Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/137

132 to the front; thereupon a hoary-headed ruffian stepped forward, birraworie in hands, which he clinked in concert with the mullangie thuds, at the same time beginning a tchowie in a low monotonous tone, which ere long gradually swelled in volume. At the end of the first bar the lyoors chimed in, and the dancers sprang into the lighted space, flourishing their weapons in savage glee as their lithesome legs quivered in time to the savage music. The hoary leader of the band, becoming warm to his work, rushed backwards and forwards along the crescent row of lyoors, singing out the tchowie, apparently for bare life, while flakes of foam spirted [sic] from his lips, as it might do from the mouth of a hunted boar, by reason of his exceeding fervidness. The lyoors, taking their time from him, became equally energetic in their performance upon the mullangies, and their high, shrill treble, mingling with the leaders bass, made altogether the most hideous accord that it was ever our ill-luck to listen to. Meantime the dancing had become as vehement as the music, for the quivering and writhing of forty pairs of legs, strung up to high pressure by their tchowie and its barbarous accompaniments, made such an exhibition as it seldom falls to civilised man's lot now-a-days to witness. The time now became faster and more fast, till at length the motion was altogether so rapid that individual legs could not be distinguished. Looking at the dancers when they had attained to this phase of the corroborie seemed like viewing a monster heap of serpents heaving and coiling together in the throes of mortal agony But, alas!