Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/292

 tams, bones, flutes, tambourines, and large drums went to work furiously.

The performance was what all these acrobatic exhibitions are. But it must be confessed that the Japanese are the best equilibrists in the world. One, with his fan and small bits of paper, executed the graceful trick of the butterflies and flowers. Another, with the odorous smoke of his pipe, traced rapidly in the air a series of bluish words, which formed a compliment addressed to the audience. The latter juggled with lit candles, which he blew out in succession as they passed before his lips, and which he lit again, one after the other, without interrupting, for a single moment, his wonderful jugglery. The former produced, by means of spinning tops, the most improbable combinations. Under his hand these humming machines seemed to be gifted with a life of their own in their interminable whirling; they ran over pipe stems, over the edges of sabers, over wires as thin as hair, stretched from one side of the stage to the other; they went round large glass vases, they went up and down bamboo ladders, and scattered into all the corners, and produced harmonic effects of a strange character by combining their various tones. The jugglers tossed them up, and they turned in the air; they threw them like shuttle-cocks with wooden battledores, and they kept on turning; they thrust them into their pockets, and when they borught them out they were still spinning—until the moment when a relaxed spring made them bud out into a Chinese tree!

It is useless to describe here the wonderful feats of the acrobats and gymnasts of the troupe. The turning on ladders, poles, balls, barrels, etc., was executed with remarkable precision. But the principal attraction of the performance was the exhibition of the Long Noses, astonishing equilibrists, with whom Europe is not yet acquainted.

These Long Noses form a special company placed under the direct patronage of the god Tingou. Dressed like heroes of the middle ages, they bore a splendid pair of wings on their shoulders. But what distinguished them more particularly was the long nose with which their faces were ornamented, and, above all, the use they made of them. These noses were nothing less than bamboos, five, six, ten feet long; some straight, others curved; the latter