the heart of any beautiful negress palpitated at the
approach of Captain Clapperton, Mr. Houston, or the
more timid and bashful Lander, yet it was evident
that the negresses, who were selected as their partners,
testified their unqualified delight at the honour
conferred upon them by a grin, which in a civilized
country would be called a smile, but which happened
to be of that extent, as if nature had furnished them
with a mouth extending from ear to ear, similar to
the opening of the jaws of a dogger codfish.
The Taglionis and Elsters of the court were present;
and although a latitude of a few degrees to the northward
of the line is not exactly suitable for pirouetting
and tourbillons, which, in a negress in a state of
almost complete nudity, could not fail to attract
the doting eyes even of the bishop of London, or of
Sir Andrew Agnew, particularly on the Sabbath; yet,
on this occasion, the beauties of the court attempted
to outvie each other in the gracefulness of their
attitudes, and the extraordinary height of their salutations.
There is very little doubt but that the tout ensemble
would have formed an excellent subject for a Cruickshanks,
and particularly to take a sketch of the old black
caboceer, sailing majestically around in his damask
robe, with a train-bearer behind him, and every now
and then turning up his old withered face, first to
one of his visitors, and then to the other; then whisking
round on one foot, and treading without ceremony on
the shoeless foot of his perspiring partner, then
marching slow, with solemn gait, like the autocrat
of all the Russias in a polonnaise, then, not exactly
leading gracefully down the middle, but twining the
hands of his visitors in his, which had very much
the appearance of a piebald affair, showing at the
same time an extraordinary inflation of pride, that
a white man should dance with him. But the fate
of Lander was the most to be commiserated; for although
it might be the etiquette of his country, that master
and servant should not be quadrilling at the same
time, yet as no such distinction existed in the court
of the old caboceer of Jannah, as far as the sentiments
of the female beauties were concerned, poor Lander
led the very devil of a life of it. He certainly,
as it would have been highly unbecoming in him, did
not solicit the hand of any of the expectant beauties,
and therefore, giving him all due credit for his extreme
bashfulness and insuperable modesty, they were determined
to solicit his; he was first twirled round by one
beauty, then by another; at one moment he found himself
in a state of juxta position with the old caboceer;
at another, his animated partner was nearly driving
him into a state of positive collision with his own
master; in fact he was, like Tom at Almack’s,
putting the whole of the dancers into confusion, from
his ignorance of the intricacies of the African dance,
and his total inability to compete with his partner
in her gymnastic evolutions. One of the most