in it are all exhausted or
daylight arrives. "After a few days and when dancing has been
discontinued, young men and girls congregate in the outer
apartment of the hut, and begin singing, clapping their hands,
and making a grunting noise to show their joy. At nightfall most
of the young girls who were the intonjane's attendants, leave for
their own homes for the night, to return the following morning.
Thereafter the young men and girls who gathered into the hut in
the afternoon separate into pairs and sleep together _in puris
naturalibus_, for that is strictly ordained by custom. Sexual
intercourse is not allowed, but what is known as _metsha_ or
_ukumetsha_ is the sole purpose of the novel arrangement.
_Ukumetsha_ may be defined as partial intercourse. Every man who
sleeps thus with a girl has to send to the father of the
intonjane an assegai; should he have formed an attachment for his
partner of the night and wish to pay her his addresses, he sends
two assegais." (Rev. J. Macdonald, "Manners, etc., of South
African Tribes," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol.
xx, November, 1890, p. 117.)

Goncourt reports the account given him by a French officer from
Senegal of the dances of the women, "a dance which is a gentle
oscillation of the body, with gradually increasing excitement,
from time to time a woman darting forward from the group to stand
in front of her lover, contorting herself as though in a
passionate embrace, and, on passing her hand between her thighs,
showing it covered with the moisture of amorous enjoyment."
(_Journal_, vol. ix, p. 79.) The dance here referred to is
probably the Bamboula dance of the Wolofs, a spring festival
which has been described by Pierre Loti in his _Roman d'un
Spahi_, and concerning which various details are furnished by a
French army-surgeon, acquainted with Senegal, in his _Untrodden
Fields of Anthropology_. The dance, as described by the latter,
takes place at night during full moon, the dancers, male and
female, beginning timidly, but, as the beat of the tam-tams and
the encouraging cries of the spectators become louder, the dance
becomes more furious. The native name of the dance is _anamalis
fobil_, "the dance of the treading drake." "The dancer in his
movements imitates the copulation of the great Indian duck. This