One of the dances was a succession of pleasing attitudes, the hands and arms rendering important assistance—­the body bending backward and forward and swaying laterally, the figurante sometimes half-kneeling, and in that position gracefully posturing, and again balanced on one foot, the arms and hands waving slowly in time to the music.  In another dance, the pirouette and other figures dear to the bald-headed beaux of the modern play-house, were practiced in the familiar way.  Four thousand years ago, the senses of the young ancient Egyptian—­wild, heady lad!—­were kicked into confusion by the dark-skinned belle of the ballet, while senility, with dimmed eyes, rubbed its dry hands in feverish approval at the self-same feat.  Dear, dear, but it was a bad world four thousand years ago!

Sometimes they danced in pairs, men with men and women with women, indifferently, the latter arrangement seeming to us preferable by reason of the women’s conspicuously superior grace and almost equal agility; for it is in evidence on the tombs that tumblers and acrobats were commonly of the softer sex.  Some of the attitudes were similar to those which drew from Socrates the ungallant remark that women were capable of learning anything which you will that they should know.  The figures in this pas de deux appear frequently to have terminated in what children, with their customary coarseness of speech, are pleased to call “wringing the dish-clout”—­clasping the hands, throwing the arms above the head and turning rapidly, each as on a pivot, without loosing the hands of the other, and resting again in position.

Sometimes, with no other music than the percussion of hands, a man would execute a pas seul, which it is to be presumed he enjoyed.  Again, with a riper and better sense of musical methods, the performer accompanied himself, or, as in this case it usually was, herself, on the double-pipes, the guitar or the tambourine, while the familiar hand-clapping was done by attendants.  A step not unlike that of the abominable clog dance of the “variety” stage and “music hall” of the present day consisted in striking the heel of first one foot and then the other, the hands and arms being employed to diminish the monotony of the movement.  For amusement and instruction of the vulgar, buffoons in herds of ten or more in fested the streets, hopping and posing to the sound of a drum.

As illustrating the versatility of the dance, its wide capacities of adaptation to human emotional needs, I may mention here the procession of women to the tomb of a friend or relative Punishing the tambourine or dara booka drum, and bearing branches of palm or other symbolic vegetables, these sprightly mourners passed through the streets with songs and dances which, under the circumstances, can hardly have failed eminently to gratify the person so fortunate as to have his memory honored by so delicate and appropriate observance.