Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1907-02-28
THE HINDOO FAKIRs
THEY ARE PRINCES OF JueeLERs
AND MAe,clANs.


AND MAG,CiANS.
Some Of the Wonderful Fcats of IL
fusion and Dcxtcrity These Master.
Said to Perform.
"Stopped!
In the sudden stiffness that pervades
the great liners saloon everybody
pauses without knowing it and looks
ut the captain.
This gentleman merely settles to his
luncheon more comfortably than be-
fore, while anchor chains rattle out
and the steam whistle blows and the
passengers hasten on deck to feel a
heavy, tropical wind blowing off low
shccc, along which tigers and alliga-
tors may creep to the waters edge by
night, but where now a noon sun lies
yellow on the huts and rice fields
which are the strangers first glimpse
of Calcutta.
The liner swings we'll out i'm the
stream.
Presently flashes through the brown
ripples of the Hoogly river a dusky
body, and up the anchor chain nimbly
as monkey scrambles man, clad
only in a loin cloth and having tiny,
| tight rolled red bundle fastened Mt the
GOr Of I, o,,k
water.
The mans first action is to pick up
from the deck q ball of Irvine with
| which sailor is mending pawlin
and unwind the string, which goes
straight up in the air in defiance of
the law of gravitation which should
b.ve 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
SHE'LL holds it high above IL ships buck
ct, into which water streams from the
cocoanut until the bucket has been
twelve times filled and emptied. Next
the juggler asks for large earthen
dish, pours into 1T gallon of water,
raises it aloft in his left hand--his
right being laid against his forehead.
1 The dish grows smaller by almost i'm
perceptible degrees of shrinkage until
1T completely disappears. Then, after
a pause, a tiny brown speck is seen
in the juggler's 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 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 concentrate
i ing his forces upon some fresh wonder.
The American shrinks backward with
a movement of rcpulsion, which the
4 juggler evidently notices, for he turns
his gaze upon an English miss of fif-
teen who stands on the opposite side
of the semicrclc.
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 i'm which
rests the sleeping baby To 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 In the clouds.
The mother is helpless to cry out OF
to move. She is in n sort of waking
nightmare. AS She stares she per
ceivcs a spot in the tlcecy clouds-near-
cr, nearer it comcs-shc discerns the
form of her baby-safe in the arms OF
the English girl, who gradually de
seconds 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 it sound
asleep. GLOW could you let thai
strange girl take your little brother
awayW 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 tn
senses played by the holy man iron
India. 1t was utterly ineXplicable.
The fellow came over the ships raj
dripping wet after long swim iron
shore. The liner has just dropped an
Choir after voyage Of several thou
2 sand miles. A confederate is an i'm
= possibility. An audience of about so
skeptical persons crowds close arount
2 the juggler. There is no chance TO
! deception.
Now the Hindoo unties the bundl
from behind his neck, opens Il squar
Of red cloth, passes it to the audienc
! for inspection and then spreads it fla
4 on the deck. His eyes turn inwar,
and become fixed. He mutters to him
: self, and, after walking three time
around the square, he thrusts his bar
!. hand and arm under the cloth AM
brings forth rudely carved little boa
measuring not more than 8 by inches
1t is unlocked and empty. The on
thwart across it is pierced with a 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 iupplar sticks n thin hamho