character of the dog. There is neither gratitude, pity,
love, nor self-denial; no idea of duty; no religion;
but covetousness, ingratitude, selfishness and cruelty.
All are thieves, idle, envious, and ready to plunder
and enslave their weaker neighbours.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE FUNERAL DANCE.
Drums were beating, horns blowing, and people
were seen all running in one direction ;—the cause was
a funeral dance, and I joined the crowd, and soon found
myself in the midst of the entertainment. The dancers
were most grotesquely got up. About a dozen huge
ostrich feathers adorned their helmets; either leopard
or the black and white monkey skins were suspended
from their shoulders, and a leather tied round the waist
covered a large iron bell which was strapped upon the
loins of each dancer, like a woman’s old-fashioned
bustle : this they rung to the time of the dance by
jerking their posteriors in the most absurd manner. A
large crowd got up in this style created an indescribable
hubbub, heightened by the blowing of horns and the
beating of seven nogaras of various notes. Every dancer
wore an antelope’s horn suspended round the neck,
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