All this equipage precedes the Mandarin or Viceroy, who is carried in his chair, surrounded with pages and footmen, having near his person an officer who carries a large fan in the shape of a hand-fire-screen.
He is followed by guards, some armed with maces, and others with long-handled sabres; after whom come several ensigns and cornets, with a
great number of domestics on horseback, every one bearing some necessary belonging to the Mandarin: as for example, a particular Tartarian cap, if the weather should oblige him to change the one he has on.
From the above, it may appear, what scope or range a composer may have for the exhibition of processions and pageantry of other nations, as well as of the Chinese; in all which, nothing is more recommendable than adhering, in the representation, as much as the limitations of the theatre will admit, to the truth of things, as they actually pass in the countries where the scene is laid: which is but, in saying other words, in this, as in every other imitative branch, strike to nature as close as possible.
IN
AFRICA.
The spirit of dancing prevails, almost beyond imagination, among both men and women, in most parts of Africa. It is even more than instinct, it is a rage, in some countries of that part of the globe.
Upon the Gold-coast especially, the inhabitants are so passionately fond of it, that in the midst of their hardest labor, if they hear a person
sing, or any musical instrument plaid, they cannot refrain from dancing.
There are even well attested stories of some Negroes flinging themselves at the feet of an European playing on a fiddle, entreating him to desist, unless he had a mind to tire them to death; it being impossible for them to cease dancing, while he continued playing. Such is the irresistible passion for dancing among them.