They made signs to him to dance, and this was evidently a common pastime, for, without the least reluctance, he began his performance, which was unskilled enough and slightly repulsive. His dancing consisted of wobbling the head and feet at a tremendous rate and putting out his tongue. As soon as he began to show off, the Amana people sat down in front of him and enjoyed the spectacle. He took his mission of purveyor of diversion with deadly seriousness, and all the time he danced he made a strange mumbling noise. He was popular with the children also, and they would bring him out and set him dancing whenever they felt dull. For clothes he wore the usual native costume of the mountains, except the tight belt, which was perhaps too much an adjunct of dandyism for this unfortunate to affect. Not only would he dance at the word of command, but he would take off all his clothes to order, and carrying his meagre garments over his arm, he would run from one end of the village to the other clapping his hands in slow time. It was considered superexcellent fun to make him dance with his clothes off, and all the time the Philistines made game of the poor creature, who, however, was no Samson! Another primitive jest was to give him unpalatable and impossible things to eat, but they had the decency never to let him actually eat a gift of charcoal—a not uncommon present—although they allowed him to come within an ace of doing so. He was tremendously greedy, and when cooking or eating was going on he would try to grab all he could. As soon as we began to prepare a meal he lost all fear of us, and pursued his usual tactics. He would snatch at our plates like a dog, seize as much as he could, and long before one could say that curiously cumbrous phrase “Jack Robinson,” he would have it all stuffed into his mouth. If we told him to go away, he would remove himself for about five yards and sit down. In a very few minutes he had crawled up again and would make another raid upon our dishes. We had some most interesting conversations regarding the lunatic with Ow-bow, who told us what was to be known of his family history. Ow-bow said descriptively that he was “bad inside,” and added oracularly, “Olana lakuana,” which means, “Head no good.” We asked particularly if such a person would have been allowed to marry, whereupon Ow-bow gave an emphatic negative, saying, “Wabeeni daba kadena enai makana affi?” which is literally, “Woman what kind this fellow have?” (“What sort of woman would have this fellow?”) The poor unfortunate was, however, extremely harmless. One could do what one liked with him, for he was never known to lose his temper. [Illustration: 1.—LOOKING DOWN A NATIVE HANGING BRIDGE. 2.—A SIDE VIEW OF THE SAME BRIDGE. ]