TWO:"Just after the curtain was pulled away, they opened a door in the middle of the garden, and the actors who were to be in the play came in. They sat down on the stage and began a song, which they kept up for ten or fifteen minutes, each of them singing a part that was evidently prepared for himself alone. The music in the little boxes joined them, and it made me think of the negro minstrels in a concert hall at home, where they all come on together. After they finished this part of the performance, there was a pantomime by a woman, or rather by a man disguised as a woman, as all the acting is done by men. They get themselves up perfectly, as they have very little beards, and they can imitate the voice and movements of a woman, so that nobody can tell the difference. I couldn't tell what the pantomime was all about, and it was so long that I got tired of it before they were through, and wondered when they would come on with something else.
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