AN INDIAN CONJUROR.

Evening Post, Issue 122, 30 June 1865, Page 2

AN INDIAN CONJUROR.

The old conjuror now said that, for the next trick, he must be somewhere out of the sun, and sheltered from any air which might be stirring. We accordingly adjourned to the verandah. The conjuror spread a piece of matting, and squatted, produced from his shawl a bag, and emptied it on a stone in front of him. 'I he contents were a quantity 6f little bita of wood ; some, forked like branches of a tree; some, straight; each a few inches long; besides these, there were some fifteen or twenty little painted birds, about half an inch long. The old man chose one of the straightest and thickest of the bits of wood, and turning his face up in the air, poised it on the tip of his nose. The little boys who sat by him henceforth handed whatever he called for. First, two or three more pieces of wood, which he poised on the branch already there, then a forked piece, to whichthe gradually made additions, until he had built upon his nose a tree with two branches. He always kept its balance by adding simultaneously on each side, holding a piece iv each hand, and never once taking his eye off the fabric. Soon the two branches became four, the four eight, and so on, until a skeleton of a tree was formed, about two feet high, and branching off so as to overshadow his whole face; he could just reach with his hands to put the topmost branches or* It was a wonderful structure, and we all held our breath as he added the last bits. But it was not done yet. The boys now handed him the little birds, and still two at a time, one in each hand, he stuck them all over &c tree. The complete immobility of his head and neck while he was balancing this structure on the tip of his nose, was something wonderful, and I think he must have breathed through his ears, for there was not the slightest perceptible motion about nose or mouth After putting all the birds on, he paused, and we, thinking the trick was finished began to applaud. But he held up his forefinger for silence. There was more to come. The boys put into one of his hands a short hollow reed, and into the other some dried peas. He then put a pea into his mouth, and using the reed as a peashooter, took aim, and shot off the branch one of the birds. The breath he gave was so gentle and well calculated that it gave no perceptible movement to his face; it just sent the pea far enough to hit a particular bird with perfect aim and knock it it over. Not another thing on the tree moved. Another pea was fired in the same way, and another bird brought down, and so on until all the birds were bagged. The fire was then directed at the branohaf^ and limbs of the tree, and, beginnygffforn, the topmost, the whole ofTjjjifastonishing structure was demolished pienenaeal even.

more wonderfully than its manner of erection. — "Something like a Conjuror" in All the Year Round.