136 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

a taib Jceteer /" (very good indeed !) and Kais Hassan's dark face beamed all over with delight. The circle of white turbaned heads in the rear looked on complacently, and our guard, who stood in the moonlight before the open door, almost forgot his duty in his enjoyment of the spectacle. I shall never forget the wild, fantastic picture we saw that night in the ruins of Luxor.

The Apple-Blossom, who followed in a dance with one named Bakhita, pleased me far better. She added a thousand graceful embellishments to the monotonous soul of the music ; and her dance, if barbaric, was as poetic as her native palmtree. She was lithe as a serpent, and agile as a young panther, and some of her movements were most extraordinary, in the nerve and daring required to execute them, and to introduce them without neglecting the rhythm of the dance. More than once she sank slowly back, bending her knees forward, till her head and shoulders touched the floor, and then, quick as a flash, shot flying into the air, her foot alighting in exact time with the thump of the drum. She had the power of moving her body from side to side, so that it curved like a snake from the hips to the shoulders, and once I thought that, like Lamia, she was about to resume her ancient shape, and slip out of sight through some hole in the ruined walls. One of the dances was a sort of pantomime, which she and Bakhita accompanied with their voices — clear, shrill, ringing tones, which never faltered for a moment, or varied a hair's breadth from the melody, while every muscle was agitated with the exertion of her movements. The song was pervaded with a strange, passionate tremolo, unlike any thing I ever heard before. The burden was : "I am alone ; my family and my