The tom-tom supplies the rhythm for dancing, but the melodies are vocal. The songs are solos with responsive chants sung in chorus. They dance with the whole body, setting in motion the limbs, head, shoulders, thighs and stomach. In many of their dances they simulate love-making or hunting, and the various animals they pursue. Sometimes the movements of the dance are very obscene. Among the women there are professional dancers; and these are nearly always women of low reputation. Men and women sometimes—not often—dance simultaneously, but never in couples, nor is there any physical contact between them. There are solitary dancers, men and women, who dance themselves into a frenzy, leaping into the air or whirling round and round until they fall in a swoon, or a trance, during which, or immediately upon recovering, they name persons who are guilty of witchcraft. But no person is more popular among the Africans than a good story-teller. There are professional story-tellers whose performances correspond to those of the theatre among civilized people. One of these takes his place in the middle of the street with the whole population of the town sitting on the ground before him. “Shall we tell a story?” he says. “A story!” they respond in chorus. “Then let us away!” “Away!” In such a story as that of “Ogula and her Ngalo,” already told in this chapter, the story-teller would occasionally break into song or chanting; whereupon the audience will take up the chant as a refrain and repeat it over and over, until he is ready to proceed with the story. The African is a born story-teller. And we should expect this from the fact that he is the most sociable man in the world. He cannot easily be killed with work; but isolation will kill him quickly. The old men sit in the palaver-house all their spare time (that is, all the time between naps and meals) entertaining and amazing the younger generation with the narration of their past exploits—how many women have gladly eloped with them, how many others they have captured, how many enemies they have killed in war, and how they have fought wild animals with unheard-of bravery. The conversation is often a lying-match. But they turn out interesting tales. An old man—a famous hunter in former days, according to his own story—tells at great length of a fierce fight between a leopard and a gorilla which he witnessed; and having at last exhausted his resources of invention, but utterly unwilling that the story should end in an anticlimax, he tells how the gorilla, watching an opportunity, suddenly seized the leopard’s tail and swung him around his head so swiftly that the leopard was hurled into space leaving his tail in the gorilla’s hand. Observing the look of incredulity in the faces of his audience, he gravely adds: