one nostril, while he stopped the other with his thumb. To these instruments four other persons sung, and kept very good time, but only one tune was played during the concert. The Otaheiteans had drums as well as flutes; and there were travelling musicians amongst them, who accompanied the instruments with their voices; and the voyagers, to their surprise, in general found that they were the subject of their songs, which were unpremeditated. Their drums were hollow blocks of wood, of a cylindrical form, solid at one end, and covered at the other with shark's skin. They had no drum-sticks, but beat with their hands. At Amsterdam, one of the Friendly Isles, Captain Cook and his officers were entertained by the women with songs, and they accompanied the music by snapping their fingers. Here only three musical instruments were found, one a flute, made of a piece of bamboo, with four holes or stops, which was filled from the nose, as at Otaheite; the second was composed of ten or eleven small reeds of unequal lengths, bound together, side by side, like the Syrinx, or Pan's pipe; and thirdly, a drum, which was nothing more than a hollow log of wood, which, when beat on the sides, emitted a sound, not quite so musical as may be obtained from an empty cask. The music of the Friendly Islanders is as uncouth and barbarous now as when they were visited by Captain Cook. In 1805, Mr Mariner, in the Port-au-Prince, was made captive by the inhabitants of the Tonga Islands, a part of the Friendly group, and detained for some time. He published an interesting account of his voyage and adventures, and also of the history, manners, and customs of the natives; and according to him, they would not seem to have any thing that is worthy to be termed music. Describing the ceremonies at the marriage of the king's daughter, he says "The musicians (if so they can be called) next sat down at the bottom of the ring, opposite to Tooitonga, (the bridegroom,) in the middle of a circle of flambeaux, held by men, who also held baskets of sand, to receive the ashes. The musical instruments consisted of seven or eight bamboos, of different lengths and sizes, (from three to six feet long,) so as to produce, held by the middle, and one end being struck on the ground, different notes, according to the intended tuneall the knots being cut out of the bamboo, and one end plugged up with soft wood. The only other instrument was a piece of split bamboo, on which a man struck with two sticks, one in each hand, to regulate the time."* They are fond of singing, and on occasion of festivals, sometimes go about singing all night. Some of their songs are without rhymes and regular measure; but others have both. Mr Mariner took down the words of a song which he frequently heard, given in a sort of recitative, by either sex- -the ideas in which are ingenious and poetical. They also sing a melancholy air, a species of lament, over the corpses of the dead. Some of the aboriginal inhabitants of the South * See MARINER's Tonga Islands; vol. xiii. of Constable's Miscellany, page 123-4. American continent had instruments of the same nature, but made of different materials, from those mentioned by Mr Weld and Father Charlevoix. The Indians of Chile used flutes, made of the bones of their enemies whom they had overcome in war; they likewise made them of the bones of animals, but the Indians of war danced only to the former. Their way of singing was, to raise their voices altogether upon the same note; and at the end of each song, they played upon their flutes, and a species of trumpet.* The Indians of Brazil also used fifes made of human bones. The Bachapins, a tribe of the Caffres, possess only one musical instrument, called the Lichákă, which is simply a reed pipe, tuned by means of a small moveable plug at the lower end, and having the upper end, or mouth, cut transversely. They can express only a single note on these instruments; and when several performers meet together, whilst some are tuned in unison, others take different notes in the scale, the interval between the lowest and the highest pipe comprising about twelve notes. There is no particular air in their music; though a certain cadence is now and then perceptible. † Mr Burchell, who visited this tribe in 1812, supposes, that they never heard European airs before he had some performed to them on the violin; and several boys, who listened very attentively, soon learnt * Historical Relation of the kingdom of Chile, by ALONSO DE OVALLE, a Jesuit, and native of St Jago, of Chile. 1649. + BURCHELL'Ss Travels, vol. ii. these tunes perfectly, and sung them with a readiness and correctness which surprised him. Drums and flutes of the rude species already described, were found, by their first discoverers, amongst the more isolated natives of Africa; and instances might be multiplied ad infinitum, to shew, that, in all uncultivated and barbarous nations, their music has been of a similar description. Wind and pulsatile instruments have invariably been found; stringed ones, much more rarely; and all their airs and melodies, if, indeed, they deserve the name, are of the rudest kind. We shall not, however, dwell any longer upon this part of our subject, but proceed to the main object of the present work. 11 CHAPTER II. ANTEDILUVIAN MUSIC TRADITIONAL ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC IN EGYPT-ANCIENT AND MODERN STATE OF THE ART IN THAT COUNTRY. THE first mention that we have of music, or musical instruments, is in Holy Writ, where we are told, when the sacred penman is enumerating the posterity of Cain, that " Jubal was the father of all such as handle the harp and the organ ;" and well may we imagine, that when he ." struck the chorded shell, His listening brethren closed around, To worship the celestial sound : Less than a God they thought there scarce could dwell, Within the hollow of that shell, That spoke so sweetly and so well." The Padre Martini, † in his "Storia della Musica," imagines, with a great show of reason, Genesis iv. 21. + Father J. B. Martini was a skilful composer, and a very erudite musician. He was born at Bologna in 1706, |