re well fed and clothed?

After a silence of ten minutes, one of the men of the community,
evidently a coarse illiterate person, rose and addressed a few words to
the spectators, requesting them not to laugh at what they saw, but to
behave themselves properly, etcetera, and then he sat down.

One of the leaders then burst out into a hymn, to a jigging sort of
tune, and all the others joined chorus. After the hymn was sung they
all rose, put away the forms on which they had been seated, and stood in
lines, eight in a row, men and women separate, facing each other, and
about ten feet apart--the ranks of men being flanked by the boys, and
those of the women by the girls. They commenced their dancing by
advancing in rows, just about as far as profane people do in _L'ete_
when they dance quadrilles, and then retreated the same distance, all
keeping regular time, and turning back to back after every third
advance. The movement was rather quick, and they danced to their own
singing of the following beautiful composition:--

Law, law, de lawdel law,
Law, law, de law,
Law, law, de lawdel law,
Lawdel, lawdel, law--

keeping time also with the hands as well as feet, the former raised up
to the chest, and hanging down like the fore-paws of a dancing bear.
After a quarter of an hour they sat down again, and the women made use
of their large towel pocket-handkerchiefs to wipe off the perspiration.
Another hymn was sung, and then the same person addressed the
spectators, requesting them not to laugh, and inquiring if any of them
felt a wish to be saved--adding, "Not one of you, I don't think." He
looked round at all of us with the most ineffable contempt, and then sat
down; and they sang another hymn, the burden of which was--

"Our souls are saved, and we are free
From vice and all in-i-qui-ty."

which was a very comfortable delusion, at all events.

They then rose again, put away the forms as before, and danced in
another fashion. Instead of _L'ete_, it was _Grande ronde_. About ten
men and women stood in two lines in the centre of the room, as a vocal
band of music, while all the others, two and two, women first and men
following, promenaded round, with a short quick step, to the tune
chaunted in the centre. As they went round and round, shaking their
paws up and down before them, the scene was very absurd, and I could
have laughed had I not felt disgusted at such a degradation of rational
and immortal