cles to disappear
suddenly and then to exhibit themselves in out-of-the-way places is
curious as well as unaccountable to an outsider. A common trick with
these performers is to throw a ball very high into the air, which
seems to fade away as the eye follows it, and does not apparently
return to the ground. It literally vanishes from sight. The keenest
watchfulness of the observer does not solve the manner of
accomplishing this trick.

"We are all hypnotized," said one of the spectators on the piazza,
"else how could that ball come down to the earth and not be seen to do
so? It _must_ descend, having once ascended," he added; "that is a law
of nature."

"It may possibly be something of that sort," responded another equally
dazed spectator. "The Hindus know all about hypnotism, and have
practiced it more or less for many centuries, though we are but just
beginning to investigate it."

"How these marvelous things are performed, no foreigner ever knows,"
added a third. "The power is handed down from father to son, but is
never revealed to the multitude."

The only way we can explain some of the tricks and apparent miracles
which these performers exhibit is by supposing that for the time
being we are quite under the hypnotic influence of the magician. The
author has seen in India proper a performer in this line extend a
glass bowl full of water in his hand at arm's length, and cause it to
gradually grow less and less in size until it disappeared altogether.
After a moment it appeared again in the hand and at the same place,
beginning at first about the size of an English walnut, and growing
before the spectator's eyes to its normal condition.

Another common trick is to plant a mango seed in an earthen pot before
the spectator's eyes and cause the same to spring up and grow into a
small bush, then blossom and bear a green fruit, which finally ripens
until it is in a condition to be plucked from the stem. This entire
process is accomplished in half an hour, while some side tricks are
going on. The swallowing of a sword, or rather passing its blade down
the throat into the stomach, is very common with these Singhalese
itinerant exhibitors, a facility which is acquired after much patient
practice, and which is not necessarily injurious to the performer.

The snakes which these "charmers," as they call themselves, handle
with such apparent recklessness and freedom are of the deadly cobra
family, fatally poisonous when t