resented the facts from all
extraneous speculation.

CHAPTER III--THE DANCING MANIA IN ABYSSINIA

SECT. 1--TIGRETIER

Both the St. Vitus's dance and tarantism belonged to the ages in which
they appeared. They could not have existed under the same latitude at
any other epoch, for at no other period were the circumstances which
prepared the way for them combined in a similar relation to each other,
and the mental as well as corporeal temperaments of nations, which depend
on causes such as have been stated, are as little capable of renewal as
the different stages of life in individuals. This gives so much the more
importance to a disease but cursorily alluded to in the foregoing pages,
which exists in Abyssinia, and which nearly resembles the original mania
of the St. John's dancers, inasmuch as it exhibits a perfectly similar
ecstasy, with the same violent effect on the nerves of motion. It occurs
most frequently in the Tigre country, being thence call Tigretier, and is
probably the same malady which is called in Ethiopian language
Astaragaza. On this subject we will introduce the testimony of Nathaniel
Pearce, an eye-witness, who resided nine years in Abyssinia. "The
Tigretier," he says he, "is more common among the women than among the
men. It seizes the body as if with a violent fever, and from that turns
to a lingering sickness, which reduces the patients to skeletons, and
often kills them if the relations cannot procure the proper remedy.
During this sickness their speech is changed to a kind of stuttering,
which no one can understand but those afflicted with the same disorder.
When the relations find the malady to be the real tigretier, they join
together to defray the expense of curing it; the first remedy they in
general attempt is to procure the assistance of a learned Dofter, who
reads the Gospel of St. John, and drenches the patient with cold water
daily for the space of seven days, an application that very often proves
fatal. The most effectual cure, though far more expensive than the
former, is as follows:--The relations hire for a certain sum of money a
band of trumpeters, drummers, and fifers, and buy a quantity of liquor;
then all the young men and women of the place assemble at the patient's
house to perform the following most extraordinary ceremony.

"I was once called in by a neighbour to see his wife, a very young woman,
who had the misfortune to be afflicted with this disorder; and t