It is our host's grand reception night. A hundred guests have partaken of his bounty, and the veranda and the sitting-room are crowded with friends and neighbors,--invited and uninvited; all are equally welcome. Cigars and cigarettes are passed round, and now the fun begins. A girl--a wonderfully sweet and pretty creature--with glowing black eyes and long, loose black hair--advances to the centre of the room, and croons a low, plaintive air, reminiscent of unrequited love. She accompanies her music with a weird dance, impressive through its very simplicity. Gradually her tones grow louder and her movements quicker, signifying all the varying degrees of advance and refusal. Her supple body glides into a thousand graceful curves, each eloquent of beauty. Her pale olive face becomes mantled with a rich crimson tide as she lashes herself into a fury of passion. She feigns anger, and, stamping her pretty feet, now in petulant disdain, now in a paroxysm of wrath, stands the incarnation of beautiful rage. It is a picture full of tragic power, of deep significance. She is approaching the climax of her passion. Her voice is sharp and shrill as it trembles with scorn or defiance. Forward and backward her body sways with a rhythmic swing that compels the attention of every beholder. Many, in fact, accompany her every motion with the sympathetic movement of unconscious imitation: their faces mirror the feelings of the dancer. And now a note of triumph rings out, and the singer's face glows with an expression of ecstasy; while, bounding forward, her splendid hair trailing its waves of ebony, she seems transformed,--the apotheosis of joy. Then slowly decreasing in volume, her voice sinks to a low whisper of serene content, and, blushing modestly at the applause, she retires to give place to others. Two young men and a girl now come forward, and a scene of desperate rivalry on the part of the men, and of tantalizing coquetry on the part of the maiden, is enacted. This is by means of a series of intricate dance-movements, no less striking than original. A pretty tableau truly! And one not lacking in sentiment and in spontaneous expression. A foreigner would believe that these lithe young natives were in terrible earnest, and that they were rehearsing a passion of the heart! Such, indeed, is often the case, and many a girl has, through the license of this dance, shown her preference. Many a youth, too, has seen his hopes blasted, and his rival exalted, by a dainty pirouette. This dance is followed by another, in which an exquisite girl and a fat young man take part. It is an Oriental rhapsody; a sort of couchee-couchee,--very suggestive and voluptuous, according to Western ideas. There are wrigglings and writhings, and clasps and embraces; all the sweet contortions of secret love, that the natives take as a matter of course, just as Europeans regard the waltz.