ses.

The company breakfasted with excellent appetites after the exercises of the
morning; and then Lord Tremlyn conducted them to the large saloon where the
Nautch had been given, and they were astonished to find that one end of it
was occupied by no less than fourteen men, not one of whom was more than
half clothed, though the tom-tom player had on a pair of short trousers.
This fellow began to beat his instrument with frantic energy, moaning and
howling at the same time as though he was in great agony.

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Belgrave, putting her fingers into her ears.
"Can't you stop that hideous noise, Sir Modava?"

"No more howling!" protested he in Hindu.

The chief juggler declared that they could not go on, and Uncle Moses
suggested that they had to overwhelm the senses of the audience to enable
the jugglers to deceive them. Their Hindu guide talked with them, and then
ordered them to leave the hotel. The performers were not willing to forego
the rich reward expected; and a compromise was effected by which the
tom-tom was to be used, but the howling was to cease. Lord Tremlyn had
announced the nature of the entertainment as they entered the apartment,
and most of the tourists had heard of the wonderful skill of Indian
jugglers.

A couple of the performers produced two swords twenty-six inches long, and
pushed them down their throats to the hilt, and then asked Dr. Hawkes to
feel the point in their stomachs. Another put a stone in his mouth, and
then began to blow out smoke and a cloud of sparks from his nose as well as
his mouth. Turning a somerset, he cast the stone on the floor. One took an
iron hoop from a pile of them, and set it to spinning on a pole in the air.
He continued to add others, one at a time, till he had eighteen of them
whirling above his head.

Another set a lot of small swords circling in the air, till he had ten of
them buzzing about his head. At the same time a sleight-of-hand man was
doing a variety of tricks very skilfully, and acrobats were mounting on
each other's shoulders, and pitching themselves about very promiscuously.
While the party were wondering at the skill of the performers, though many
of them had seen most of the tricks at home, a boy about eight years old
came into the room with a good-sized basket in his hands, which he placed
on the floor as the men spread out into a semicircle. The child stepped
into the basket, which did not seem to be big enough to hold him