364 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

and moved with such entire and absolute grace in the dance, that he almost drew away my attention from the women. He was of the Djaaleyn tribe, and therefore of pure Arabian blood. As the ceremony was prolonged, they accompanied the dance with a hard, guttural breathing, in time with the music, and some of the old women, in their anxiety to encourage the younger and more timid dancers, leaned forward with eager eyes, uttering short, quick screams at intervals. It was a most remarkable scene ; the figures and the dancers were unlike any thing I ever witnessed. For the first time, in fact — perhaps because I had hitherto seen few women unveiled — I found undoubted beauty in the Arab female countenance.

The last dancer was the wife of the Shekh, who came towards the close, with two negro slaves behind her. She was a woman of twenty, and the most beautiful of the group. Making allowance for the difference in complexion, she had a strong resemblance to the Cleopatra of Guide Her eyes were large, black and lustrous ; her face the full, ripe oval of the South, with a broad, round forehead, perfect lips and a most queenly neck and chin. She wore a diadem of white beads, under which her thick hair — unfortunately plastered with butter — hung to her shoulders in at least fifty slender braids. She went through the monotonous movement of the dance with the stately ease of a swan gliding down a stream, and so delighted my sailors and the men who had come down from the village, that she was obliged to repeat her salutation several times. I bowed lower to her than to the others, but took care to keep her unctuous braids from touching my face. When all was concluded, I directed Achmet to distribute a few handfuls of copper money among them, whereupon they returned to the