Goncourt reports the account given him by a French officer from Senegal of the dances of the women, "a dance which is a gentle oscillation of the body, with gradually increasing excitement, from time to time a woman darting forward from the group to stand in front of her lover, contorting herself as though in a passionate embrace, and, on passing her hand between her thighs, showing it covered with the moisture of amorous enjoyment." (_Journal_, vol. ix, p. 79.) The dance here referred to is probably the Bamboula dance of the Wolofs, a spring festival which has been described by Pierre Loti in his _Roman d'un Spahi_, and concerning which various details are furnished by a French army-surgeon, acquainted with Senegal, in his _Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_. The dance, as described by the latter, takes place at night during full moon, the dancers, male and female, beginning timidly, but, as the beat of the tam-tams and the encouraging cries of the spectators become louder, the dance becomes more furious. The native name of the dance is _anamalis fobil_, "the dance of the treading drake." "The dancer in his movements imitates the copulation of the great Indian duck. This drake has a member of a corkscrew shape, and a peculiar movement is required to introduce it into the duck. The woman tucks up her clothes and convulsively agitates the lower part of her body; she alternately shows her partner her vulva and hides it from him by a regular movement, backward and forward, of the body." (_Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_, Paris, 1898, vol. ii, p. 112.) Among the Gurus of the Ivory Coast (Gulf of Guinea), Eysséric observes, dancing is usually carried on at night and more especially by the men, and on certain occasions women must not appear, for if they assisted at fetichistic dances "they would die." Under other circumstances men and women dance together with ardor, not forming couples but often _vis-à-vis_: their movements are lascivious. Even the dances following a funeral tend to become sexual in character. At the end of the rites attending the funeral of a chief's son the entire population began to dance with ever-growing ardor; there was nothing ritualistic or sad in these contortions, which took on the character of a lascivious dance. Men and women, boys and girls, young and old, sought to rival each other in suppleness, and the festival became joyous and general, as if in celebration of a marriage or a victory. (Eysséric, "La Côte d'Ivoire," _Nouvelles Archives des Missions Scientifiques_, tome ix, 1890, pp. 241-49.)