the Japanese are
as good, if not better than the Chinese) but this egg trick is to my
mind the most symbolical of Chinese magic.

The Indian juggler or Jadoo-wallah arrives with a basket large enough
to contain a man, as we will see later, a huge dilapidated bag, a
voluminous dhotie or loin cloth, and possibly a snake basket or two.
He is a poor man or "gareeb admi" and looks it. He starts a whine in
the hope of getting an audience through sympathy. If he does not whine
he assumes an air of superiority that is somewhat exasperating. At
sleight-of-hand he is far below the level of the average European
performer. He spoils his art by the continual diving into his bag
ostentatiously to dig out the bone of a cow or an antiquated "dolly,"
of the rag doll type. If only he would do his little tricks away from
his impedimenta in clean clothes he would add 50% to the merit of his
performance though it would probably be not so entertaining to those
newly arrived in India.

I have very little praise to give to the Indian conjuror as an artist,
either in sleight-of-hand, in juggling, or as an illusionist. His
tricks are as "old as my unpaid bills" and from time immemorial have
been performed with the same monotonous patter and the irritating
drone of the "bean" or so called musical instrument. I may here say
that this musical torture is used to disguise movements of the
showman's hand in the same way as the European uses his magic wand, an
instrument that does not appeal to me at all, though at times very
useful.

The articles used by the Indian conjuror are very very primitive and
of indifferent manufacture. The Jadoo-wallah has remained as he was
50, 60, or 100 years ago. The old gentleman whose portrait forms the
first illustration of this book told me that the tricks he does were
learnt by his great grandfather from a friend in Lahore. This takes us
back some 150 years. The tricks have remained the same as when taught
at Lahore though my old friend has brought them up-to-date by singing
"Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay" between each experiment!

The Indian conjuror has never indulged in pure sleight-of-hand to any
extent, and has never improved upon any of his illusions.

[Illustration: Shah Mahommed singing Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay between two
experiments.]

He seldom has any patter worth listening to and that which he uses
consists usually of "Beggie, beggie, aow" or "Beggie beggie jaow."
"Bun, two, three, four, five, white, bite, fi