48 
Negho Dances. 
three or four fresh performers, no longer able to resist their inner im- 
pulses and devilish appetites, spring into the exhausted throng. The 
music now takes on a swifter turn, the dance waxes more fast and fur- 
ious, even more demoniacal, and the sybilline spirit that grips them, 
likewise seizes all the onlookers who, with yelling voices and clapping 
hands goad the waning strength of both partner and musician to fur- 
ther exertion: finally tin's frenzy has to succumb to absolute lassitude 
when, bathed in perspiration, foaming at the mouth and faint with ex- 
haustion, the dancers sink to ihe ground and fresher people take their 
places. However interesting in one respect these scenes might be, the 
odour, so unpleasant to a European, indicative of a single negro at a 
distance of even five paces nevertheless used to keep me at a respectful 
distance: at a gathering such as this it amounts to a. suffocating atmos- 
phere wherein the whole of Olympus together with ihe heroes of tl^e 
Past and Present are disporting themselves in the monotonous din of 
a delirium of dance. Cicero foots it with Proserpine, Mercury with 
Cleopatra, Nelson shakes hands with Neptune, Nero falls into the arms 
of Napoleon, Hamlet jokes with Aurora, while Romulus and Remus, 
Pducher and Wellington haste with waddling goose-step to join the 
happy throng, and Mercury shouts to Ombre, Whist, and Spadille, with 
Venus and Helena telling them to hurry up. These extraordinary names 
date from before emancipation when ii was obligatory on the slave- 
owners or estates’ managers to give names to children born on the plan- 
tation, and which were mostly inspired from some reminiscence of the 
past, or from the particular business on hand when the news of a newly 
born child happened to be announced. 
173. If one turns now to the over-done gaudily decorated ball-room 
of the Creole negroes, where only quadrilles and country-dances are 
fancied, the Paradise of Deities and Heroes is re-enacted save that the 
Gods and Goddesses appear in other costumes. Silk covers their mortal 
bodies. Minerva foots the light fantastic in crimson spencer and white 
gown before Mars, who is perspiringly anxious about cutting the latest 
French capers properly, while Diana, in a sky-blue dress and white 
spencer, gazes in the eyes of love-lorn Narcissus: she is either brushing 
away from off her brows the small dishevelled tufts of hair which, woven 
from her short curly wool and owing to its uncontrollable nature, stands 
out from her head like horns, or toying with the huge ear-rings that 
drag her long ears still longer, or perhaps passing enormous links of 
her heavy gold chain negligently over her fingers; while her ill-shaped 
feet are stuck in red or white satin shoes. 
174. An example of the extent to which the taste for finery is reallv 
earried among the creole negroes was afforded us by Captain Rothwell 
who showed us, on the trip out. a heavy gold chain and ear-rings pur- 
chased bv him for £15 and £5 respectively to the order of an obi immod- 
erate! v fat negress who kept a huckster’s fruit shop. 
175. Though the insufferable stench from the company of Gods and 
Goddesses had driven me out of tlieir presence into the open air, the 
overpowering perfume contributed by Rose, Jasmine, Orange, and Eau 
de Cologne in the ballroom almost threatened to stifle me: in spite of 
