DANCING GIRLS of Egypt. See ALME.
Dancing girls are employed all over the east, as affording great diversion at all public entertainments. They are all prostitutes; and by the laws of their society, are bound to refuse no one for their price, which is rated according to their beauty and other accomplishments. There are even particular sets of them appropriated to the service of the Gentoo temples, and the use of the Bramin priests who attend them. These poor creatures say that they were first debauched by their god, and afterwards by him consigned over to the use of the priests who belong to his temples.
These dancing-girls, whether in a settled or unsettled condition, live in a band or community under the direction of some superannuated female of the same profession, under whom they receive a regular education, and are trained up in all the arts of love and pleasing, like scholars in an academy. Thus they acquire the art of captivating the affections of the other sex to such a degree, that nothing is more common than for one of the princes or chief people of the country to take a liking to one of these girls, and waste immense sums on her, though at the same time their own harem is stocked with beauties far superior, and who are besides possessed of the natural modesty of the sex, to which the others have not the smallest pretensions. Thus some of these girls acquire immense wealth. In the neighbourhood of
Dancing of Goa, for instance, on a part of the continent bordering on the district of that island, the dancing-girls founded a village, after being driven from Goa by the zeal of the archbishop. Here they reside in a body corporate, and attend the parties of pleasure of the noblemen and principal inhabitants, for it is not every one's purse that can afford them. Here many of them acquire considerable fortunes by this scandalous traffic, and throw it into a common stock for the sake of carrying on merchandise; being concerned in shipping and the most profitable voyages, for which they have regular factors and brokers.
The dress of these women varies according to the country they live in; but in all it is the most gorgeous imaginable. They are loaded with jewels, literally from top to toe, since even on their toes they wear rings. Their necks are adorned with carcanets, their arms with bracelets, and their ancles with chains of gold and silver, often enriched with precious stones. They also wear nose-jewels, which at first have an odd appearance, but to which the eye is soon reconciled. In Indostan, these dancing-girls, as well as the other women of the country, have a peculiar method of preserving and managing their breasts, which at the same time makes no inconsiderable part of their finery. They inclose them in a pair of hollow cases, exactly fitted to them; made of very light wood, linked together and buckled at the back. These at once confine their breasts so that they cannot grow to any disgustfully exuberant size; though, from their smoothness and pliancy, they play so freely with every motion of the body, that they do not crush the tender texture of the flesh in that part, like the stiff whalebone stays in use among the Europeans. The outside of them is spread over with a thin-plate of gold or silver, or set with gems, if they can afford it. Another occasional ornament the dancing-girls put on, particularly when they resort to their gallants, viz. a necklace of many loose turns, composed of flowers strung together, which they call mogrees, somewhat resembling Spanish double jellamy, but of a much stronger and more agreeable fragrant odour, and far preferable to any perfumes. "They have nothing," says Mr. Grote, "of that nauseous boldness which characterizes the European prostitutes, their style of seduction being all softness and gentleness."
With regard to the performances of these women as dancers, we have various accounts. The author of Memoirs of the late War in Asia, acquaints us "that their attitudes as well as movements are not ungraceful. Their persons are delicately formed, gaudily attired, and highly perfumed. By the continuation of wanton attitudes, they acquire, as they grow warm in the dance, a frantic lasciviousness themselves, and communicate, by a natural contagion, the most voluptuous desires to the beholders." Mr. Ives seems to have been very cool on this subject. "I could not (says he) see any thing in their performance worthy of notice. Their movements are more like tumbling or flowing postures than dancing. Their dress is thin and light; and their hair, necks, ears, arms, wrists, fingers, legs, feet, and even their toes, are covered with rings of gold and silver, made after a clumsy manner. They wear two rings in their noses; and by their staring looks and odd gesticulations, you would rather suspect
them to be mad women than morris-dancers. The band of music that attends them is not less singular in its way: it is chiefly composed of three or four men, who hold two pieces of bell-metal in their hands, with which they make an incessant noise; another man beats what he is pleased to call a drum; and that they may not want vocal music to complete the band, there are always two others appointed to sing. These last generally lay in their mouths a good loading of betel-nut before they begin; which, after having been well chewed, tinges the saliva with such a redness, that a stranger would judge them to bleed at the mouth by too violent an exertion of their voice. These gentry are called ticky taw boys, from the two words ticky taw, which they continually repeat, and chant with great vehemence. The dancing-girls are sometimes made use of in their religious ceremonies, as when the priests bring forth the images of their gods into the open fields on a car ornamented with lascivious figures, these girls dance before the images amidst a great crowd of people; and having been selected for their superior beauty, are very profitable to their masters the priests, who are said to prostitute them to all comers."
Mr. Grote informs us, that "these dances would hardly at first relish with Europeans, especially as they are accompanied with a music far from delightful, consisting of little drums called gungums, cymbals, and a sort of sife, which makes a hideous din, and are played on by men, whose effeminacy, grimaces, and uncouth shrivelled features, all together shock the eye and torture the ear. However by use we become reconciled to the noise, and may observe some not unpleasant airs, with which the dancers keep time: the words often express the matter of a pantomime dance, such as a lover courting his mistress; a procurer bringing a letter, and endeavouring to seduce a woman from one gallant in favour of another; a girl, timorous and afraid of being caught in an intrigue. All these love-scenes the girls execute in character dances, and with no despicable expression, if they are proficient in their art; for then their gestures, air, and steps, are marking and well adapted. In some of their dances, even in public, modesty is not much respected by the lascivious attitudes into which they throw themselves, without exposing any nudity; being richly clad and bedecked with jewels after their manner. But in private parties to which they are called, as in gardens, they give themselves a great loose, and have dances in reserve; in which, though still without any grossness in discovering their bodies, they are mistresses of such motions and lewdness of looks and gestures as are perhaps more provoking."