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:
A small lead or silver pin may be introduced, without the slightest feeling of pain, in the corner of the eye, near the lacrymal duct, between the lower eyelid and the pupil; and, strangely enough, this piece of metal once introduced, you do not in the least notice its presence. To bring it out again, you need only press it with the finger.
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.