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TANGIERS 121
different-looking—men with long beards, holding great
armfuls of axes, walk behind the dancers.
Then there follows a great circular train—perhaps
half a hundred—who, holding each other by the hand
and darting up and down like Cartesian divers, keep
step with the leader of the dance, a gigantic negro who
occupies the center of the circle.
At the very end comes the band of music, the instru-
ments of which consist of a few sounding-boards
covered with membranes stretched over them, and the
cursed clarinet, which still wails out its lamentation
like an endless thread. The whole procession is in
motion, dancing either as it halts, or as it moves slowly
forward, and the dance has not ceased now for two
hours. Even those who prostrate themselves and beat
their brows upon the ground do not cease their meas-
ured swayings for a single moment—the rhythm of the
music has hypnotized them.
The procession moves through thousands of on-
lookers—men and children; and above, on the high
banks under the aloe hedges, there are rows of sitting
women, resembling white sea-birds in their curious
costumes. At times a dancing fanatic will make for
them with his ax raised, whereupon they will dart to
their feet with screams and escape into the jungle-like
brush-wood of the swamps.
As I stand there and look on, Hadji joins me; I ask
him what this thing means.
“They are religious fanatics who are dancing in
honor of Sedi Ali,” he says. “They are genuine idiots
who hop around and disfigure themselves.” He as-
sumes the expression of one who would say he is
superior to all supernatural phenomena, but I recall
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