Using one foot for a pivot, he keeps moving round by the aid of the other, so as make about ten revolutions in a minute, and, while in motion, successively takes the eggs from the basket, and, with his right hand only, puts each into a loop, drawing it tight, so as to retain the egg firmly in an equipoised state.
In this manner he strings all the eggs, and again unstrings and re-places them in the basket; he always moving the same way. When the whole are strung, the music quickens its time considerably, and the operator, conforming to the change, accelerates his pace in proportion, until the velocity acquired by the eggs is such, as to occasion their whirling on a level with the platter.
I consider this to be the most arduous of all the exercises in that branch which depends, principally, on delicacy and caution. If we consider how many chances of failure exist, whether from a slip of the foot, a want of attention to the due elevation of the elbow, the aptness of the unemployed loops to become entangled, the giddiness to be apprehended from turning full half an hour, with such speed, always the same way, and the possibility of allowing a newly-laden loop to fall into its place too suddenly, and the same in withdrawing it, when about to take out the egg; all these are certainly points very difficult to compass, or to avoid, and entitle the artist to unlimitted approbation.
I observe, in Cordiner’s Description of Ceylon, some feats of the jugglers in that island noticed as being beyond compare; but I cannot conceive any thing more dexterous than that operation, so common in Bengal, of balancing a bamboo ladder, about fifteen feet in length, on a man’s chin, and allowing a well-grown lad, or a young woman, to ascend to the summit, by winding in and out between the steps, (which barely admit the body to pass,) and ultimately to descend, head foremost, in the same manner, after balancing, horizontally, with extended arms and legs, on either standard of the ladder. I have often wondered what the man’s chin could be made of!!!
Swarming up a stout bamboo pole, of full twenty feet long, balanced on a man’s hip, or shoulder, and descending again, by first attaching to the summit by the toes, and measuring a whole length downwards, the back being against the bamboo; then turning the opposite way, and thus, in alternate succession; always appeared to me equally dangerous and astonishing. To perform this, a man must possess unconscionable strength in his toes and ankles: the first slip would infallibly be the last!