Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/347

Rh of the women, singing, and making a variety of ridiculous contortions. The dancers then turn the back on each other, and separate by degrees. Finally, they all whirl to the right with one accord, and run impetuously to meet each other face to face. The rencounter which ensues, appears indecent to those who fancy that the outward actions of these negroes are equally consequent with ours. This simple and rude exercise constitutes all their recreation, their balls, and country-dances, without any other rules or figures beside those of caprice. They are diverted, however; and when the festival is at an end the impressions are obliterated. It would be well if our delicate balls, the stile of which we have borrowed from the English, French, and Germans, were not productive of any other consequences except those of lassitude and a waste of time. It is to be lamented that they are most frequently the vehicle of amorous intrigues, and the centre of whispers and scandals.

It has already been observed, that the music of the negroes is extremely disagreeable. Their principal instrument is the drum, which is usually made of a flask of leather, or of a wooden cylinder hollow within side. When it is formed in this manner, it is not beaten with sticks, but struck with the hands. They have likewise small flutes, which they inflate with the nostrils. A kind of music is produced by striking the jaw-bone of a horse, or ass, dried in the sun, and having the teeth moveable. The friction of a smooth stick, against another cut transversely on the superficies, has a similar effect. The instrument which affords some degree of melody, is that which they name marimba. It is composed of a number of thin, long, and narrow tablets, adjusted at the distance of four lines from the mouths of several dry and empty calabashes, which