Indian jugglery that we must give it in the simple Siddeshur's own
words. When every one was satisfied that the man had really disappeared,
the principal performer, who did not seem to be at all astonished, told
his audience that the vanished man had gone up to the heavens to fight
Indra. "In a few moments," says Siddeshur, "he expressed anxiety at the
man's continued absence in the aerial regions, and said that he would go
up to see what was the matter. A boy was called, who held upright a long
bamboo, up which the man climbed to the top, whereupon we suddenly lost
sight of him, and the boy laid the bamboo on the ground. Then there fell
on the ground before us the different members of a human body, all
bloody,--first one hand, then another, a foot, and so on, until complete.
The boy then elevated the bamboo, and the principal performer, appearing
on the top as suddenly as he had disappeared, came down, and seeming quite
disconsolate, said that Indra had killed his friend before he could get
there to save him. He then placed the mangled remains in the same box,
closed it, and tied it as before. Our wonder and astonishment reached
their climax when, a few minutes later, on the box being again opened, the
man jumped out perfectly hearty and unhurt." Is not this rather a severe
strain on one's credulity, even for an Indian jugglery story?]

In Philostratus, again, we may learn the antiquity of some juggling tricks
that have come up as novelties in our own day. Thus at Taxila a man set
his son against a board, and then threw darts tracing the outline of the
boy's figure on the board. This feat was shown in London some fifteen or
twenty years ago, and humorously commemorated in _Punch_ by John Leech.

(_Philostratus_, Fr. Transl. Bk. III. ch. xv. and xxvii.; _Mich. Glycas_,
Ann. II. 156, Paris ed.; _Delrio, Disquis. Magic._ pp. 34, 100; _Koeppen_,
I. 31, II. 82, 114-115, 260, 262, 280; _Vassilyev_, 156; _Della Penna_,
36; _S. Setzen_, 43, 353; _Pereg. Quat._ 117; _I. B._ IV. 39 and 290
seqq.; _Asiat. Researches_, XVII. 186; _Valentyn_, V. 52-54; _Edward
Melton, Engelsch Edelmans, Zeldzaame en Gedenkwaardige Zee en Land Reizen,
etc., aangevangen in den Jaare 1660 en geendigd in den Jaare 1677_,
Amsterdam, 1702, p. 468; _Mem. of the Emp. Jahangueir_, pp. 99, 102.)

[Illustration: Grand Temple of Buddha at LHASA]

NOTE 12.--["The maintenance of the Lamas, of their monasteries, the
expenses for the sacrifices and for transcript