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He was jesting, for the so-called Mauritanians were simply six Spanish dancing-girls, who by the sensuality of their performance were then making all Paris rush to the Folies-Bergere. For drawing-room entertainments these girls reserved yet more indecorous dances dances of such a character indeed that they would certainly not have been allowed in a theatre.
Among the Scythian guards, the Mauritanians, and Blemmyes in the army there were plenty of savage fellows whom a word from her lips and a handful of gold would have set upon the vanquished Antony, as the huntsman's "Seize him!" urges the hounds.
Within the harbor, above the reeds waving in the marshes, rose the masts of Carthaginian vessels anchored in the triple port. The crew of the Roman ship beheld great troops of horsemen galloping along the beach. They were squadrons of Numidians and Mauritanians, waving their lances and uttering war cries as when charging in battle.
With sharp words he encouraged the soldiers in the different idioms of their tribes, reminding them of the great riches within the city, of the beauty of the Greek women, of the large numbers of slaves inside those walls, and the Balearians attacked with lowered head, holding before them their wooden spears with points hardened by fire; the Celtiberians roared their war songs, beating on their breasts as on sonorous drums, drawing their sharp two-edged swords, and the Numidians and Mauritanians, dismounting from their horses, moved from place to place, cautious and sly, hurling upon the besieged the missiles which they carried in their girdles hidden beneath their white vestments.
He went everywhere, witnessed ten sights a day, a parliamentary sitting, a funeral, a wedding, any festive or mourning scene, when he wanted a good subject for an article. "What! Monsieur l'Abbe," he resumed, "and so you have come to our amiable Princess's to see the Mauritanians dance!"
As, from the period when that event occurred, the Mauritanians or Moors, who were thus suddenly converted to Mohammedanism, have frequently been confounded with the native Arabians, it will be proper to say a few words concerning that extraordinary people: a people who, after occupying for so many centuries an insignificant place among the nations of the earth, rapidly rendered themselves masters of the greater part of the known world.
The primitive Moors were the inhabitants of the vast portion of Africa bounded on the east by Egypt, on the north by the Mediterranean, on the west by the Atlantic, and on the south by the deserts of Barbary. The origin of the Moors, or Mauritanians, is, like that of most other ancient nations, obscure, and the information we possess concerning their early history confusedly mingled with fables.
The Mauritanians were doubtless executing their first dance. He did not see them, but he could divine the lascivious passion of the dance from the quiver of all those women's necks, which swayed as beneath a great gust of wind. Then laughter arose and a tempest of bravos, quite a tumult of enjoyment. "I can't put my hand on the Princess; you must wait a little," Massot returned to say.
By rising on tiptoes, as the drawing-room entrance was wide open, he could distinguish the backs of the women who were already seated, rows of necks crowned with fair or dark hair. The Mauritanians were doubtless executing their first dance.
He was jesting, for the so-called Mauritanians were simply six Spanish dancing-girls, who by the sensuality of their performance were then making all Paris rush to the Folies-Bergere. For drawing-room entertainments these girls reserved yet more indecorous dances dances of such a character indeed that they would certainly not have been allowed in a theatre.
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