After sunset all was made ready for the Batuque.  The ball-room was the village square; the decorations were the dense trees; the orchestra consisted of two drums, a grande caisse eight feet and a half long, placed horizontally, and a smaller specimen standing on a foot like that of an old-fashioned champagne-glass; the broader ends were covered with deer skins, upon which both hands perform; and the illuminations were flaming heaps of straw, which, when exhausted, were replaced by ground-nuts spitted upon a bamboo splint.  This contrivance is far simpler than a dip-candle, the arachis is broken off as it chars, and, when the lamp dims, turning it upside down causes a fresh flow of oil.  The ruder sex occupied one half of the ring, and the rest was appropriated to dame and damsel.  The Batuque is said to be the original Cachucha; Barbot calls it a danse des filoux, and it has the merit of perfectly expressing, as Captain Cook’s companions remarked of the performances in the South Sea Islands, what it means.

The hero of the night was Chico Mpamba; he must have caused a jealous pang to shoot through many a masculine bosom.  With bending waist, arms gracefully extended forwards, and fingers snapping louder than castanets; with the upper half of the body fixed as to a stake, and with the lower convulsive as a scotched snake, he advanced and retired by a complicated shuffle, keeping time with the tom-tom and jingling his brass anklets, which weighed at least three pounds, and which, by the by, lamed him for several days.  But he was heroic as the singer who broke his collar-bone by the ut di petto.  A peculiar accompaniment was a dulcet whistle with lips protruded; hence probably the fable of Pliny’s Astomoi, and the Africans of Eudoxus, whose joined lips compelled them to eat a single grain at a time, and to drink through a cane before sherry-cobblers were known.  Others joined him, dancing either vis-a-vis or by his side; and more than one girl, who could no longer endure being a wall-flower, glided into the ring and was received with a roar of applause.  In the feminine performance the eyes are timidly bent upon the ground; the steps are shorter and daintier, and the ritrosa appears at once to shun and to entice her cavalier, who, thus repulsed and attracted, redoubles the exciting measure till the delight of the spectators knows no bounds.  Old Gidi Mavunga flings off his upper garment, and with the fire of a youth of twenty enters the circle, where his performance is looked upon with respect, if not with admiration.  Wilder and wilder waxeth the “Devil’s delight,” till even the bystanders, especially the women, though they keep their places in the outer circle, cannot restrain that wonderful movement of haunch and flank.  I laughed till midnight, and left the dancers dancing still.