not that of the Yorkshire Arvills, to refresh those who attended from afar—it is confessedly to ‘take the sorrow out of the heart.’ So the Velorio of Yucatan is para divertise—to distract kin-grief. As in the matter of marriage, however, so in funerals, we can hardly deride barbarous races whilst we keep up our pomp and expense of ridiculous trappings, taxing even the poor for mutes and carriages, for ‘gloves, scarves, and hatbands.’ The Wasawahili have all the African passion for the dance and song: they may be said to exist upon manioc and betel, palm-wine and spirits, music and dancing. The Ngoma Khu, or huge drum, a hollowed cocoa-stem bound with leather braces, and thumped with fists, palms, or large sticks, plays an important and complex part in the business of life: it sounds when a man falls sick, when he revives, or when he dies; at births and at marriages; at funerals and at festivals; when a stranger arrives or departs; when a fight begins or ends, and generally whenever there is nothing else to do. It is accompanied by the ‘Siwa,’ a huge pipe of black wood or ebony, and by the ‘Zurmári,’ a more handy variety of the same instrument. On occasions which justify full orchestras, an ‘Upatu,’ or brass pan, is placed upon the ground in a wooden tray, and is tapped with two bits of palm-frond. Some wealthy men possess gongs, from which the cudgel draws lugubrious sounds. The other implements are ‘Tabl,’ or tomtoms of gourd, provided with goatskin; the Tambire, or Arab Barbut, a kind of lute; the Malagash ‘Zeze,’ a Calabash-banjo, whose single string is scraped with a bow; and finally horns of the cow, of the Addax, and the Oryx antelopes. These people are excellent timeists, but their music, being all in the minor key, and the song being a mere recitative without change of words, both are monotonous to the last degree. The dancing resembles that of the Somal, and, as amongst the slaves, both sexes prance together. The Diwans, or chiefs, caper with drawn swords, whilst the women move in regular time, shaking skirts with the right hand. The ‘figures’ are, unlike the music, complicated and difficult: they seem to vary in almost every village. The only constant characteristic appears to be that tremulous motion from the waist downwards, and that lively pantomime of love which was so fiercely satirized by the eminently moral Juvenal. It is, indeed, the groundwork of all ‘Oriental’ dancing from Morocco to Japan.