titleNow let us compare with this, which Ibn Batuta the Moor says he saw in
/titlecategory1/categoryChina about the year 1348, the account which is given us by Edward Melton,
an Anglo-Dutch traveller, of the performances of a Chinese gang of
conjurors, which he witnessed at Batavia about the year 1670 (I have
forgotten to note the year)
Now let us compare with this, which Ibn Batuta the Moor says he saw in
China about the year 1348, the account which is given us by Edward Melton,
an Anglo-Dutch traveller, of the performances of a Chinese gang of
conjurors, which he witnessed at Batavia about the year 1670 (I have
forgotten to note the year). After describing very vividly the _basket-
murder_ trick, which is well known in India, and now also in Europe, and
some feats of bamboo balancing similar to those which were recently shown
by Japanese performers in England, only more wonderful, he proceeds: But
now I am going to relate a thing which surpasses all belief, and which I
should scarcely venture to insert here had it not been witnessed by
thousands before my own eyes. One of the same gang took a ball of cord,
and grasping one end of the cord in his hand slung the other up into the
air with such force that its extremity was beyond reach of our sight. He
then immediately climbed up the cord with indescribable swiftness, and got
so high that we could no longer see him. I stood full of astonishment, not
conceiving what was to come of this; when lo! a leg came tumbling down out
of the air. One of the conjuring company instantly snatched it up and
threw it into the basket whereof I have formerly spoken. A moment later a
hand came down, and immediately on that another leg. And in short all the
members of the body came thus successively tumbling from the air and were
cast together into the basket. The last fragment of all that we saw tumble
down was the head, and no sooner had that touched the ground than he who
had snatched up all the limbs and put them in the basket turned them all
out again topsy-turvy. Then straightway we saw with these eyes all those
limbs creep together again, and in short, form a whole man, who at once
could stand and go just as before, without showing the least damage! Never
in my life was I so astonished as when I beheld this wonderful
performance, and I doubted now no longer that these misguided men did it
by the help of the Devil. For it seems to me totally impossible that such
things should be accomplished by natural means. The same performance is
spoken of by Valentyn, in a passage also containing curious notices of the
basket-murder trick, the mango trick, the sitting in the air (quoted
above), and others; but he refers to Melton, and I am not sure whether he
had any other authority for it. The cut on this page is taken from
Meltons plate.
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