224 
MOOIsLiailT DANCES. 
minates about the middle or end of November, but the 
tornadoes are not so frequent there as most other parts 
of the coast. According to Roscher’s observations, 
the barometer rises with the east, and falls with the 
west wind, the maximum being when S.S.E. breezes 
are blowing, and the minimum when the S.W. wind 
obtains. 
We found the evenings at Clarence to be for the 
most part, cool and agreeable, and the best time for 
walking. The settlers and natives also participated in 
this opinion, for then thej come out to enjoy the 
favourite pastime of dancing. Moonlight enhances the 
pleasure not a little, when, seduced by its beams and the 
dance inspiring tom-tom, they give up the greater por- 
tion of the night to enjoyment. It seems odd how 
people can find music in so rude an instrument as a 
wooden drum, yet who that has “by pale moonlight” 
heard it afar off, commingled with the merry voices of 
the dancers, has not listened with pleasime, and 
confessed that it had its claims to please. 
We must admit we have often been allured to the 
festive scene, where nature’s untaught children per- 
formed their unsophisticated movements to no other 
sounds, and as the subdued light of “nature’s own 
bestowing” fell through the rich forest drapery, on 
happy faces and graceful figures, could even have 
joined the merry throng. The new moon is, through- 
out Western Africa, the signal for rejoicing and 
renewed offerings to the gods, and when we have 
