long. While gathering up the rope to be magically restored, the old scoundrel simply got rid of this small piece and showed the longer one as the restored rope.

To go into details and to give the "drill" as to how to get the string or rope into the required position would be tedious and difficult to understand. The ill.u.s.tration, I trust, explains sufficiently clearly the secret of the trick, and if one tries to get it into this position it will be found quite easy to do, "chacun a son gout."

Shah Mahommed made quite a feature of the trick, using two a.s.sistants for it, one to hold the rope occasionally and the other to cut it.

The first time I remember seeing it was when Uncle George showed it to me on my fourth birthday, many long weary years ago.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The string (as shewn in the above ill.u.s.tration) being held for the audience to cut at x.

THE SWASTIKA

I remember on one occasion some 20 years ago, being very puzzled by a trick that is often performed in Bengal.

The magician gets from one of the servants a broken "chatti" or earthenware bowl. He selects a piece about two inches square and asks one of his audience to draw upon it with a piece of charcoal, borrowed from the "Khansamah" or cook, the sign of the Swastika, with which most people are familiar.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The draftsman is then requested to place the piece of earthenware or tile on the ground and after gazing intently at the Swastika to crush it to powder with the heel of his boot. These instructions are accordingly carried out. The man of magic now asks his a.s.sistant to look at the palm of his hand and see that there is no mark upon it.

There is no mark. The hand is then held out palm upwards over the powdered tile and the a.s.sistant is told to gaze at it intently. After a few seconds the performer turns the a.s.sistant's hand over so that it is now palm downwards. A little music on the "bean," a magic pa.s.s, a mystic word, and the a.s.sistant is requested to look at the palm of his hand, when to his astonishment, there is a distinct mark of the Swastika upon it! Truly a miracle!

The trick is a most effective one, and when well performed, with intervals for gazing at the dust, the clean palm, mystic words and so forth, it would baffle most audiences. Yet it is simplicity itself, and this is the secret.

When the Swastika is drawn on the piece of tile, the performer in placing it on the ground to be trodden upon, puts his thumb on the drawing, and thereby gets an inverse print of it on the ball of his thumb. The tile is powdered and the hand held palm upwards over it.

When turning the a.s.sistant's hand palm downwards, the conjuror does so with his fingers at the back of the a.s.sistant's hand and the thumb on the clean palm, leaving the imprint of the Swastika upon it. A rub with his thumb on his garment, or the ground, removes instantly all trace of the medium between the tile and the a.s.sistant's palm.

Charcoal must be used as it is soft to write with and gives the best imprints. An "HH" pencil for instance, might do, but the imprint would be hardly visible on the palm.

I consider this little trick to be one of the most mystifying of the Indian conjuror.

THE EGG BAG

An effective little trick usually follows that of the Cut and Restored String in the form of an egg being put into a small bag. A magic pa.s.s is made over the mouth of the bag, which is then turned inside out, stamped upon if necessary, and slapped all over to show that it is quite empty and that the egg has disappeared. At will, and with another magic pa.s.s, the egg reappears from the bag when it is turned over, mouth downwards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Shah Mahommed performing the Egg bag trick.]

The secret lies in the fact that the bag, which is of some opaque material, and is nine inches deep and six inches broad, has one of its sides double. The easiest way to make such a bag is to take a piece of cloth six inches broad and 24 inches long. Fold six inches of one end over and then turn the other end to where the cloth has been folded.

St.i.tch up either side, thus making a bag.

When the egg is put in, it drops to the bottom of the bag. When the performer dips his hand in again to take out the egg, in doing so he slips it into the pocket formed inside, and leaves it there, bringing his hand out empty and from which the egg has disappeared. The bag being turned inside out does not expose the egg which is in the inner pocket. When treading on or slapping the bag, care should of course be taken to miss the egg.

CHAPTER VII

THE DANCING DUCK

As his last trick was with water the Jadoo-wallah sensibly enough proceeds to show another with water, though an English conjuror would separate such tricks from an artistic point of view, thinking that a change of diet in magic is just as necessary as it is in a meal. The trick is that of the dancing duck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DANCING DUCK,

performed with an enamel bowl instead of the cocoa-nut sh.e.l.l.]

A half cocoa-nut sh.e.l.l is dug out of the bag. It is wrapped up in a piece of cloth and very carefully unfolded, for reasons that will be apparent later. In this sh.e.l.l is a little wooden duck. The sh.e.l.l is placed on the ground and filled with water upon which the duck floats.

The performer takes his "tom tom" and while playing it the duck begins to dance, as it were, upon the water. After an interval it is commanded to pay its obeisances or in other words, to "salaam," which it does by going right under water. On the word "bas" it comes up again. And so forth and so on.

It is a clever little trick and we will now see how it is done.

The cocoa-nut sh.e.l.l has a hole through the bottom of it. Through this hole pa.s.ses a horse hair that is attached at one end to the duck and at the other to a piece of bees wax. The hair is about two feet long.

The whole apparatus is wrapped in a piece of cloth as otherwise the horse hair would get unwound and broken. When placing it on the ground, the bees wax enables the performer to see where the end of the hair is when unwound. The sh.e.l.l is filled with water, some being carelessly spilt to prevent the leakage through the little hole at the bottom being too noticeable. When picking up his "tom-tom" the performer also picks up the bees wax, and attaching it to the "tom-tom" the arrangements are complete. Bringing the "tom-tom" closer to the body makes the duck dive under water. The ordinary shaking of the drum makes the duck dance.

This is not a trick that can be conveniently shewn by Europeans, because of the inconvenience of doing it on the ground. The leakage of the water is not so apparent on the earth, which hides the horse hair.

But at a small distance the trick can be done on a table, as the horse hair is quite invisible at a range of five feet, especially when it is against a dark back ground. It can be easily made or bought for a few annas, and with good patter presents a neat little after dinner experiment.

_The Mango Tree Trick._

To my mind it is amazing what a spurious reputation this trick has gained. From a technical point of view, it is possibly the worst performance of the Indian conjuror. From a physiological point of view the gullibility of the audience is astounding. Wherever one goes in England, France or America, in fact anywhere out of India, and the conversation turns to Magic, one is asked about the Mango Tree trick, and whether one has seen it done. I have heard the most gorgeously elaborated descriptions of this trick, given not only by persons who had heard about it but, I regret to say, by persons who said that they had seen it done. On one occasion on board ship a Eurasian, who hailed from ---- and indulged in the Mahommedan name of Macpherson, gave me the following details of the trick as he had seen it performed, of course many many years ago. When he was only two years old I expect.

"A conjuror came into the compound, and my father told him to clear out. The man, however, persisted in remaining, saying that he had something very wonderful to show us. My father eventually agreed to watch the performance. We all sat down on the verandah, which was of solid concrete, and the Jadoo-wallah took off his "dhoti" or loin cloth, and squatted in front of us. He produced a mango stone and put it under some loose earth, which he had gathered up from our own garden. He played on his flute, and as he did so the stone began to sprout until the little shrub was about two inches high. He then watered it a little and again began playing the most beautiful music to it. The little plant grew higher and higher as he did so, until it was quite two feet high with a number of leaves upon it. He then watered it a second time, and again played his flute until the tree was four feet high with fruit on it. He then stopped his music and cut one of the mangoes off the tree, which my father ate and found to be delicious."

That was Macpherson's story.

I have never seen the trick done this way, and do not know of anyone who has. But I have an explanation to give. In fact four explanations.

These are:--

That Macpherson and Baron Munchausen were relations.

That Macpherson's cousin was Louis de Rougement.

That the trick as above was explained to me late at night, after Macpherson had had "one or two."

That it was never done at all. Of course I do not want to call Macpherson a liar. It would be rude. He is a bigger man than I am, and he might meet me again.

I will now describe the mango trick as I have seen it performed many many times.