Page:The land of fetish.pdf/88

 the purpose of amusement, it may be considered a most complete success. The gorgeous-coloured satin waistcoats, the rainbow cravats, and gigantic buttonhole bouquets of the men, were sufficiently trying to the eyes; but when one turned towards the softer, one cannot in this case say the fairer, sex, who, as usual before the ice was broken, sat all together at one end of the room, I had positively to turn away, and wished for a green shade or a pair of blue glass spectacles. Scarlet, blue, pink, purple, yellow, orange, green, white—every known brilliant colour was there, and I had to follow the example of the other Europeans who were present, and view this brilliant spectacle through the medium of an inverted tumbler. The band was that of the Gold Coast Constabulary, and perhaps the less one says of it the better, unless it is now "the thing" in music to introduce crushing discords and heart-rending shrieks that are not in the original score of the composition.

Before the dancing commenced one could walk about and breathe without any extraordinary discomfort, but after that the bouquet d'Afrique really became quite too, too. I have always held very much the same opinion about dancing as that expressed by the pacha in Salmagundi, and I should have liked then to have been seated afar off on some