Page:Algeria from Within.pdf/117

There are occasionally companies of musicians who travel around with a variety of instruments and singers, male and female, and dancers. There are also those who sing only the Koran, and serious marabouts almost always have their private musicians. One also sees troupes of actors, usually Tunisians, who give small plays interspersed with music and dancing. The performance goes on for hours and hours, and the audience sits spellbound without uttering a sound of approval or disapproval. Occasionally a comic scene provokes laughter, but generally speaking a dramatic performance is carried through in absolute silence.

The dancing is as varied as the music. It is usually carried out by women, who start learning at a very youthful age. The danse du ventre, which is essentially of the North, or of Turkish origin, is decidedly ugly. It is, however, much appreciated and takes endless practise to learn.

The dance of the Ouled Naïls, on which is based most of the other dances, is very picturesque, and the movements of the hands, like the wings of a hunting hawk, and the feet, are a delight to watch.

Occasionally men dance too; sometimes in the cafés with a woman executing strange figures, but usually alone or with other men. One of the finest exhibitions of this kind I ever saw was at Ghardaia one warm evening in April.

A great fire of alfa grass had been lighted in the market-square illuminating the unsymmetrical arches; masses of men in white squatted all round, while above, on the flat roofs of the houses, could be discerned rows and rows of veiled women pecring down on the scene below like ghostly gargoyles. The music was the raïta and the tam-tam, and even in the open air the volume of sound produced by the musicians was sufficient to fill the whole square.