6() HABITS AND CUSTOMS.

ciilar effort, that it is scarcely possible to believe a girl of slender build could possess sufficient power of muscle. The movements are, at first, all very slow, but gradually increase in rapidity, and become, at last, so frequent and quick, that you could almost imagine yourself looking at an automaton moving on springs and wires, and not on a human being. When a girl has nearly danced herself to death, she modestly retires to the background, and a second takes her place. If one of them particularly distinguish herself, and the company wish to pay her a very great compliment, she is desired to stand forth, and a sword is flourished several times over her head. During this ceremony, the music is silenced, but becomes the more noisy afterwards, and is intended as a kind of musical honour to the danseuse. This compliment is generally paid her by her admirer or by a stranger present. The natives are always delighted if a stranger will attend their dances, offer him the best place, and treat him with abundance of merissa. Married women, and those more advanced in age, scarcely ever dance ; they are mere spectators, or pass the time in a different manner, more agreeably to themselves ; they form, namely, comme chez nous, very polite coteries for scandal, where the neighbour who happens to be brought on the tapis is by no means spared, for they leave no hair of his head untouched. The married women, again, are those who pay the least attention to the seventh com-