ir's
slave, about the road we should take from this to Kuka. The
north-eastern, or direct east, is the shortest, but there are three days
without habitations: this is Said's road. The south-eastern is the
longer route, and is the Kashalla's, but there are people every day. The
latter is probably the better route for me. It is decided that we leave
the day after to-morrow.

This evening the Sultan sent me a camel, as a present. Not having
experienced the difficulty of riding a horse, I had sold all my camels.
The gift camel is a very good one.

When the moon rises, about an hour after dark, the beating of the drums
is heard, calling the people to assemble for the dancing--young men and
maidens. In ten minutes, some hundred people are collected. The dancing
then commences in full and grand style. This evening I went out to see
the performance, and found it the most animating I had yet seen in
Africa. The young men and maidens separated into parties, the maidens
near the drummers, and the young men at a distance of some twenty paces
around them. A circle is then formed. The ladies here choose their own
partners, instead of waiting to be chosen. A maiden skips up awkwardly
to the drummer, then glides off to the side of the young men, and
touches the gentleman with whom she wishes to dance, and returns. The
young man does not immediately accept, for two or three minutes elapse
after he has been touched ere he starts off to join the lady who has
honoured him in the presence of a hundred admiring or jealous
spectators. They join, turning first face to face, then back to back,
then face to the drummers, in the most lively style. The young men are
dressed in their tobes, and throw them up and round so as to produce a
moving circle, as women might do with their petticoats; but not moving
their bodies so much as their circling tobes: this is the grand grace of
the dance. Then there are parties of men and women dancing together; but
the men with men, and women with women. The women trip up awkwardly, but
modestly, to where the men are placed, and then fall back; upon which
the men pursue them violently, overtaking them before they get to their
places, and throwing their tobes around them: but there is nothing
indelicate in all this. On the contrary, the whole dance is quite a
pattern of modesty to the Europeans, the Arabs, and the Moors,--to these
latter especially, whose dance, as introduced here, is of the most
lascivious and b