When the moon rises, about an hour after dark, the beating of the drums is heard, calling the people to assemble for the dancing—young men and maidens. In ten minutes, some hundred people are collected. The dancing then commences in full and grand style. This evening I went out to see the performance, and found it the most animating I had yet seen in Africa. The young men and maidens separated into parties, the maidens near the drummers, and the young men at a distance of some twenty paces around them. A circle is then formed. The ladies here choose their own partners, instead of waiting to be chosen. A maiden skips up awkwardly to the drummer, then glides off to the side of the young men, and touches the gentleman with whom she wishes to dance, and returns. The young man does not immediately accept, for two or three minutes elapse after he has been touched ere he starts off to join the lady who has honoured him in the presence of a hundred admiring or jealous spectators. They join, turning first face to face, then back to back, then face to the drummers, in the most lively style. The young men are dressed in their tobes, and throw them up and round so as to produce a moving circle, as women might do with their petticoats; but not moving their bodies so much as their circling tobes: this is the grand grace of the dance. Then there are parties of men and women dancing together; but the men with men, and women with women. The women trip up awkwardly, but modestly, to where the men are placed, and then fall back; upon which the men pursue them violently, overtaking them before they get to their places, and throwing their tobes around them: but there is nothing indelicate in all this. On the contrary, the whole dance is quite a pattern of modesty to the Europeans, the Arabs, and the Moors,—to these latter especially, whose dance, as introduced here, is of the most lascivious and beastly description. This entertainment takes place every night; it is the great solace and delight of the people: they have no other amusement. They are all passionately fond of the drum, which certainly makes a great noise, and stirs them up to exhibit their dancing powers.
The whole population have suddenly become sick, and all want Epsom salts: a camel-load would not suffice. One old fellow wants a medicine to enable him to get children. I tell him he is now old, and must be satisfied with the strength God has given him in his past life.
The Sultan has made presents to our people,—to the Kashalla, Yusuf, and others.
18th.—I was so beset with people that I could not use my thermometer this morning. The weather is fresh, with the wind from the north-east. I am obliged to give tea as medicine: everybody now pretends to be sick, from the Sultan to the meanest slave.
In all these villages the people burn up the stubble in the evening, just outside the village, on the dung-heaps. They like to see the flame which whirls up from the dirty hay or straw; but, of course, they make their fire at some distance, to prevent its catching their huts. The mortar and pestle have disappeared: the people use here, for grinding their grain, two stones, as in some places on the north coast.
The insects are beginning their depredations upon me, biting me all over, and raising on my flesh small ulcers.
I have obtained from Nammadina, the Fellatah horse-dealer, a detailed account of the route to Yola, the capital of Adamaua, passing through Boushi.
The Moors represent the latter place to be like Mourzuk and Tripoli; but they say the greater part of the inhabitants of Adamaua are infidels or pagans. The rulers are, however, Fellatahs, and therefore Muslims. Adamaua is a rocky country: a small quantity of grain is found here, with abundance of sheep, oxen, horses, goats, fish, samen, honey, and onions. The rivers of Adamaua have always some water in them.
In the territory of Boushi will be found the celebrated name of Yamyam, where the Moorish and Arab merchants place the residence of the Ben-Adam eaters, or cannibals. I was greatly amused to hear my Fellatah informant most strenuously deny this calumny on the African race; he asserted that he had been in the country, and never had seen anything of this sort. The Moors as boldly affirmed that such cannibals exist, although they were obliged to confess they never saw the people of Adamaua or Yakoba (name of the sultan) eat human flesh. The whole story of the Yamyam is of the remotest antiquity, and has come down to us with many embellishments; but, if once true of the people hereabouts, it can no longer be authenticated by present facts, for as I have said, the Moors themselves represent Boushi to be like Tripoli.