70 



SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



and dancers had the accompaniments of small, noisy, harsh 

 drums, beaten with the fingers and a stick. The drum was 

 suspended from the neck, and rested on the vest of the 

 player. They had a kind of guitar, played either with the 

 bow or the fingers. To produce ' soft sounds,' in accord- 

 ance either with the step or whirl of the dancing-girl, the 

 musicians distorted their countenances by the most hideous 

 grimaces. The whole neck and face appeared convulsed, the 

 mouth wide open, and the player roared out with all his 

 might and main a symphony to his own music. Their 

 violent motions evinced exertion and the utmost enthu- 

 siasm in gesture, torturing as it were some dulcet sounds (as 

 they thought) from their rude and inharmonious instruments. 

 These performers were nervously alive to their calling, and 

 so desirous of improving the dancing and singing, that they 

 got into a profuse sweat, and appeared as if bewitched with 

 the wish to please, and the ravishing effects of their own 

 noise, than which nothing could be more discordant or fright- 

 ful, equally devoid of sweetness in the instrument, and of 

 taste in the performers. When you could prevail on the 

 girls to sing without the execrable accompaniment of the 

 tom-toms, the guitar, and cymbals, it was a great treat. 

 Their voices were often mellifluous, their persons graceful, 

 their countenances soft and expressive, their motions and 

 attitudes classically elegant; but when these obstreperous 

 sons of Orpheus stepped in, farewell to all harmony. 



" The girls sang the strain on the old subjects, love and 

 war, and in relating the delights of the former did not fail 

 ' to suit the action to the word,' but they seldom over- 

 stepped the ' modesty of nature,' except urged on by im- 

 prudent and volatile young men. Round the ankles of the 

 girls were placed rows of very small silver bells ; these they 

 moved in cadence, quickly or not, according to the step or 

 figure they were engaged in. There were generally three or 



