212 THE KABINAPEK. 
the audience, but each one always keeping in place. Like everything 
they sung, it has no meaning. They all sung in a high falsetto voice, 
the women especially, so that they were less agreeable to listen to than 
the men. The sharp, monotonous clacking of the sticks, and the dull 
tunk, tunk of the slab-drum were execrable. I am no judge of harmony, 
except to know that they kept perfect time, and am, as Wordsworth says 
of himself, ‘‘in music all unversed;” but I have listened to simple melodies 
that affected me even to tears; and I declare without hesitation that there 
was one short passage in this chorus which when chanted by the men 
alone was one of the most moving I ever heard. Those three rude, bar- 
baric, and wholly unintelligible syllables, hu-di-go, were trilled and pro- 
longed out with a sweet, soft, and wild melodiousness that I shall not forget 
to my dying hour. Never have I so regretted my inability to write down 
music by the ear, that I might make good this assertion by submitting the 
passage to musical critics. 
About this time appeared on the scene the two performers, who were 
the principal characters of the evening. They wore richly ornamented 
and beaded buckskin tights, reaching from the hips half-way to the knees; 
mantles composed of long, black eagles’ feathers netted together in succes- 
sive courses, sweeping gracefully down from the shoulders to the knees, 
but leaving the arms free; and brilliantly bespangled head-dresses of 
feathers and beads. On the breast and face they were smeared with a 
number of black stripes, crossing in squares. But for this absurd use of 
the charcoal they would have presented really splendid figures, their 
smooth, round, finely molded limbs setting off the spangles handsomely. 
Their feet were bare. 
They danced before the audience in lively fashion, sometimes stamping 
with one foot with great force, sometimes chasing one the other around the 
fire in a kind of hippity-hop, their magnificent mantles sailing and rustling, 
while their heads wagged from side to side, and their arms were brandished 
aloft in free and graceful gestures. The suppleness and agility of their 
softly-rounded, full, almost feminine forms were wonderful. | Notwith- 
standing their violent motions, the eye perceives no hard, knotted contor- 
