The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-07-19
BANCROFT THE MAGICIAN.
4 Funny INCIDENT THAT OCCUR
RED on THE UMBRIA.
hancrofrs Arrival at CeyIon.
Graphic Description Of an EIe-
phunt Hunt-The Mango Trick.

a p * o. steamer at London or Brindisi
and so on % your way 10 India as have
done There can De nothing more inefIa-
bly, delightful than sleeping on the deck
nights, as the passengers DO on these YES
sells The vaunted luxury Of an Atlantic
passage, even in the finest steamship. is
nothing, compared 10 IT, The ships are
not as large as the Umbria. TO be sure.
But they are constructed not as our At
lanuc steamers Of the present day, to see
/ how many human beings you can pen in
the smallest space possible. but to give
the traveller all the comfort that can be
enjoyed in a warm latitude.
Speaking of the Umbria. by the way,
there was one curious experience which
proved a solace TO an otherwise duh trip
A very high toned lady was aboard Owho
shall, of course. be pameless) Somebody
had told her that. amongSyhe passengers
there was celebrated ex-convict "a for
ger and general confidence man. And she
| never tired expressing her horror that
sucn being instead of being thrown in
irons in the hold, should be allowed to
tors.
The person to whom she was constantly
eonnding her Indignation and disgust was
n fine looking gentleman, with cleaning
teeth ana pointed beard, and the most
courtly manner, man 1 should say, of
/ a. He and the high toned lady We're so
| constantly together that IL was the talk
| OF the ship chat a match would probably
| ne the result, as the lady in question was
"a rich widow. The couple were the last
/ TO leave the deck at night, and almost the
/ first to rejoin Zach other in the morning
/ They sat next - each other at table. But
| the topic of conversation with her SEEM
| ed to be always the same-what a hOrri-
/
/ criminals. She expressed a fear Of her
| lie that some night. this dreadful man
/ might break into her cabin and murder
l Ifefi or, al any rate, steal her possessions
| w ell, at last we got to Queenstown
| Two English officers evidently detec-
/ uVes) boarded the ship. And whom did
/ they select to put the manacles on but the
/ me looking gentleman with whom the
| lady he question had been talking about
/ her horror of cOnvcts. 1 have never seen
/ any thing that struck me as so humorous
! as her expression of amaZement and con-
/ fusion when the person to whom she had
/ been so attached during the entire trip,
/ and from whom She was practically in
/ separate, turned out to be the very man
| of whom she had frequently expressed
| adherence
Wen, here I am in Ceylon the land of
! elephants and tea; a delightful country,
picturesque, salubriOus and inviting The
/ most exciting adventure 1 have had has
/ been an elephant hunt. Those huge ami
/ mails still roam in thousands in a wild
! state. They are strictly protected by the
/ government; but. every year about this
! time, several drives are organized and
many are captured for commercial pur-
! poses. They are never killed. The proh-
| bitlon against that is very severe. The
! ivory is secured without killing, differing
| in that way from the insane slaughter
that constantly goes on in Africa.
About thousand natives are employed
| IN every drive, and nothing can be more
interesting than TO see these huge beasts
] gradually brought down to a narrow cir
! Gle. rushing in terror before the deafen-
| ing noise made by the natives Nothing
| could be more simple than the methods
] employed 1t is simply to ultimately cor
raj the animals in an enclosure, and after
that. lead them out one by one and begin
! the process of tanning.
In the drive at which 1 assisted about
| seVenty-f1Ve or eighty elephants were cap
| tured. The young are never kept. They
| are sent back to the woods, so to grow
! to a natural size when they can be made a
| better use of. Most of them are sent to
| India and employed in government work
] of various descriptions They tell me here
! that hte Ceylon elephant is the most intel
| ligent in the world, and that l shall see
them do some surprising things when 1 get
! to India.
While the Ceylonese are neither so SUI
! perstitious nor so fond of magic as the
! Hindoos, still they possess their own ma
! gicians. / went out some distance in the
| country to witness the feats of a family
! of five who devoted themselves to what is
]
/ watched them go through their perform
/ ance with much interest but l must con-
| fess with thorough disappointment They
| did nothing that a child in magic could not
perform almost as well
! The principal feat was what is known
! as the mango trick, and it was done very
| awkwardly. The performer crouched on
! the ground, and, over three little wooden
uprights threw a cloth, making a small
| tent Then he took from the folds of his
dress mango seed, showed it TO US. and
| then put his hands and arms under the
| cover, apparently planting the seed in the
| earth. A small shoot would be seen direct
| ~ he moved the cover Then he replaced
/ it, and again put his arms under the cover
! Four or five minutes, perhaps more, would
pass; the cover was again taken off, and
we were treated to the sight of a small
1 mango tree, perhaps three or four feet
| high, bearing fruit.
A magician Of any skill would be
| ashamed to perform in public so bare
! faced a trick as this. The shoot in the
mango was evidently inserted in the seed
| when the man put his hands second
/ time beneath the cover. Then he with
drew from his wide sleeve tan ample gar
! ment) a small tree that was supposed
to have grown out of the earth Any or
binary man. after nVe or six experiments,
| would have done the trick as skillfully
as this man in Ceylon. I had always heard
! Europeans speak of the mango trick as
| one of the marYels of the earth. l am
sorry to say that my belief in 1t has been
completely dispelled, unless the fakirs of
India are much more skillful than those
| of Ceylon.
other than this, they performed nothing
| but a few juggling devices and feats of
/ euuilbrium-things that we have seen the
( Japanese perform infinitely better. They
| seemed to be very much astonished that
I took no stock in them, and openly ex-
pressed displeasure at the simplicity of
| their work
In fact, one of the friends had with
me, a passenger from the ship, having
seen me give a seance one night in the
cabin. asked me to do two or three sleight
of hand experiments of not unusual
! kind Yet ] saw these Ceylon fakirs were
! very much surprised with them, and an
parently discussed it with themselves, for
! they iabbered to each other in some I'M
known jargon in tone that seemed almost
! like quarrelling.
To depart a bit from my given topic
! the one, naturally, in which / am most
| interested-I had a pleasant surprise I'm
| Colombo. For, one day after I arrived
! there. who should come along but a whole
! cargo of people whom l had met in Amer
lea belonging to one of the extrava ganza
| companies that deluged US from London
| last season. And it made at least a cou-
! Of Tas-a ma VERY briefly -frt,o1.