Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/336

 And then there was that long-drawn human cry of tremendous volume, richness, and resound, to which no instrument within their reach could make the faintest approach:

all the instruments silent while it rises and swells with mighty energy and dies away distantly, "Yea-a-a-a-a-a!"—then the crash of savage drums, horns, and rattles—

To all this, there was sometimes added a Pan's-pipe of but three reeds, made from single joints of the common brake cane, and called by English-speaking negroes "the quills." . ..

Such was the full band. All the values of contrast that discord can furnish must have been present, with whatever there is of ecstasy in maddening repetition, for of this the African can never have too much.

And yet there was entertaining variety. Where? In the dance! There was constant, exhilarating novelty—endless invention—in the turning, bowing, arm-swinging, posturing, and leaping of the dancers. Moreover, the music of Congo Plains was not tamed to mere monotone. Monotone became subordinate to many striking qualities. The strain was wild. Its contact with French taste gave it often great tenderness of sentiment. It grew in fervor, and rose and sank, and rose again, with the play of emotion in the singers and dancers.

It was a weird one. The negro of colonial Louisiana was a most grotesque figure. He was nearly naked. Often his neck and arms, thighs, shanks, and splay feet were shrunken, tough,