I DANCING AT TUSHKI but which were greatly appreciated by the audience and were received with loud guffaws of admiration.

Meanwhile the master of the wedding ceremonies was organizing a dance, and when the tom-tom began to sound the guests and others formed themselves into a circle, into the middle of which stepped a number of Sudani men, who began to amble about and bend their bodies and beat their hands together to the sound of the tom-tom. As a dance the performance of the first group of men was a failure, but the scene was remarkably picturesque. There was no light of any kind except that given by the fire, which was reflected from the great curving palm branches overhead, and the shining faces and bodies of the cheerful dancers and their audience, and the shadows cast by the performers added to the somewhat weird nature of the scene. When the dancers were tired their places were taken by another group of a very different character. Each man had a club or weapon of some kind in his hand, and they leaped and jumped about, brandishing these, shouting at the same time the words of a Berberi war song ; their eyes flashed, their looks became fierce, and they engaged in hand-to-hand encounters which came perilously near actual fighting. When this performance was ended, a number of women entered the arena and began to dance in the manner with which all who know the Sudan are familiar. The words which they sang were obscene, and their gestures suited the words ; after a time they threw off ail their garments except their fringed girdles, and when a number of Egyptian soldiers from our steamer rushed in to join their dance, it was evident from the applause of the bystanders that the most popular part of the entertainment had begun. The black women danced with absolute abandon, and the soldiers rushed about in a sort of delirium, to the great delight of the onlookers, who shouted " Allah, Allah," and cheered them onto fresh exertions.

Just, however, as the dance was developing into the final stages of such entertainments the whistle sounded with such vigour that we knew the captain was in a hurry to be gone. A rush was made to the river, and in a few minutes every one had scrambled on board and we were off. The noise of the tom-tom reached us as we went up the river, and it was clear that the people of Toski 79