A FETE OF THE AISSOUA.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 357, 12 March 1903, Page 7

A FETE OF THE AISSOUA.

By night the White City is a city of nightmares—pale sheeted Arabs, wrapped m white burnouses, glide under tunnelled archways; fierce looking Jews, in Turkish trousers and blue turbans lurk in the sombre doorways; from tbe grated windows overhead women call shrilly to their neighbours in their Arab tongue that iB like an angry parrot's; while starving dogs slink down the dimlit alleys, and jovial negroes shout barbaric songs. The gloomy lanes and alleys interlace in inextricable confusion, andl have to resign myself, with a blind confidence, to the direction of my guide- We stop at a narrrow doorway, and, after the Arab has parleyed with the doorkeeper,'l am allowed to enter. Here are too rooms, whitewashed and bare of furniture. Arabs af all ages and conditions are sitting tailor-wise on the floor, speaking but little. In the Bmaller of the two rooms the ceremony is going on, and between the two is a large grated window, before which I am seated on a pile of cushions. With their hospitality, ray hosts have given me the best seat in the house; one might almost, call it a stage box. Through th«i bars of ray window I see a strangeooking crowd. Bound the wall are ranged the musicians, with pipes and drums and tambourines, making music of such weird and strange discords, and intervals and unexpeced silences, that one begins to sympathise with the dancers in their ungoverned frenzy. There are discords which stir the blood and fire the brain more than the most masterly melodies witness the songs of the Basques, and these wild laments of the Arabs. In one corner, wrapoed in a sack, some charcoal is glowing, and there is a pleasant smell of burning cedar-wood and spices. A hump-backed dwarf, who is sitting underneath my window, suddenly begins to thump his large tambourine in the wildest excitement; then the pipeß begin with a few short notes repeated several times, like the call of a strange wild animal. A tall, dark Briski, with a Boman nose, and a complexion creme de suie, rises to his feet, and throwing aside his burnouses—retaining only his gandoura—prepares to begin his dance. The music rises and falls in a minor key; the Biskri drones under his breath a sort of choral prayer to this accompaniment, and his companions answer in a subdued murmur. So the music goes on in strophe and antistrophe, while the celebrant beads bis body backwards and forwards and every muscle in his frame is quivering and twitching under his light covering, till he looke like a man with the ague.

The music grows loader and wilder; the hump-back beats his tambourine like one possessed; the chmt of the Arabs grows more distinct and imperious, and the Biskri'e breathiHg has become a succession of sobs and gasps, while the perspiration streams from his tortured, quivering body. His features are distorted, and he looks like a man in the article of an agonising death. He can with difficulty now control his movements and hiß limbs bend under him—he is nearly Bpent. Seeing this four Arabs rue behind him, and hold out a burnous by its four comers. After a final burst of discord, the Biskri totters backward, and with a final effort throws himself on to the burnous, and is rolled in it on the floor, while his companions kneel upon him and chafe his limbs. I thought, involuntarily, of the Bird of Freedomgrisly was the exact word. This may be called at its best religious exaltation, at its worst diabolical possession; but it is so unnatural and uncanny that one is afraid of one knows not what; the whole proceeding is like an evil dream. My guide tells me I am going to Bee something really interesting. It appears there is a man here whose powers are beyond the ordinary, and he is going to exhibit them for my benefit. I feel rather dazed and dull, for I seem to be living in a bygone century, surrounded as I am, with under Btudies of the Patriarchs; but I should like to see the gentleman of unusual powers. This timo there is a movement of interest in the crowd of Arabs, and swarthy bearded faces peer over my shoulder into the inner room. For a moment I wonder whether I was wise to come, fcr I am so hopelessly at the mercy of this roomful of barbarians; but I reassure myself with the thought that I have eaten the kouss-kouss, whieh is the Arab guarantee for safe conduct. Meanwhile the musicians do their best, or worst, and the man of unusual powers rapidly develops symptoms of the hypnotic state; his teeth are clenched, his eyes half closed eo that only the whites are visible, and he chants loudly and hoarsely through his clenched teeth. He is not pleasant to look upon. Every now and then he bends over the burning charcoal, as though to inhale its fumes; a small boy sprinkles some herbs and spices on toe glowing coals, and a thick puff ot

, pungent aromatic smoke rises from the i embers. Then the dancer suddenly seizes a long, thin, and slender dagger, and thrusts it bodily through the fleshy part of his arm. There is little or no blood; just a spot or two round the hilt of the dagger. Next, he openß his mouth, and thr oßts a huge Bteel bodkin through his cheeks, the pin passing between his teeth and out of his cheek at either side. The Arab guide tells me that if I wish toe dancer will take out one of his eyes; but I have had enough of these horrois, and beg politely but firmly to be excused. Finally he takes a glowing coal from the fire, and rolls it red and hissing between his palms till it is crushed to a powder, and to finish his performance, a red-hot bar of iron iB brought in, and he stands on it with his bare feet while he thrusts small steel daggers into the calves of his legs.—' Travel.'