In Hindustan dance music (vocal and instrumental combined) plays an important part in the religious ceremonies of the temples, both in the voluptuous dances of the _devadhazis_, or bayadères,[18] and in the chanting of the _montranis_, scriptural formulas set to a fixed musical rhythm. The size of a Hindoo orchestra varies, and the dance-music it plays is not always of a sensuous, erotic type, but often very animated and vigorous in character, such as accompanies the dancing at the courts of the rajahs. Music frequently accompanies dramatic representations as well, and there is a great deal of popular song. The Hindoos have _dhourpad_ and _kourka_, warlike hymns, _hoti_, canticles in honor of Krishna, _stouti_, official odes, _bichnoupoud_, evening songs, _kheal_, love songs, _sohla_, nuptial songs, _thoumries_, patriotic songs, _palma_, cradle songs, and _darda_, love songs. In many cases Hindoo music shows signs of Mohammedan influence, especially in the variety and liveliness of its rhythm. It is curious to note that the use of certain types accompanying instruments is restricted to certain social classes, priests, mendicant holy men, dancing girls, and so forth. Mohammedan music is associated with a wide variety of voluptuous secular dances, for the Mohammedan Orient possesses an art of dance equal to the most delicate inspirations of our poets. There is the dance of the _Ouled Nail_, the famous dancing girls of Biskra, the Tunisian 'Dance of the Hair,’[19] the Algerian 'Dance of the Pitchers,’ the dances of the Egyptian Ghaouazi or 'Almees,’ exponents of what is known to us as the _danse du ventre_, of which one of the dance airs follows: [Illustration: GHAOUAZI DANCE.] There are the dances of Syrian, Soudanese and other dancing-girls. Then there are the special dances, accompanied by choral singing and instrumental music, that celebrate the nuptial ceremony throughout the Orient. IV The variety of customs, of traditional observances and usages interwoven with exotic music is endless. Many religious chants, for instance, are fixed by tradition, and are undoubtedly of high antiquity. Such is the chanting of the sacred books in the Temple of the Sacred Tooth in Ceylon, where on each night of the full moon the whole text of the 'Tripitakas,’ or 'Three Baskets’ of wisdom, is recited by relays of yellow-robed priests, succeeding each other every two hours between the dark and the dawn. They are said to chant in deep resonant voices, as steady and continuous as the roar of the surf, without break, quaver, or pause. When we consider that Buddhist priests have repeated these sacred texts in this manner on every night of the full moon for twenty-eight centuries, the traditional cantillation of the Koran appears a thing of recent date. The following interesting 'call to prayer’ of the muezzin has been traditionally handed down, and its chant is supposed to antedate the era of Mohammed: