The dancers in the centre of the circles move faster, keeping time to the drums and hand-clappings of the audience, and soon everybody is swaying to and fro. Away in the gardens outside the town there are flickering lights and a sound of singing. The great zikr before the Medinia mosque ceases and all the people come streaming out from the dark, shadowy lanes towards the tomb of Sidi Suliman, which shines white in the moonlight with orange lights blazing from its open door and little windows. The sheikhs walk slowly about from group to group, each followed by a little knot of men—servants carrying carpets and cushions, and some watchmen in tall brown tarbouches, holding staves. The police stand about in the crowd, and when one walks up to watch a dance they hurry forward and push people aside, saying, “Make way, make way!” The sound of distant singing in the gardens grows louder and nearer, and suddenly mobs of men and boys, mad with drink, half naked, come leaping and shrieking into the square, scattering fire from their blazing torches. Then drums are beaten madly, cymbals crash, and the shrill screech of reed pipes rends the air. The crowd forms into a great circle round the mass of frenzied dancers who career round, drinking as they dance, shouting and yelling. In the centre there are a dozen men lashing away at cymbals and tom-toms. One of the dancers is an enormous blind giant, almost naked, who flourishes a jug of lubki, and some of the boys have wreaths round their heads and bunches of flowers stuck behind their ears.