54 
RESIDENCE AT KATUNGA. 
area, a space that may include some seven or eight hundred yards 
square. Under these clumps of trees were seated the actors, dressed 
in large sacks, covering every part of the body; the head most fan- 
tastically decorated with strips of rags, damask silk, and cotton, of 
as many glaring colours as it was possible. The king’s servants at- 
tended to keep the peace, and to prevent the crowd from breaking 
into the square in which the actors were assembled. Musicians 
also attended with drums, horns, and whistles, which were beaten 
and blown without intermission. 
The first act consisted in dancing and tumbling in sacks, which 
they performed to admiration, considering they could not see, and 
had not the free use of their feet and hands. The second act con- 
sisted in catching the boa constrictor : first, one of the sack-men 
came in front and knelt down on his hands and feet ; then came 
out a tall majestic figure, having on a head-dress and masque 
which baffle all description : it was of a glossy black colour, some- 
times like a lion couchant over the crest of a helmet ; at another 
like a black head with a large wig: at every turn he made it 
changed its appearance. This figure held in its right hand a sword, 
and by its superior dress and motions appeared to be the director 
of the scene, for not a word was spoken by the actors. The ma- 
nager, as I shall call the tall figure, then came up to the man who 
w r as lying in the sack ; another sack-dancer was brought in his sack, 
who by a wave of the sword was laid down at the other’s head or 
feet ; he having unsown the end of both sacks, the tw o crawled into 
one. There w r as now great waving of the manager’s sword; indeed 
I thought that heads were going to be taken off, as all the actors 
were assembled round the party lying down ; but in a few minutes 
they all cleared away except the manager, who gave two or three 
flourishes with his sword, wdren the representation of the boa con- 
strictor began. The animal put its head out of the bag in which 
it was contained, attempting to bite the manager; but at a wave of 
