When deserted these “sing-sing” grounds are uncanny enough, but on a dance night they are worse, and when the drumming commences, which {159} sounds as if it came from the bowels of the earth, and makes the flesh of your back feel as if it wanted to come off, the climax is reached. You become chock-full of the supernatural, and would not be in the least surprised if the earth opened up and the dancers appeared amidst flames and smoke. Nothing quite as bad does happen, but, presently, lights are seen flashing in the bush, and dark objects holding torches come out and calmly take up their position in the circle, till nearly a hundred human beings, naked save for paint and streamers, are moving about. Suddenly the drumming noise changes to a sort of tattoo, and then a file of men line up and begin to keep time to the drums with their feet; slowly at first, and then faster and faster till the very earth shakes, and the dull thudding echoes through the dark bush. Then a savage song is heard, a low chanting, and the men begin to whirl round and round the posts till the eye becomes glazed and the flickering light from the torches conjures up a thousand things that never happen, but the drumming, monotonous beating of those wooden images goes on and the tapping of the feet. The crowd of women over by the bush stand watching in an almost hypnotic state, their bodies swaying {160} unconsciously to the beating of the drums and the feet—black naked women with vermilion-coloured faces, and white, staring, rolling eyes watching every movement of the dance. Then a sudden dying away of the drums and the shuffling of the feet and silence. It is weird indeed. The women step forward, it is their turn now, and a wild scene commences. More weird and more noisy than ever. Their shrill voices, mingling with the thumping of the drums and the gruff monotones of the men, make the bush resound. This is kept up for a long time, and then suddenly they all rush off and the place is left in darkness.