CHAPTER XII.

THE TRICKS OF CHINESE CONJURERS-FLYING CUPS AND

AIR-CLIMBERS.

MARCO gives a full account of the wonderful

tricks of conjuring which he witnessed at the court of Kublai Khan. No doubt he saw, or thought he saw the feats which he says were done before his eyes. He intended to be strictly truthful, and says, with some notion that he may be disbelieved, that these things are true, and no lie. Other and later travellers have described the same tricks, and have given no explanation of them, except to say that the spectators were probably hypnotised-that is to say, they were made to believe that they saw what did not exist. At the present day weather-conjuring is practised in China, Tatary, and India; and there are so-called conjurers, who pretend to be able to make fogs and clouds come and go.

Not many years since, a Chinese emperor found it necessary to forbid his people to offer prayers for rain after he had in vain prayed to Heaven for that

blessing. He indignantly said: "If I, offering up prayer in sincerity, have yet room to fear that it may please Heaven to leave my prayer unanswered, it is truly intolerable that mere common people, wishing for rain, should at their own caprice set up altars of earth, and bring together a rabble of Hosgang [Buddhist priests] to conjure the spirits to gratify their wishes."

The court jugglers in the time of Kublai Khan made it appear to those who looked on as if dishes from the table actually flew through the air. One of the travellers, who visited the regions of which Marco gives us some account, says: "And jugglers cause cups of gold to fly through the air and offer themselves to all who list to drink." And Ibn Batuta, a Moor who visited Cathay a century after, gives this account of a similar incident:

That same night a juggler, who was one of the Kán's slaves, made his appearance, and the Amír said to him: "Come and show us some of your marvels." Upon this he took a wooden ball, with several holes in it, through which long thongs were passed, and (laying hold of one of these) slung it into the air. It went up so high that we lost sight of it altogether. (It was the hottest season of the year, and we were outside in the middle of the palace court.) There now remained only a little of the end of a thong in the conjurer's hand, and he desired one of the boys who assisted him to lay hold of it and mount. He did so, climbing by the thong, and we lost sight of him also! The conjurer then called to him three times, but

XII.]

"'TIS ALL HOCUS-POCUS."

109

getting no answer he snatched up a knife as if in a great rage, laid hold of the thong, and disappeared also! Byand-by he threw down one of the boy's hands, then a foot then the other hand, and then the other foot, then the trunk, and last of all the head! Then he came down himself, all puffing and panting, and with his clothes all bloody kissed the ground before the Amír, and said something to him in Chinese. The Amir gave some order in reply, and our friend then took the lad's limbs, laid them together in their places, and gave a kick, when, presto! there was the boy, who got up and stood before us! All this astonished me beyond measure, and I had an attack of palpitation like that which overcame me once before in the presence of the Sultan of India, when he showed me something of the same kind. The Kazi Afkharuddin was next to me, and quoth he: "Wallah!-'tis my opinion there has been neither going up nor coming down, neither marring nor mending; 'tis all hocus-pocus!"

Mr. Edward Melton, an Anglo-Dutch traveller, who visited Java in 1670, gives a long description of the tricks of some Chinese conjurers, who performed in Batavia while he was there. After describing various other feats, he says: "But now I am going to relate a thing which surpasses all belief, and which I would scarcely venture to insert here if it had not been witnessed by thousands before my own eyes." He then goes on to describe a trick very much the same as those witnessed by Marco Polo and Ibn Batuta; and he adds: "Then straightway we saw with these eyes all those limbs creep together again, and in short time a whole man, who could at once