circle as spectators, occasionally giving a rapturous exclamation of
delight, as any part of the performance is well gone through or any
remarkable feat of activity exhibited. Where natives have not much
acquaintance with Europeans, so as to give up, in some measure, their
original habits, if there is any degree of jealousy between the
respective tribes, they are sometimes partitioned off from each other by
boughs of trees, whilst they look at the dance. On one occasion I saw
five tribes met together, and the evening was of course spent in dancing.
Each tribe danced in turn, about forty being engaged at once, besides
sixteen females, eight of whom were at each corner of the male
performers. The men were naked, painted in various devices with red and
white, and had their heads adorned with feathers. The women wore their
opossum cloaks, and had bands of white down round their foreheads, with
the long feathers of the cockatoo sticking up in front like horns. In the
dance the men and women did not intermingle; but the two sets of women
who were dancing at the corners of the line, occasionally changed places
with each other, passing in this transit, at the back of the men. All
sung, and the men beat time upon their smaller weapons whilst dancing,
the whole making up a wild and piercing noise, most deafening and
ungrateful to the ears.

The natives of the Rufus and Lake Victoria (Tar-ru) have a great variety
of dances and figures. One of these, which I witnessed, representing the
character, habits, and chase of the kangaroo was admirably performed, and
would have drawn down thunders of applause at any theatre in Europe. One
part of this figure, where the whole of the dancers successively drop
down from a standing to a crouching posture, and then hop off in this
position with outstretched arms and legs, was excellently executed. The
contrast of their sable skins with the broad white stripes painted down
their legs; their peculiar attitudes, and the order and regularity with
which these were kept, as they moved in a large semicircle, in the
softening light of the fire, produced a striking effect; and in
connection with the wild and inspiriting song, which gave an impulse to
their gesticulation, led me almost to believe that the scene was
unearthly.

In some of the dances the music varies rapidly from slow to quick, and
the movements alter accordingly. In some they are altogether measured and
monotonous, in others very lively a