Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/38

Rh never before been favoured with an opportunity of witnessing. The successive movements in which the young lady made an exhibition of her skill could scarcely be described as dancing in the ordinary sense of the word. Never moving out of a space of not more that half a yard square, she kept up a wriggling motion of the hips, and with her eyes all the time directed to the ground, incessantly waved about a silk handkerchief, which she held fast in both her hands. Another circumstance that struck me as very peculiar was that the visitors and others who were thronging around, and who gazed with admirations on the dancer, in order to shew how much they appreciated what they probably regarded as the grace and elegance of her movements, continually advanced towards her and touched her forehead with small silver coins. Then, in order to stimulate and maintain the energy of the flagging musicians, they threw these coins down on the ground, and they were then considered the perquisites of those who contributed so materially to the pleasures of so joyful an occasion. It being clearly, therefore, of the greatest importance to the musicians that the energy of the dances should not be allowed to flag, they continued to scratch and rattle and thump away with increasing enthusiasm,