The Story Teller of the Desert—"Backsheesh!" / or, Life and Adventures in the Orient

by Thomas Wallace Knox

At the sound of the music they began to move about the room with a sort of gliding motion, accompanied by a curious wriggle of the body at the hips, while all the rest of it remained still. It was a motion from side to side performed quite rapidly, and with due deference to the sound of one to us, and the dancers were of a type unknown in America. Their dress was strange, and stranger still were the musicians squatted on the floor and keeping time with that monotonous barbaric sound.

Two or three Arabs were peering in at the door, the room was wholly Arabic in character, and the only occidental suggestion was the party of spectators squatting or sitting on the divans. There was a dim light from half a dozen candles, and outside a small fire occasionally sent up a weird flash. The scene was a fine one for an artist.

For a quarter of an hour the dance went on, and gradually the movements became more and more excited. Then there was a pause and then a re-commencement, and then another pause at which the ladies retired for a few moments while we took a fresh filling to our pipes or lighted fresh cigars. When the dancing girls returned they were in a much lighter costume than the preceding one, a costume that permitted one to see the full development of the form, as it did away entirely with the long dress and with other garments that hindered the movements. I doubt if the manager of any theatre ever dared to go quite as far in dressing or undressing his ballet troupe as did the manager of the Ghawazee at Keneh. With the exception of their head dresses of false hair and jingling coins, and their necklaces and rings, the whole half dozen of girls didn’t have clothes enough about them to fill a snuff box. You could have sent their entire lot of garments by mail with a single postage stamp.

Immediately on their re-appearance the music re-commenced, and this time with a more vigorous measure, so that the scene became enlivening.

This time the movements of the dancers were more free, and they whirled about in a narrow space with such rapidity that there was quite a maze of the performers. There was a repetition of the gliding, whirling, and twisting motions combined, and sometimes they were all performed together. We looked on attentively for half an hour, and now and then as the air was getting stifling from the occupancy of a small room by so many persons we called for an adjournment and went out into the light of the moon. As we passed by the German consulate we heard the sound of music, and one of the Germans of our party led the way inside-The consuls of France and Germany are brothers and their consulates are in one building; during the Franco-German war the consul for Germany was also consul for France, and is supposed to have performed his duty impartially, especially as there is very little duty for him to perform.

The place into which we were ushered was a large hall, and the same sort of dance given in honor of some German visitors was going on. The girls were more richly dressed than at the performance we had just witnessed, and the room being much larger they had more space for their movements. The musicians were more numerous, and as there was a better light in the room the scene was brighter. But the spectators were sitting on chairs instead of divans and the host was dressed a la European, with the exception of the everlasting fez which covered his head.

Altogether the scene was much less Oriental, and it lacked the careless abandon that had made one of the attractions of the dance at the home of the Ghawazee. So after a short stay we thanked our host, the Consul, and returned to the boat.

Many travellers have praised the beauty of the dancing girls, and several artists of note, among the Germans, have visited Egypt to paint them. I had formed such a picture of their beauty that I was rather disappointed at the reality. Of the six that danced before us two were positively ill-looking, and two others, though not uncomely in features, had grown rather too fat to be attractive. The other two were pretty and well formed, and had the others been like them, or had we seen only these two we might have shared the feelings of many who have gone before us.

Of the two beauties one was a pure blooded Arab, and the other evidently of mixed blood Arab with a streak, and a broad streak too, of Nubian. Their forms were exquisite and would have filled the eye of the sculptor of the Greek Slave. Their limbs were full and rounded, and every muscle so far as we could see was of the proper development. Their eyes were full and liquid in their tenderness, and the long lashes set them out like a lustrous frame. The dark skin was smooth and the necks were flung from side to side in a shower of ebony spray as its wearers glided and swung around the apartment, where we looked upon them. Fortunate indeed had we been had these been the only dancing girls to meet our eyes at Keneh.