Then I
went into the kitchen and began tuning the fiddle, as the boys were
impatient for my music. At first I tried to play standing, but on
the upward stroke my bow came in contact with the salt-fish and
oil-skins that hung from the rafters, so I settled myself at last on
a table in the corner, where I was out of the way, and got one of
the people to hold up my music before me, as I had no stand. I
played a French melody first, to get myself used to the people and
the qualities of the room, which has little resonance between the
earth floor and the thatch overhead. Then I struck up the 'Black
Rogue,' and in a moment a tall man bounded out from his stool under
the chimney and began flying round the kitchen with peculiarly sure
and graceful bravado.
The lightness of the pampooties seems to make the dancing on this
island lighter and swifter than anything I have seen on the
mainland, and the simplicity of the men enables them to throw a
naive extravagance into their steps that is impossible in places
where the people are self-conscious.
The speed, however, was so violent that I had some difficulty in
keeping up, as my fingers were not in practice, and I could not take
off more than a small part of my attention to watch what was going
on. When I finished I heard a commotion at the door, and the whole
body of people who had gone down to watch the quarrel filed into the
kitchen and arranged themselves around the walls, the women and
girls, as is usual, forming themselves in one compact mass crouching
on their heels near the door.
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