In the following experiment, two Arabs held a sabre, one by the hilt, the other by the point; a third then came forward, and after raising his clothes so as to leave the abdomen quite bare, laid himself flat on the edge of the blade, while a fourth mounted on his back, and seemed to press the whole weight of his body on him.

This trick may be easily explained.

Nothing proves to the audience that the sabre is really sharpened, or that the edge is more cutting than the back, although the Arab who holds it by the point is careful to wrap it up in a handkerchief; in this imitating the jugglers who pretend they have cut their finger with one of the daggers they use in their tricks.

Besides, in performing this trick, the invulnerable turned his back on the audience. He knew the advantage to be derived from this circumstance; hence, at the moment when about to lay himself on the sabre, he very adroitly pulled back over his stomach that portion of his clothing he had raised. Lastly, when the fourth actor mounted on his back, he rested his hands on the shoulders of the Arabs who held the sabre. The latter apparently maintained his balance, but, in reality, they supported the whole weight of his body. Hence, the only requirement for this trick is to have the stomach more or less pressed in, and I will explain presently that this can be effected without any injury or danger.

“We often pushed our incredulity and curiosity so far as to order the Aïssaoua to come to our house with their menagerie. All the animals they stated to us were vipers (lifâ), were only innocent lizards (hanech), and when we offered to put our hand in the bag holding their reptiles, they hastily retired, convinced that we were not duped by their tricks.”

I will add that these serpents, even had they been of a dangerous character, could have had their teeth pulled out, so as to be harmless. In support of this assertion, I noticed that these reptiles left no wound where they bit.

I did not see the trick performed of striking the arm and making the blood issue; but it seems to me that a small sponge filled with ruddle and concealed in the striking hand, would be enough to accomplish the prodigy. On wiping the arm, the wound is necessarily cured.

When I was a boy, I often made wine come out of a knife or of my finger, by pressing a small sponge full of the liquor which I concealed in my hand.

I have often seen men champ wine-glasses between their teeth, and not hurt themselves; but not one of them swallowed the fragments. Hence, it was difficult for me to explain this trick of the Aïssaoua, till, by the assistance offered me by a physician, I found in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales for 1810, No. 1143, a paper written by Dr. Lesauvage on the harmlessness of powdered glass.

This gentleman, after quoting various instances of people he had seen eat glass, thus describes various experiments he made on animals:

These authentic statements ought to have satisfied me; still, I wished to witness this singular phenomenon with my own eyes. Hence, I gave one of my house cats an enormous ball of meat seasoned with pounded glass. The animal swallowed it with the greatest pleasure, and seemed even to regret the end of this succulent meal. My family thought the cat booked for death, and began deploring my barbarity, but the next day the animal was perfectly well, and sniffed the spot where on the previous day it had enjoyed the meal.

Since that period, whenever I want to indulge a friend with this sight, I regale my three cats, in turn, so as not to excite any jealousy among them.

It took me some time, I confess, before I could decide on performing Dr. Lesauvage’s experiment on myself, and, indeed, I saw no necessity for it. Still, one day, in the presence of a friend, I performed this bravado, if it be so; I also swallowed my bolus, though I was careful to pound my glass much finer than what I gave to my cats. I know not whether it was the effect of imagination, but I fancied I enjoyed my dinner much more than usual: did I owe this to the pounded glass? At any rate, it would be a strange way of arousing the appetite.

This man who performed in the streets, threw back his head so as to form a straight line with his throat, and really thrust down his gullet a sabre, of which only the hilt remained outside the mouth.

He also swallowed an egg without cracking it, or even nails and pebbles, which he caused to resound, by striking his stomach with his fist.

These tricks were the result of a peculiar formation in the mountebank’s throat, but, if he had lived among the Aïssaoua, he would assuredly have been the leading man of the company.

Or what would the Arabs have said had they seen the conjurer who passed a sword right through his body, and when thus spitted, also thrust a knife into either nostril up to the handle? I witnessed this feat, and others have probably done the same.

This trick was, in reality, so terrifying, that the public would implore the man to leave off; but without troubling himself about their cries, he would reply, speaking frightfully through his nose, “that it did hib no harb,” and sing in this singular voice the “Fleuve du Tage,” which he accompanied on a guitar.

I could not endure the sight of this trick, and would turn my head away in horror when the troubadour drew out the sword, and begged us to notice that it was stained with blood.

My love of the marvellous made me desire to know it; hence, I applied to the invulnerable, and on condition of a certain sum, and promises not to use it, he sold me his secret.

I may, in my turn, communicate it to the public without asking from them the same promise. The trick is, however, rather ingenious.

The performer was very thin—an indispensable quality for the success of the trick. He pressed in his stomach very tightly with a waist-belt, and produced the following result: the vertebral column being unable to bend, served as a support, and the intestines gave way and fell in about half the space they originally occupied. The mountebank then substituted for the suppressed part a card-board stomach which restored him to his original condition, and the whole being concealed beneath a flesh-colored tricot, appeared to form part of his body. On either side, above the hips, two ribbon rosettes hid the apertures by which the sword-point would go in and out, these openings being connected by a leathern scabbard which led the weapon securely from one end to the other, while, in order to produce the blood, a sponge filled with a red liquid was placed in the middle of the sheath. The knives in the nostrils were a reality. The invulnerable was very pug-nosed, which allowed him to draw the cartilage of the nose up prior to the introduction of the knives.

I possessed the necessary physical qualifications for the sabre trick, but none for that of the knives. I did not attempt the first, much less the second.

The corn-curer who taught me to juggle, also showed me a very curious trick, consisting in thrusting a small nail into the right eye, which is then made to pass into the left eye, thence into the mouth, and end by returning into the right eye.

It may be imagined how I burned with the fire of necromancy, since I had the courage to practise this trick, which I found charming. A very disagreeable circumstance, however, deprived me of my faith in the effect produced by it.

I sometimes spent the evening at a lady’s house who had two daughters. I thought I could not select a better place for my first performance and asked leave to do the trick. Of course this permission was granted, and a circle was formed round me.

“Ladies,” I said, with a certain degree of emphasis, “I am invulnerable. To furnish you with a proof, I could easily stab myself with a dagger, a knife, or any other sharp instrument; but I fear lest the sight of blood might produce too agitating an effect on you. Hence, I will offer you another proof of my supernatural powers.” And I performed my famous trick of “the nail in the eye.”

The effect of this scene was most unexpected, for the performance was scarce over ere one of the young ladies was taken ill and fainted. The evening’s amusement was disturbed, as may be supposed, and fearing some recriminations, I bolted without saying a word, declaring that I would never be caught again at such tricks.

This, however, is the explanation of the trick:

If desirous to perform the trick I have alluded to, you proceed in the following way:

After secretly placing one of these small nails in the left eye, and another in the mouth, you commence as follows:

You openly thrust a nail into your right eye, then, pressing the skin with the end of the finger, you pretend to pass it through the nose into the left eye, whence you withdraw the one put in beforehand. This you return again to the eye, and the nail appears to pass into the mouth, whence you produce the one already hidden there, and thence into the right eye, whence you withdraw the one originally inserted.

When this is done, you go on one side and remove the nail still remaining in the left eye.

But, to return to the last trick of the Aïssaoua, which consists in walking over hot iron, and passing the tongue over incandescent plates of the same metal.

The Aïssaoua who walks over hot iron does nothing extraordinary, if we consider the conditions under which the trick is performed.

He quickly glides his heel along the iron; but the lower-class Arabs, who all walk with naked feet, have the lower part of the foot as hard as a horse’s hoof, hence, this horny part burns without occasioning the slightest pain.

And, besides, may not chance have taught the Aïssaoua certain precautions known to more than one European juggler, before Dr. Sementrici proved their use and explained them to the public?

In February, 1677, an Englishman, of the name of Richardson, came to Paris, and gave some very curious performances, which proved, according to his statement, his incombustibility.

He was seen to roast a piece of meat on his tongue, light a piece of charcoal in his mouth by means of a pair of bellows, seize a bar of red-hot iron in his hand, or hold it between his teeth.

The tongue, when thus prepared, could also receive boiling oil, which grew cold, and could then be swallowed.

M. Sementrici also detected that the melted lead Leonetto employed was only Arcet’s metal, fusible at the temperature of boiling water. (For further details consult the historic notice of M. Julia de Fontenelle, in Roret’s Manuel des Sorciers, page 181.)

These explanations may appear sufficient to disprove the pretended incombustibility of the Aïssaoua; still, I will add a personal fact, whence the conclusion can be drawn that a man need not be inspired by Allah or Aïssa to play with red-hot metals.

Reading one day the Comus, a scientific review, I found a critique of a work called Study on Bodies in a Spheroidal Shape, by M. Boutigny (d’Evreux). The editor of the review, the Abbé Moigno, quotes several of the most interesting passages, among them being the following:

“We passed our fingers through jets of red-hot metal” (M. Boutigny is speaking). “We plunged our hands into moulds and crucibles filled with metal that had just run from a Wilkinson, and of which the radiation was insupportable, even at a long distance. We carried on these experiments for more than two hours, and Madame Coulet, who was present, allowed her daughter, a child of from eight to ten years, to put her hand in a crucible of red-hot metal, which caused not the slightest injury.”

Knowing the character of the learned abbé, as well as that of the celebrated naturalist and author of the work, it was not possible to doubt: still, I must say, this fact appeared to me so impossible, that my mind refused to accept it, and I wished to see, that I might believe.

This gentleman received me kindly, and proposed to repeat the experiment before me, when I might have an opportunity to wash my hands in molten metal.

The proposition was attractive, scientifically speaking; but, on the other hand, I had some fears, which the reader will appreciate, I think. In the event of a mistake I should reduce my hands to charcoal, and I was bound to take the greater care of them as they had been such precious instruments to me. Hence I hesitated with my reply.

“Do you not place confidence in me?” M. Boutigny asked.

“Oh, certainly, sir, I have plenty of confidence, but—“

“But you are afraid—out with it!” the doctor interrupted me, with a laugh. “Well, to ease your mind, I will try the temperature of the liquid before you place your hands in it.”

“And what is about the temperature of molten metal?”

“Close on one thousand six hundred degrees.”

“One thousand six hundred degrees?” I exclaimed. “Oh! the experiment must be splendid: I consent.”

On the day appointed by M. Boutigny, we proceeded to Mr. Davidson’s foundry at La Villette, after he had granted us permission to make the experiment.

The manager came up to us and pointed out the furnace to which we were to proceed for our experiment.

While waiting for a jet of metal to run, we remained for a few moments in silence near the furnace; then we commenced the following conversation, which was certainly not of a nature to encourage me:

“I would only repeat this experiment, which I am not fond of, for your sake,” M. Boutigny said; “I confess that, though I am morally sure of the result, I always feel an emotion which I cannot dispel.”

“If that be the case,” I replied, “suppose we go? I will believe your word.”

“No, no; I am bound to show you this curious phenomenon. But, by the way,” the learned doctor added, “let me see your hands.”

He took them in his.

“Hang it,” he went on, “they are very dry for our experiment.”

“You think so?”

“Certainly.”

“Then it is dangerous?”

“It might be so.”

“In that case, we will go,” I said, turning to the door.

“That would be a pity,” my companion replied, holding me back; “stay, dip your hands in this bucket of water, dry them well, and they will be sufficiently damp.”

I had scarce finished wiping my hands when the furnace was opened, and a jet of molten metal, about the thickness of my arm, burst forth. Sparks flew in every direction, as if it were a firework performance.

“Wait a few minutes,” M. Boutigny said, “till the metal is cleansed, for it would be dangerous to try our experiment at this moment.”

Five minutes later the stream of liquid fire left off bubbling and emitting scoriæ; it became, indeed, so limpid and brilliant, that it scorched our eyes at a few yards off.

All at once my companion walked up to the furnace, and calmly began washing his hands in the metal as if it had been lukewarm water.

I make no pretence to bravery; I confess at this moment my heart beat as if it would burst, and yet, when M. Boutigny ended his strange ablutions, I walked forward in my turn with a determination that proved a certain strength of will. I imitated my professor’s movements, I literally dabbled in the burning liquid, and, in my joy, inspired by this marvellous operation, I took a handful of the metal and threw it in the air, and it fell back in a fire-shower on the ground.

The impression I felt in touching this molten iron can only be compared to what I should have experienced in handling liquid velvet, if I may express myself so.

I now ask what are the red-hot bars of the Aïssaoua, in comparison to the enormous temperature to which my hands had been exposed?