The kites, which had fallen to the ground, once more winged
their way into the sky, each bearing a parti-colored lantern,
and under a fresher breeze their harps vibrated with intenser
sound in the midst of the aerial illumination.
Then a squadron of Tartars, in their brilliant uniforms,
mingled in the dances, whose wild fury was increasing rapidly,
and then began a performance which produced a very strange effect.
Soldiers came on the ground, armed with bare sabers and
long pistols, and, as they executed dances, they made the air
re-echo with the sudden detonations of their firearms,
which immediately set going the rumbling of the tambourines,
and grumblings of the daires, and the gnashing of doutares.
Their arms, covered with a colored powder of some metallic ingredient,
after the Chinese fashion, threw long jets--red, green, and blue--
so that the groups of dancers seemed to be in the midst of fireworks.
In some respects, this performance recalled the military dance
of the ancients, in the midst of naked swords; but this Tartar dance
was rendered yet more fantastic by the colored fire, which wound,
serpent-like, above the dancers, whose dresses seemed to be embroidered
with fiery hems. It was like a kaleidoscope of sparks, whose infinite
combinations varied at each movement of the dancers.
Though it may be thought that a Parisian reporter would be perfectly
hardened to any scenic effect, which our modern ideas have carried so far,
yet Alcide Jolivet could not restrain a slight movement of the head,
which at home, between the Boulevard Montmartre and La Madeleine would
have said--"Very fair, very fair.
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