Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/78

64 shrilly squeaking in an adjoining room, and the voices of Hindu men and women sounding in our ears,—we felt that of a truth we were in India.

The first call we received, after the salutations of the dwellers in the compound, was from a company of jugglers, who are always on the alert for new-comers. They were four in number, dressed only in the indispensable turban, and a piece of cotton cloth wrapped around their loins. Approaching the house with two or three baskets and bags containing their apparatus, they, with low salaams, (made by raising the united hands to the forehead, and bending the body,) begged permission to exhibit their wonders before their royal highnesses, the gentlemen and ladies. Having received permission, they seated themselves cross-legged upon the brick floor of the verandah. Opening their bags, they produced a few trumpery articles, balls, covers, knives, &c., and commenced their performances. They had no distance and darkness to help them; no tables with false tops and drawers with false bottoms; yet, seated on the floor, and under our very eyes, they fully equalled the wonderful magicians who astonish the youth of our