it was withdrawn, the eye released, and then
rubbed vigorously a few times with the balled end of the rod.

"The drums all the time had been beaten lustily, and the men had kept
up their chant, which still went unceasingly on. Again a man sprang to
his feet and went through the same horrid motions. This time the
performer took from the fire a sharp nail and, with a piece of the
sandy limestone common to this region, proceeded with a series of
blood-curdling howls to hammer it down into the top of his head, where
it presently stuck upright, while he tottered dizzily around until it
was pulled out with apparent effort and with a hollow snap by one of
the other men.

"The performance had now fairly begun, and, with short intervals and
always in the same manner, the frenzied contortions first, another ate
up a glass lamp-chimney, which he first broke in pieces in his hands
and then crunched loudly with his teeth. He then produced from a tin
box a live scorpion, which ran across the floor with tail erect, and
was then allowed to attach itself to the back of his hand and his face,
and was finally taken into his mouth, where it hung suspended from the
inside of his cheek and was finally chewed and swallowed. A sword was
next produced, and after the usual preliminaries it was drawn by the
same man who had just given the scorpion such unusual opportunities
several times back and forth across his throat and neck, apparently
deeply imbedded in the flesh. Not content with this, he bared his body
at his waist, and while one man held the sword, edge upward, by the
hilt and another by the point, about which a turban had been wrapped,
he first stood upon it with his bare feet and then balanced himself
across it on his naked stomach, while still another of the performers
stood upon his back, whither he had sprung without any attempt to
mollify the violence of the action. With more yells and genuflections,
another now drew from the fire several iron skewers, some of which he
thrust into the inner side of his cheeks and others into his throat at
the larynx, where they were left for a while to hang.

"The last of the actors in this singular entertainment was a stout man
with a careworn face, who apparently regarded his share as a melancholy
duty which he was bound to perform, and the last part of it, I have no
doubt, was particularly painful. He first took a handful of hay, and,
having bared the whole upper part of his body, lighted the