The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1907-05-23
THE HINDOO FAKIRS
THEY ARE PRINCES or JuGGLERs
AND MAGlClANS.
Some OF the Wonderful Feats Of IL
lusiOn and Dexterity These Masters
of the Mystic Arts of the Orient Are
Said to Perform.

lusiOn and Dexterity These Masters
Said to Perform.
'Stoppedv'
In the sudden stiffness that pervades
the great liners saloon everybody
pauses without knowing it and looks
at the captain.
This gentleman merely settles to his
luncheon more comfortably than be-
fore, while anchor chains rattle out
md the steam whistle blows and the
passengers hasten on deck to feel a
heavy, tropical wind blowing off low
shore, along which tigers and alliga-
tors may creep to the waters edge by
night, but where now noon sun lies
yellow on the huts and rice fields
which are the strangers first glimpse
of Calcutta.
The liner swings well out in the
stream.
Presently flashes through the brown
ripples of the Hoogly river dusky
body, and up the anchor chain nimbly
as a monkey scrambles a man, clad
only in loin cloth and having a tiny,
tight rolled red bundle fastened at the
hack Of his neck out Of reach OF the
water
The mans first action is to pick up
from the deck ball of twine with
which a sailor is mending a pawlin
and unwind the string, which goes
straight up in the air in defiance Of
the law of gravitation which, should
have trailed it along the deck.
AS the fakir passes another sailor
who has bought cocoanut and is
cracking it open, he gently takes from
the mans hand half of the still full
shell, holds it high above ships buck
ct, into which water streams from the
cocoanut until the bucket has been
twelve times filed and emptied. Next
the juggler asks for a large earthen
dish, pours into it gallon of water,
raises it aloft in his left hand-his
right being laid against his forehead.
The dish grows smaller by almost i'm
perceptiblc degrees of shrinkage until
it completely disappears. Then, after
pause. tiny brown speck is seen
in the jugglers hand. 1t grows larger
and larger until the dish is visible as
at first. filled to the brim with water,
which the juggler pours out and which
runs down into the deck cutters.
A little aloof from the eager circle of
| spectators sits a young American wo-
man, her baby swinging in ham,
mock, her five-year-old daughter OH n
cushion at her feet. The juggler stands
perfectly still, his eyes fixed absently
upon the group. apparently concentrat-
| ing his forces upon some fresh wonder
The American sllrinns backward with
movement of repulsion, which the
| juggler evidently notices, for he turns
/ his gaze upon an English miss of fif-
teen who stands on the opposite side
/ of the semicircle.
| Suddenly the young mother sees the
English girl begin to rise from the
deck and float across the space be-
/ tween her and the hammock in which
rests the sleeping baby. 10 her hor-
ror the girl stoops over and takes up
| the infant Then the girl rises from
the deck, higher and higher. until she
is lost i'll the clouds.
The mother is helpless to cry out or
Il
to move She is i'll Il sort of waking
nightmare AS she stares she per-
ceives a spot in the fleecy clonds-near-
er, nearer it comes-she discerns the
form of her baby-safe in the arms of
! the English girl, who gradually de-
scends to the deck and lays the infant
back in the hammock
/ With a frantic effort the mother
bursts the spell that binds her and
snatches up the child to find 1t sound
asleep. How could you let that
strange girl take your little brother
away?" she screams to her startled
daughter who sits quietly ON the cush-
ion.
"Why, mamma" replies the child,
"brother has been asleep in his ham,
mock all the time. No one has touch
ed him.
/ 1t was but one more trick of the
senses played by the holy man from
India. 1t was utterly inexplicable.
The fellow came over the ships rail
dripping wet after long swim from
shore. The liner has just dropped an
chor after a voyage of several thor
sand miles, 4 confederate is an i'm.
possibility. An audience of about SOC
skeptical persons crowds close around
the juggler There is no chance fol
deception.
4 Now the Hindoo unties the bundle
from behind his neck, opens a square
Of red cloth, passes it to the audienct
for inspection and then spreads it fiat
on the deck. His eyes turn inward
and become fixed. He mutters to him
self, and, after walking three times
around the square, he thrusts his BARI
hand and arm under the cloth and
brings forth rudely carved little boa
measuring not more than 8 by 4 inches
1t is undecked and empty. The on,
thwart across it is pierced with mas
hole. With the boat he brings out /
small cocoanut.
He offers the boat and the nut 70
the scrutiny of the passengers. B,
those who see and touch it the nut
pronounced to be scraped clean an
!, to be pierced with three small holes
+ The juggler sticks thin bamb0
wand Of about two feet into the mas
, hole, then places the nut ON the en-