A short ride by rail from Derry brings you to Portrush, where you drop off to visit the Giant's Causeway. I kept this for a return trip, and went on to Antrim to see one of the most perfect of the Irish round towers, Shane's Castle, and Antrim Castle, the charming seat of Lord Masserene.

There is perhaps nothing of more puzzling interest to the Irish antiquary than the round towers, of which there are about eighty in the island. Their origin and purpose have been variously guessed at, some maintaining that they were erected by the Danes as watchtowers and afterward changed by the Christian Irish into clock- or bell-towers. But why should the Danes confine these structures to Ireland, and not build them in England, Scotland, and other regions where they had a much firmer foothold? Others regard them as fire-temples, where the Druids lit the sacred flame and kept it safe from pollution. This view was accepted for a long time as a settlement of the question, on account of the resemblance of these towers to similar structures found in India and thought to have been used in an extinct form of worship. The Irish Druids followed many Eastern customs in their religious rites, but these may have been mere coincidences. The turrets in the vicinity of Turkish mosques, from the summits of which approaching festivals were proclaimed, suggested the hypothesis that the Irish towers were intended for the same purpose. Others held the theory that they were built by the ancient bishops as strongholds for the sacred articles belonging to the churches. In the neighborhood of many of these towers churches still exist. A very picturesque one forms part of a church in Castle-Dermot, in the county Down. At Drumbo, a few miles from Belfast, the ruin of one stands in the church-yard of a Presbyterian chapel.

The Antrim tower is in fine preservation to the very summit, but no trace has been found to indicate that a church existed in its vicinity. It is ninety-three feet high, and about fifty-three feet in circumference at its base, is built of

rough stone, and has a stone flooring, underneath which it is supposed a sepulchre, as at Ardmore, exists. Above the doorway is a bas-relief like a Maltese cross. I climbed into the tower through the entrance, two feet by four. Its width inside is about eight feet, but narrows gradually to the top. The ivy which clung affectionately to its outside had grown into several of the windows and lay in decayed brambles inside. Up at the very top the jackdaws had a gloriously independent life of it all to themselves. The grass outside was as level as a century's care and rolling could make it. And hark!" Cuckoo! cuckoo! cuck00!" "No, you don't, my dear fellow!"'

I replied. "You are a relative of our cuckoo of Green-Castle." "Cuckoo !" he replied in denial; and I found out that it was a live cuckoo coaxing me to play at hide-and-seek. I started to accept the challenge,-when "Trespassers will be Prosecuted" stared me in the face as I mounted an innocent stile. Forty jackdaws the Forty Thieves-got together on the topmost boughs of trees near by and discussed my intentions: Was I loading a gun, or only making a sketch? Was I painter or poacher? I followed the cuckoo's cry in spite of the trespass, but caught no second glimpse of him.

Coming back and crossing a picturesque stream, a short walk brought me to the famous Lough Neagh, the fourth largest lake in Europe, twenty miles in length and fifteen in breadth. In size it seemed a mere pond, compared to the great inland seas of America; but the legend of its buried glories, and the belief of the fishermen that when the water is clear they can see round towers and high steeples and churches of the land below, would waken any one's interest. Wonderful petrifactions are found along its margins, referrible to some remote geological era, and no doubt these fossil woods gave rise to the fishermen's superstition. On the borders of the lake you see the ruins of the seat of Lord O'Neill, "Shane's Castle," which is surrounded by as much superstition as the lake. The banshee of the O'Neills was a firm article of faith of mine host in

The New Zealander, who is passionately fond of the sea, imitates in his dances the uneasy motion of its waves; and Forster saw in the Society Islands a dance exactly interpreting the ruling passion of the people, in which one part of the company were travellers and the rest thieves who robbed them dexterously of their goods. Perhaps the most remarkable of all these savage pantomimic dances is the Corroborie dance of New South Wales. The performers in it paint down

their arms and legs a broad white line, and others across the body to represent the ribs. Thus prepared, they look, in the fitful firelight and dense shadows of the woods, like a band of skeletons that appear and then suddenly vanish, the vanishing being easily effected by merely turning round, as their dusky forms are painted only in front. The weird, ghostlike, unreal effect of this wild dance is well described in Captain Wilkes's "Exploring Expedition," vol. ii. p. 188.

Nations under higher conditions of civilization represent higher forms of thought, as in the old "Weaving dance" of Sweden. In this pretty pantomimic dance the company were drawn up in two divisions, and the several pairs in turns crossed each other, now with hands uplifted, and now with heads sunk under the hands of opposite pairs. Thus they represented the crossing of warp and woof, while little children ran between each pair to represent the shuttle. Such dances linger long among the peasantry of all nations, as much a part of the national life as their music or their ballads.

In like manner, the dances of the ancient world were indicative of the habits and temperament of the people. Some were religious, some martial, some comic, some erotic, others again simple exhibitions of

grace and agility. Probably all their dancing of a higher form was based upon religion, for every ancient nation included it in their most solemn sacred mysteries. Indeed, only in this form was dancing tolerated among the stern citizens of republican Rome. "No man," says Cicero, "who is sober dances, unless he is out of his mind." Still, in the religious dances of Rome patricians of the highest rank took part; but their slow and stately movements, regulated by solemn hymns and martial music, probably resembled a march more than a dance.

The Greeks were passionate dancers, and the Athenians especially seem to have imagined that there was nothing in nature which they could not thus imitate. The dance mingled in every ceremony of their religious and social life,

and they imparted to it a beauty and grace which have never been excelled. The dance in honor of Artemis, which originated in Carya, Laconia, has been perpetuated in sculpture. The maidens performing it bore upon their heads baskets of flowers, which they steadied with one uplifted hand. This graceful attitude was a favorite subject of representation with the Greek artists, and has thus formed the model of those architectural figures still, from them, called caryatides. The names and descriptions of two hundred Greek dances are preserved, some of which, as the Romaica, are danced in Athenian ball-rooms to-day. The Ariadne of this dance is chosen for her youth and beauty she holds in her left hand a handkerchief, the clue to Theseus, who follows next, holding in his right hand the other end of the handkerchief and giving his left to a second maiden. The alternation of the sexes then goes on to any number, though the chief action of the dance devolves upon the leaders, the others merely following their movements in a circular outline. It is full of pantomime and rapid, graceful changes, and, in spite of its great antiquity, still preserves the movements depicted on ancient vases and described by ancient poets.

We know that the Jews recognized some form of the religious dance; nor was it considered out of place in the early Christian Church. Gregory Thaumaturgus introduced it into divine worship, and Saint Basil told his hearers that

it would be their principal occupation in heaven and they had better practise it on earth. There have been various sects at different times who have regarded dancing as a special vehicle of inspiration; and in our own day the Christians of Abyssinia, the Roman Catholics of Seville, and the Shakers of the United States preserve the religious dance, not to speak of the constantly-increasing prominence given to it in the worship of the negroes in our Southern States. As a modern religious exercise it seems strangely open to abuse; though Mr. Cox, who witnessed the Corpus Christi dance at Seville about ten years ago, describes it as beautiful and impressive. It was, however, danced solely by young boys, and to joyful sacred music.

The universality of the feeling which produces the sacred dance is powerfully illustrated in the Zikrs of the Dervishes, because by their law every kind of dancing is prohibited. Yet in such veneration is this dance held that any attempt to abolish it would doubtless excite an insurrection. It is a circular dance, beginning slowly, but gradually increasing in rapidity until every dancer is seen with eyes closed and arms extended horizontally turning round with inconceivable velocity. The music accompanying it is loud and animating, and has a rhythmical construction very much resembling our hymn-tunes. The following notation of one of them was taken down by the composer Abbé Stadler of Vienna:

jari hei, Sul

still danced in Greece, though its character had changed, the performers carrying thyrsi and torches instead of arms; but in the mountain-districts of Macedon and Thessaly it is danced at this day by men armed with swords and muskets.

The Sword dance, now almost exclusively associated with Scotland, had once a wide area of recognition. Tacitus describes it as the national dance of the ancient Germans. It was common to the Saxons, Danes, and Norwegians; it existed in Spain at the time of Cervantes; and it is still cherished in the North of Scotland, the Orkneys, Hebrides, and Shetland Islands. In the Spanish dance the men were armed with sharp swords and clad in loose shirts and breeches of white linen, with many-colored handkerchiefs around their heads. It survives yet in household parlance, for when a Spaniard speaks of a family quarrel he calls it a danza de espada.

Thirty years ago I saw the Scotch Sword dance performed by seven Caithness men of extraordinary stature, who represented the Seven Champions of Christendom, St. Andrew, of course, being the leader. The first distinct figure was a circle, formed by each holding his drawn sword in his right hand and the point of his neighbor's sword in his left.

The swords were then held in a vaulted position, and the dancers passed under and leaped over them, forming innumerable figures, many of which seemed to be as dangerous as they were beautiful. Finally, they stood back to back with hands and swords crossed behind them; then, suddenly reversing the position, they interlaced their swords like wicker-work, so as to form a perfect shield, which each bore in turn, till at once every dancer grasped his own sword and the magic shield disappeared. The whole was accompanied by the wild music of the bagpipe, by shrill cries and snappings of the fingers, and by an enthusiasm altogether indescribable.

But every epoch has its interpreter, and the dance, as the exponent of re

ligion and valor, was not suited to the gravity and earnestness of the Christian world. It fell gradually into its natural place as a purely physical recreation, in which grace and ease of motion were the recognized extent of its perfection. But, even thus restricted, it has reproduced itself in endless and charming variety. It has caught the peculiar temper and passion of every people, and made itself as truly "national" as their tongue, their costume, or their ballads. There is one other very remarkable change in the modern dance: it contains an element conspicuous by its absence in ancient dances, the mingling of the sexes. a mere matter of æsthetics it suited the spectacle better to keep the sexes apart; and even the erotic dancing of ancient times did not include this element, as the Nautch girls of India and the Ghawâzee women of Egypt remain to prove.

As

Taking the Nautch dance as the original of the most remarkable erotic dances now existing, we are struck, first, with its illimitable antiquity, and, second, with the passionate universality with which it has been preserved in some of its modifications. From the East it passed into Western Asia, Greece, and Rome, where it furnished the poets of the imperial epoch with an agreeable theme for satire. Horace, whose "Divus Augustus" doubtless helped to introduce it, laments that Roman women had acquired a taste for the Oriental style of dancing. That they had not acquired it earlier is remarkable, for, centuries before, the Phoenicians carried it into Spain, and in the days of Martial the dancers of Gades (Cadiz) had a world-wide reputation. Indeed, it was then the delight of gay young Romans to hum the airs of the folâtre Cadiz and to praise the grace of Telethusa, a dancer of that time.

This dance in India, however, partakes of the lethargic character of the people. Its movements are languid, dreamy, and slow, and the drowsy tinklings and monotonous cadences of the music have a mesmerizing effect which, however seductive to Oriental imaginations, would