These
Instruments Produced A Sound Partaking Of The Braying Of A Donkey And
The Screech Of An Owl.
Crowds of men rushed round and round in a sort of
"galop infernel," brandishing their lances and iron-headed maces, and
keeping tolerably in line five or six deep, following the leader who
headed them, dancing backwards.
The women kept outside the line, dancing
a slow stupid step, and screaming a wild and most inharmonious chant;
while a long string of young girls and small children, their heads and
necks rubbed with red ochre and grease, and prettily ornamented with
strings of beads around their loins, kept a very good line, beating the
time with their feet, and jingling the numerous iron rings which adorned
their ankles to keep time with the drums. One woman attended upon the
men, running through the crowd with a gourd full of wood-ashes, handfuls
of which she showered over their heads, powdering them like millers; the
object of the operation I could not understand. The "premiere danseuse"
was immensely fat; she had passed the bloom of youth, but, "malgre" her
unwieldy state, she kept up the pace to the last, quite unconscious of
her general appearance, and absorbed with the excitement of the dance.
These festivities were to be continued in honour of the dead; and as
many friends had recently been killed, music and dancing would be in
fashion for some weeks.
There was an excellent interpreter belonging to Ibrahim's party - a Bari
lad of about eighteen.
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