DANCING. 



431 



excellent timeists, but their music, being all in the 

 minor key, and the song being a mere recitative 

 without change of words, both are monotonous 

 to the last degree. The dancing resembles that 

 of the Somal, and, as amongst the slaves, both 

 sexes prance together. The Diwans, or chiefs, 

 caper with drawn swords, whilst the women move 

 in regular time, shaking skirts with the right hand. 

 The ' figures ' are, unlike the music, complicated 

 and difficult : they seem to vary in almost every 

 village. The only constant characteristic appears 

 to be that tremulous motion from the waist 

 downwards, and that lively pantomime of love 

 which was so fiercely satirized by the eminently 

 moral Juvenal. It is, indeed, the groundwork 

 of all 6 Oriental ' dancing from Morocco to 

 Japan. 



The principal occupation of the Wasawahili 

 is agriculture ; they form the farmer class of the 

 Island, and everywhere in the interior we find 

 their little settlements of cajan-thatched huts of 

 wattle and dab, with flying roofs, acting chimney 

 as well as ventilator — a right sensible contrivance, 

 worthy of imitation. The furniture consists of 

 a few mats ; of low stools, mostly cut out of a 

 single block ; of chairs, a skin being stretched 

 on a wooden frame ; and invariably of a Kitdnda, 



