[Ill.u.s.tration: The actual moment of the appearance of the Snakes and Crocodiles.]

We could see that this was so as regards his bare chest, arms and waist, and to convince us that he had nothing hidden in his dhotie he showed us one bare leg at a time, avoiding barely any immodesty.

Concealing our blushes, we felt satisfied that his dhotie was the only worldly possession that he had with him at the moment. He picked up his chanter and continued to circle round and round our orderly, gradually closing into him. Suddenly he ran towards the outstretched hands with a crouching movement and struck them a smart blow, causing the orderly to pull his parted hands away and a small cloud of dust to appear from the falling earth. The cloud faded in a moment and there, to our intense astonishment, on the ground at our retainers feet were three snakes, two of which were cobras, and a baby crocodile! Needless to say that as soon as our orderly saw these unpleasant creatures writhing at his feet he cleared off to a safe distance. The Jadoo-wallah caught the reptiles and placed them in his snake basket.

I took him aside and asked him to divulge the secret of the trick.

"Ha! Ha! saheb" said he "at last I have shewn you something that you do not know. I will not tell you how it is done, but will come again in a week's time and will perform it once more for your benefit."

I agreed, and after the usual remuneration or bucksheesh, with a little extra, had pa.s.sed hands, away went our friend down the road to the bazaar.

The following week he sent word that he was coming on a particular day, and that if I got some friends to come he would repeat the trick.

The more friends, the more bucksheesh!

I gathered a few people in to have tea, and in due course the magician arrived, and with our head servant again performed the trick with the same wonderful result.

This time I solved the mystery. I told the performer my impressions of it and was glad to get his corroboration.

There was of course no collusion with the volunteer a.s.sistants.

The secret of the trick lies in a bag suspended mouth downwards from a string round the magician's waist so that it lies between his legs.

This bag contained the three snakes and the small crocodile. The mouth of the bag was threaded with a string, and naturally remained closed until the string was pulled right away when the weight of the wriggling contents caused the mouth to open and the reptiles to fall upon the ground beneath. The crouching position of the magician enabled him to get his legs spanning the ground immediately beneath the orderly's hands, and the earth falling in a dust prevented the possibility of our seeing the snakes during the brief interval of their falling from under the dhotie to the ground. Needless to say that the cobras had had their fangs extracted, that the third snake was harmless, and that the baby crocodile was too small to inflict any damage, though all four partic.i.p.ants could hiss like a young steam engine.

It was, as I say, the best trick I have ever seen in India, and from a magician's artistic point of view, the beauty of it lies in the fact that the bag is concealed through the modesty of the performer, and that in consequence the trick is not likely to be found out except by reasoning and the careful watching of all his movements.

CHAPTER XI

GENERALITIES, AND OTHER MYTHS.

This little book is written on Indian Conjuring, and with the exception of a dissertation upon the great Indian Rope Imagination, we have confined ourselves to tricks that we ourselves have seen, and which are common to the Indian conjuror. It would however, be incomplete without touching on one or two other broadcast myths that are frequently talked about.

Messrs. Maskelyn & Devant used to show a very clever illusion called the New Page, in which a page boy was tied up in an upright position in a cabinet just large enough to contain him. The showman then took a doll--a small model of the page boy--and ill.u.s.trated that whatever happened to the doll would happen to the boy in the box. As a convincing example he turned the doll upside down. Miraculous to relate, when the cabinet was opened the page boy was found to be upside down with the original knots and seals intact! This experiment according to the excellent patter of the showman, was based upon the prevalent idea that in India certain magicians make a small effigy of a person on whom some dire calamity is intended, and that whatever is done to this doll, happens to the unfortunate person at any distance, but at that identical moment. I am glad to say that I have never seen or heard of this myth being verified.

On one occasion a medical officer knowing that I was interested in Magic, told me that he was attending an idiot girl who was covered with sores and that the common idea in the bazaar was that some person was working "Jadoo" upon her, using this doll method of doing so. He kindly allowed me to visit the girl with him, and, being an ordinary mortal and unused to horrible sights, I was shocked at her appearance. She had nasty open sores on her cheeks, arms and forehead.

She was certainly an imbecile. Her father was adamant in his belief that "Jadoo" and nothing else accounted for her state. Her imbecility was due, we found, to her having had a fall as a baby. In order to ascertain the cause of the sores the medical officer removed her to the cantonment (Government) hospital, where after a period they yielded to treatment and were eventually cured. Evidently the "Jadoo"

had ceased. On her return to her ancestral hut, these sores again appeared. With the permission of the medical officer and the parents, I employed a reliable attendant to watch the girl. In three days I received the following report. The previous evening, when the girl thought that she was not being watched, the attendant saw her take something from a hiding place and rub her face with it two or three times. He watched her replace whatever it was, and later found it. He gave it to us with his report. It proved to be a piece of nut used by "Dhobies" or Indian Washermen to mark the clothing committed to their destruction-care, I should say. On every article of clothing returned by the "Dhobie" there is in one corner a small brown mark, corresponding to the st.i.tched mark used by Laundries in England, by which the owner of the article washed is identified. This nut is called, I believe, "Areca nut." When applied to the human skin it causes a sore. The illness from which the poor girl was suffering was an "inclination to maim or disfigure oneself," commonly found with imbeciles. (I have touched wood, you medical people, so please don't abuse me if I am wrong!)

As the parents were not fully convinced that "Jadoo" was not being worked, we again took the girl to hospital and again was she cured of the ghastly sores.

This is the only case of such "Jadoo" that has come to my personal knowledge.

There is another form of "Jadoo" that is believed in by the inhabitants of the bazaar. A maliciously inclined person has a spite against another. He makes a small bouquet of tomato leaves, or cabbage or some such herb, sprinkles it with salt, green powder, and so forth and so on, and lays this down as close as possible to the door of the person to whom he wants to bring bad luck for 12 months! It is true that we had this delightful bouquet thrown into our compound on one occasion, and that shortly afterwards--

(1) our gardener's wife died in childbirth.

(2) my wife got hay fever.

(3) my agents declined to meet any more of my cheques until they had received a substantial instalment.

(4) we were again ordered to move to another Station.

I regret to say that of the above, 2, 3 and 4 were of such frequent occurrence that we did not a.s.sign them to the receipt of the bouquet.

The gardener however, was convinced that it caused his wife to die in childbirth as she had never done so before. I have no explanation for the "denouement" and give the story as it happened, allowing my readers to judge for themselves whether or no any credence should be given to the fable after such convincing proof.