security of her row and goes up to him with mincing steps, and when close by shakes and wags her head from side to side. He and she then return together to the centre, moving round one another much as setting to partners in the lancers. They pause there a moment, and she returns to her place in the line with a smile and a laughing remark to her sisters, while he, looking more selfconscious than ever, returns to his mates.

In another dance the soloist's idea was to stamp with small steps through the sand, and at intervals throw her head back until at last, urged on by the shrill cries of the harimat, the deep growl and hand-clapping of the men, she succeeds in touching the ground with her forehead.

After this six women do a kind of folk-dance all in line, which consists mostly in wriggling their bodies and kneeling down at intervals for favor of applause.

When a dancer has executed some movement that appeals strongly to a member of the audience, he dashes into the centre of the ring, puts his left hand on her head, and loudly snaps the fingers of his right hand above his own head, or, carried away in an ecstasy of delight, draws his knife- which all men carry above the elbow on the left arm and makes a series of passes round the girl's head, the quivering blade just missing her every time.

like fowls, the jester finishing up with a cock-crow on a high note.

Any occasion does for a dance, broiling sunshine, or silver moon — it is all the same. I have seen them start on my arrival at a village at seven in the morning, and go on all the afternoon. During the singing children run in and out; mothers pause to feed the child slung at their backs, and the chorus stops to argue about the next song, or laugh at something funny. The older the lady and the more repulsive her features, the greater the desire to dance, and show the 'young 'uns' how to do it.

Education plays no unimportant part in village life, and the fikki who teaches is a person of distinction. The school consists of a semicircular fence made in some corner of the village, with a raised mound of sand mixed with water and beaten hard built up in the middle of it, which is generally piled high with ashes, the remains of the fire that provides light for the lessons. There is a big pile of wood in one corner, as each pupil, when he comes in at night from his daily task of herding his father's goats, brings with him an addition to the stock.

The slates are flat pieces of wood about eighteen inches long, and a third of that across, with a handle at the top. They are prepared for use by washing and rubbing over with a mixture of powdered white stone and water. The stone is rather like bath-brick, and only found in one place in Eastern Darfur, so the owners of the place do a considerable trade in it.

Women manufacture the ink, which is a mixture of soot, gum, and water boiled over the fire. Gourds serve as ink-pots, the fikki using a much larger one than his disciples. The fikki makes all the pens that are needed from thick grass, on the same principle as a quill

pen.

School begins in the evening after the boys have finished their work and eaten their evening meal of mashed millet washed down by copious draughts of native beer. The lesson lasts about a couple of hours, then the students are allowed to lie down and sleep in the school. Two hours before dawn they are wakened up, wood is heaped on the fire, and they recommence their lessons, and go on until sunrise, when their round of attending to the flocks begins again. There may be a dozen or more pupils, their varying between ten and eighteen.

ages

In some villages the fikki is an old man, in others he may have lately been a pupil himself. When the class is ready he starts moaning out some passages of the Koran, which the students more or less indifferently write down.

When the passage is written, led by their master, the boys recite it over again in one long sing-song, without a speck of light or shade. That completes the lesson. The fikki takes a perfunctory glance at each pupil's work, but does not seem to mind whether it is decently written or not.

Dull pupils are not beaten much, but woe betide the boy who neglects to bring his piece of firewood. Each parent presents the fikki with a monthly dole of grain in payment.

The student is expected to recite the Koran by heart at the end of seven years' work, but this is at best a boast, as few of the fikkis can do this themselves.

The school, however, is not the fikki's only source of income. In fact, it is his smallest.

He writes amulets, consisting of long passages from the Koran, or else a horoscope, to be worn as a luck-charm round the neck or on the arm. These are sold at varying prices according to the fame of the writer, a well-known man making a large income. When a

child is born, a warag is written and hung in the tukl of the mother, to avert the evil eye. A man or woman is sick, and native medicines bring no relief, so the fikki is called in. He diagnoses the case, writes a few appropriate verses on a piece of paper, which is swallowed by the patient.

A camel is lost. The owner has perhaps searched for many days without success, so he goes to the fikki and pays him most extravagant sums, in some cases up to half the value of the animal, for advice. The fikki advises him where to go and search, but warns him that if he fails to find it, it is God's Will that he should lose it, and he the fikki- has no jurisdiction over God; and the searcher goes off contented.

He also directs and leads the Faithful in prayer. It is his duty to call out in the masid (meeting place) that adjoins the school five times a day, that there is no God but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet. If he has a promising pupil he may deputize this holy duty to him, but these duties are more often only carried out when there is someone of importance in the village whom they desire to impress.

Office on tour is held in many various places, and under different conditions. Sometimes it is under a tree, at other times in a tukl, or a lean-to, or a tent; but varied as are the places of assembly they are not so varied as the cases heard. Twenty-four that were heard one 'morning' lasted from nine to four without a break.

A temperature of well over one hundred; sixty or seventy men, with a woman or two, sitting closely round, none of whom had probably had a bath for six months, and the reader can imagine the seductive, spring-like atmosphere of the temporary court, and how much this refreshing aroma adds to drive away any annoyance or vexation that the Magistrate may feel,

especially at half-past three. However, justice is justice, and every endeavor is made to give Ibrahim the same patient hearing at a quarter to four that his brother Yusef had at nine o'clock.

[Manchester Guardian] CURFEW IN IRELAND

BY THOMAS KELLY

THE clock over the jeweler's shop at the corner, with its hour-hand missing and its dial bullet-pierced, chimes the half hour. A clanging tram rattles past in a lumbering hurry on its way to the sheds. As with a sudden awakening, a pair of jarveys leave the stand hard by and scurry along, seemingly engaged in a contest for supremacy in the dual spheres of speed and whip-flicking. The spasmodic gusts of wind set the rusty shop signs swinging and creaking and drive before them the curtains of dank

mist. Slowly the lingering groups in the street are melting away, the more staid folk being encouraged to speed by the jeers of raucous ragamuffins: 'Here's the armor car!' and 'The lorry is after you!"

With their backs to the wall and their rifles standing by their sides the file of policemen talk in subdued tones. Now and again one of them moves farther down the street from the corner to avoid the spluttering watersplash from a leaking pipe. Up and up creeps the solitary hand of the warning clock, each minute marking a lessening in the number of people still intent on availing of the last minute which curfew allows. Down the street marches

a trio of shawl-clad factory workers, their discordant but confident voices chanting a parody whose chorus opens:

If you're I-rish, Step into the lorry!

A mud-splashing cyclist, minus a headlight, hastens by. And one fancies there comes to the elder members of the group of R.I.C. men sheltering by the wall a feeling of wistful sadness for the old days when that law-defying cyclist would have called forth a stentorian order to stop, an authoritative demand for his light, a notebook and a piece of stumpy pencil, a sheet of fine blue foolscap for a report which would begin: 'On the night of the third instant I was on duty at twenty minutes to ten at the corner of Dunfoyle Street': a police-court summons, again on the respect-compelling blue paper, and the glory of a prosecution!

The men in black-blue, with no eyes for venial law-breakers, huddle in their great-coats. In ones and twos the people hurry home, till the street is almost deserted. The minutes of freedom are shortening, the patter of the driven mists resounds on the window panes. A Ford car rushes through the thoroughfare, bearing home the remnants of an early-disbanded bridge party. The loiterers have dwindled down to half a dozen.

'What's the time, mister?' chirps a childish treble.

"Ten to curfew,' answers the gruff voice of a coat-swathed old man.

The police are anxiously watching the clock. The solitary wayfarer turns up a side street, and with ironic promptitude the clouds cease to weep. The one-handed clock is chiming ten; the R.I.C. men are lining up for departure, when round the corner lumbers a creaking, jerking, khaki-filled lorry. There is a scuttering, jerking, rasping sequence of noises, the brakes are finally released, and the unwieldy vehicle rushes down the thoroughfare. In a few minutes another lorry arrives, then an armored car, and afterward groups of soldiers.

The streets are in total darkness, for

the lights went out with a gasp as the clock struck ten. Suddenly the blinding flash of a searchlight plays from end to end of the highway; the bearing car moves slowly along, stopping to light up with a dazzling radiance every nook and corner of the intersecting sidestreets. Through the network of streets the cars and the foot parties of military move methodically; a trio of searchlights quivers over the roofs; now and again comes the voice of authority with a curt but determined 'Halt!'

A crunching lorry with an armored car in the rear scurries from street to street. The heavy, measured tread of the pickets resounds down the byways. Unto the keeping of khaki the city has been delivered.

Down a narrow alley shuffled an unkempt and shivering figure. A tramp grown tired unto weariness of the casual ward, grown sick unto fear of the damp and draughts of the hallways of the tenements. A friend had told him that curfew offenders were not treated so badly at all. They got a free motor drive, fairish quarters for the night, and it was on record that a kindly corporal had been known to pass round a packet of woodbines, a simple private been understood to have produced his pouch in case anyone wanted a fill. There was even good reason for not doubting the accuracy of the tale which dealt with the placing of pint measures in front of thirsty men, of the filling of them with frothy liquid from the canteen.

The tramp stepped almost boldly into the street. The sharp breeze sent his right hand to his unfastened shirt

front. With a flash, the searchlight had found him, while a lorry raced along to meet him. But the light was switched away; the vehicle lumbered by without noticing him. A picket marched along an intersecting street thirty yards in front, utterly oblivious of his existence. On and on he walked, now almost brushing against the squads of soldiers, then missing by feet the speeding wheels of the lorries. But no voice out of the darkness ordered him to stop, no hand of authority gripped him by the shoulder.

He had grown tired of walking, and decided to draw the attention of the next picket. Then, from a doorway came the sharp command: 'Halt!' The flashlight blinded him for a moment, the accoutrements of the half-dozen soldiers unnerved him. The sergeant wanted to know what about it.

'Honest to God, sergeant, I would n't be out after curfew if I had a place to sleep. I tell you. . . .' "That'll do.'

The sergeant talked aside with one of the men.

'Don't keep that bay'net so close to me, sonny,' requested the tramp. 'I was in the army meself, all through the Boer War. And look at me now. . . .'

'Here!' cut in the sergeant, 'you pop off home! Quick about it, now!'

The tramp began to explain his case. But the glistening of the raindrops on two pairs of bayonets, the flashing of the torchlight decided him. He was about to retrace his steps.

'No, the way you were going,' ordered the sergeant. 'Right on home, and be nippy about it.'

SHORTLY after his arrival, according to the custom of the place, Popanilla joined the public table of his hotel at dinner. He was rather surprised that, instead of knives and forks being laid for the convenience of the guests, the plates were flanked by daggers and pistols. As Popanilla now made a point of never asking a question of Skindeep, he addressed himself for information to his other neighbor, one of the civilest, most hospitable, and joyous rogues that ever set a table in a roar. On Popanilla inquiring the reason of their using these singular instruments, his neighbor, with an air of great astonishment, confessed his ignorance of any people ever using any other; and in his turn asked how they could possibly eat their dinner without. The Chevalier was puzzled, but he was now too well bred ever to pursue an inquiry.

Popanilla, being thirsty, helped himself to a goblet of water, which was at hand. It was the most delightful water that he had ever tasted. In a few minutes he found that he was a little dizzy, and, supposing this megrim to be occasioned by the heat of the room, he took another draught of water to recover himself.

As his neighbor was telling him an excellent joke a man entered the room

and shot the joker through the head. The opposite guest immediately charged his pistol with effect, and revenged the loss. A party of men, well armed, now rushed in, and a brisk conflict immediately ensued. Popanilla, who was very dizzy, was fortunately pushed under the table. When the firing and slashing had ceased, he ventured to crawl out. He found that the assailants had been beaten off, though unfortunately with the total loss of all the guests, who lay lifeless about the room. Even the prudent Skindeep, who had sought refuge in a closet, had lost his nose, which was a pity; because, although this gentleman had never been in Blunderland before, he had passed his whole life in maintaining that the accounts of the disturbances in that country were greatly exaggerated. Popanilla rang the bell, and the waiters, who were remarkably attentive, swept away the dead bodies, and brought him a roasted potato for

supper.

The Chevalier soon retired to rest. He found at the side of his bed a blunderbuss, a cutlass, and a pike; and he was directed to secure the door of his chamber with a great chain and a massy iron bar. Feeling great confidence in his securities, although he was quite ignorant of the cause of alarm,