Returning Homewards, We Were Called To A Spot By The Clapping Of Hands[FN#5] And The Loud Sound Of Song.

We found a crowd of Badawin surrounding a group engaged in their favourite occupation of dancing. The performance is wild in the extreme, resembling rather the hopping of bears than the inspirations of Terpischore.

The bystanders joined in the song; an interminable recitative, as usual, in the minor key, and—Orientals are admirable timists—it sounded like one voice. The refrain appeared to be— “La Yayha! La Yayha!” to which no one could assign a meaning. At other times they sang something intelligible. For instance:— [Arabic] That is to say,—

“On the Great Festival-day at Muna I saw my lord. I am a stranger amongst you, therefore pity me!”

This couplet may have, like the puerilities of certain modern and European poets, an abstruse and mystical

[p.224] meaning, to be discovered when the Arabs learn to write erudite essays upon nursery rhymes. The style of saltation, called Rufayah, rivalled the song. The dancers raised both arms above their heads, brandishing a dagger, pistol, or some other small weapon. They followed each other by hops, on one or both feet, sometimes indulging in the most demented leaps; whilst the bystanders clapped with their palms a more enlivening measure. This I was told is especially their war-dance. They have other forms, which my eyes were not fated to see. Amongst the Badawin of Al-Hijaz, unlike the Somali and other African races, the sexes never mingle:

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