n
extraordinary ways defy all the powers of gravity.

In India and China we see the most marvelous of the knife-jugglers.

With unerring skill they keep in motion many pointed knives, always
receiving them at their fall by the handles. They throw their
implements with such precision that one often sees men, who, placing
their partner against a soft board, will stand at some distance and so
pen him in with daggers that he cannot move until some are withdrawn,
marking a silhouette of his form on the board,--yet never once does one
as much as graze the skin. With these same people the foot-jugglers are
most common. These persons, both made and female, will with their feet
juggle substances and articles that it requires several assistants to
raise.

A curious trick is given by Rousselet in his magnificent work entitled
"L'Inde des Rajahs," and quoted by Guyot-Daubes. It is called in India
the "dance of the eggs." The dancer, dressed in a rather short skirt,
places on her head a large wheel made of light wood, and at regular
intervals having hanging from it pieces of thread, at the ends of which
are running knots kept open by beads of glass. She then brings forth a
basket of eggs, and passes them around for inspection to assure her
spectators of their genuineness. The monotonous music commences and the
dancer sets the wheel on her head in rapid motion; then, taking an egg,
with a quick movement she puts it on one of the running knots and
increases the velocity of the revolution of the wheel by gyrations
until the centrifugal force makes each cord stand out in an almost
horizontal line with the circumference of the wheel. Then one after
another she places the eggs on the knots of the cord, until all are
flying about her head in an almost horizontal position. At this moment
the dance begins, and it is almost impossible to distinguish the
features of the dancer. She continues her dance, apparently indifferent
to the revolving eggs. At the velocity with which they revolve the
slightest false movement would cause them to knock against one another
and surely break. Finally, with the same lightning-like movements, she
removes them one by one, certainly the most delicate part of the trick,
until they are all safely laid away in the basket from which they came,
and then she suddenly brings the wheel to a stop; after this wonderful
performance, lasting possibly thirty minutes, she bows herself out.

A unique Japanese feat is to t