CHAP, in.] WEST INDIES. 67 



says Herrera, to dance from evening to the dawn; 

 and although fifty thousand men and women were 

 frequently assembled together on these occasions, 

 they seemed actuated by one common impulse, keep- 

 ing time by responsive motions of their hands, feet, 

 and bodies, with an exactness that was wonderful, f 

 These public dances (for they had others highly li- 

 centious) were appropriated to particular solemnities, 

 and being accompanied with historical songs, were 

 called Arietoes ; a singular feature in their political in- 

 stitutions, of which I shall presently speak. 



Besides the exercise of dancing, another diversion 

 was prevalent among them which they called Bato ; 

 and it appears from the account given of it by the 

 Spanish historians,! that it had a distant resemblance 

 to the English game of cricket ; for the players were 

 divided into two parties, which alternately changed 

 places, and the sport consisted in dexterously throw- 

 ing and returning an elastic ball from one party to 

 the other. It was not however caught in the hand 



o 



or returned with an instrument ; but received on the 

 head, the elbow, or the foot, and the dexterity and 

 force with which it was thence repelled, were asto- 

 nishing and inimitable. Such exertions belong not to 

 a people incurably enervated and slothful. 



II. They are, nevertheless, pronounced by many 

 writers, to have been naturally inferior to the natives 



f Herrera, lib. ix. c. ii. 



J Oviedo, lib. vi. c. ii. Herrera, lib. iii. c. iv. 



