discoveries prove that even in paleolithic times there existed workshops for the manufacture of flint implements, and these doubtless were bartered by their makers for other useful articles. Everything goes to prove that primitive man was by no means deficient in commercial instincts; he wandered far afield to collect objects which possessed for him what to us would be called a money-value, and hoarded teeth and shells, and formed the latter into beads, probably for the purposes of exchange. There is another article of commerce which appears to have passed from hand to hand in neolithic times by way of barter, and to have been very highly valued; this is jade, the presence of which in European graves has been held to prove commercial intercourse with Asia. The origin of these jade articles is still in dispute, as it has been found, I believe, in the Caucasus, and it is possible that the pre-historic workers may have brought it from its nearest source, and as boulders of jade have been recently discovered in America, an indigenous origin may be surmised for the jade found in American burial-mounds; but the question is still sub judice. This, however, can hardly be said of amber, which from the very earliest times was eagerly sought as an article of commerce. The sources of this are pretty clearly defined, and from the colour and quality of the material the locality of its origin may be fairly determined; thus Mr. Franks, of the British Museum, says that the dark red variety found in Greek and Etruscan tombs came probably from Sicily. Red amber is also found in Spain and Italy; but the great source of the amber used in pre-historic times was, as at present, the shores of the Baltic. Mr. Boyd-Dawkins, in his Early Man in Britain, gives a map of the trade-routes followed by the Etruscans in their search for this highlyvalued substance. 1. By the valley of the Adige past Verona and Trient, over the Brenner Pass into the valley of the Inn, crossing the Danube at Linz or Passau, and thence over the Bohemian mountains into the valley of the Elbe, and thence to the amber coast of Schleswig and Holstein. 2. By Trieste, through Laibach, Gratz, and Bruch, thence to Presburg, past Breslau to the lower Vistula to Elbing. These trade routes were also followed later by the Romans.1 Hallstadt, which has become famous from the discoveries recently made there, occupied a most important position on route 1, and from it trade in salt and metal was carried on. By this route, going still farther north, Etruscan articles and patterns found their way into Britain, and the golden armour at Mold previously mentioned is of the same pattern as metal-work found at Hallstadt, Veii, Corneto, and Præneste. Etruscan weapons and designs are also found in Denmark; and Mr. Boyd-Dawkins traces yet another trade-route through Switzerland, into the valley of the Rhine, and through various Alpine passes; also by the Mediterranean into France; these routes being everywhere marked by ornaments and weapons of Etruscan derivation, by safety-pin brooches, and by other well-known Etruscan work. The Phoenicians, so well known as traders, may be traced through Palestine eastward as far as the Euphrates and Tigris, by the metal bowls with Phoenician inscriptions found in Babylonia. They are mentioned in Egyptian records as importing vases, rings, rhytons, necklaces, precious stones, and ivory as presents to Thotmes III. Their glass, amber, and metal-work were famous among the Greeks, and they are known to have founded Cadiz not later than 1100 B.C. These are a few of the traces of a commerce known to have existed in the Bronze and early Iron ages; but the traces of a still earlier and wider commercial intercourse, extending even across the ocean to America, may, as I believe, be yet demonstrated by means of the spade of the skilful explorer. 1 Early Man in Britain. Boyd-Dawkins. CHAPTER XVI. PRIMITIVE INSTRUMENTS OF MUSIC. Music Universal-Ancient Myth of Music of the Spheres-Instruments of Percussion-The Drum-Wooden HarmoniconsWide Distribution-The Rock Band-Chinese HarmoniconsThe Drum in Religious Ceremonies-The Rattle-Drums and Rattle combined-The Timbrel-Bells-Legends relating to Scottish Bells-Belief in Music for expelling Disease—Antiquity of Cymbals-Bells and Gongs in China-The Bell of St. Patrick-Bells as Instruments of Vengeance-The Baptism of Bells-Reversion in Musical Instruments-Jubal. IN Chapter VI. of the present volume I gave a short description of the art of sculpture as practised by primitive man, but there is another art, that of music, which may be said to be universal, and which is certainly traceable to the earliest stage of human progress, for the possessors of vocal chords would not be long in putting them to use, and the imitation of natural sounds would result in the birth of vocal music. But the manufacture and use of instruments of music would require more thought, and we should not therefore expect to find them at a very early date; nevertheless, musical instruments of the flute kind have been found among relics of paleolithic times, both in Europe and America; and as the flute does not represent the earliest stage of the art, we may suppose that instruments of a ruder type were known even earlier. The music of savages is discord to the ear of civilized Europeans, whilst our music is certainly as little appreciated by them and by civilized Asiatics, as theirs is by us. During the Colonial and Indian Exhibition we had an opportunity of judging of Eastern music and musical instruments, and we have also had among us Japanese, Siamese, Cingalese, and Arabian musicians, as well as South African natives, with the most singular and primitive of musical instruments, from which they succeeded in drawing sounds which they regarded as music; and it may be safely asserted that there is no savage tribe, however low in the scale of civilization, which does not possess one or more musical instruments, although some are of extreme simplicity, the most simple of all being that of the Australians, for at their native corrobborees, or dances, the women squat round in a circle, and stretching their skin cloaks tightly over their knees, make use of them as drums, beating time and humming to the dancers. The ancients poetically imagined a music of the spheres, a grand and solemn diapason swelling through all space, to which the worlds, animated by the breath of the Almighty, sang in harmonious chorus as they danced in graceful measures around the throne of God. They believed literally that "The morning stars sang together," and we, although no longer believing in the actual music of the spheres, yet talk of the harmony of creation, and conceive of the order pervading the universe as of a grand musical chord, where each note has its own proper place and significance, lacking one of which the chord would be imperfect; or displacing one, discord would ensue. Pythagoras (B.C. 560) is regarded as the originator of the belief in the music of the spheres, and he taught that the spaces between the planets corresponded with the several musical tones. Ptolemy, Macrobius, and Porphyry were his disciples, and according to old Thomas Stanley their doctrine was that "the names of all sounds were derived from the seven planets which move circularly in the heavens, and compass the earth. The circumagitation of these bodies must of necessity cause a sound, for air being struck, from the intervention of the blow, sends forth a noise, Nature herself constraining that the violent collision of two bodies should end in sound, and the curious reason assigned to account for our insensibility to these sounds is that they are so exceedingly loud that we cannot hear them." 1 The collision of bodies in space has of late years become an astronomical dogma, the latest exponent of which, Mr. Norman Lockyer, looks to the constant colliding of meteorites as the origin of the heat of stars and comets; but he says nothing of the sound which. must attend these collisions. Perhaps the thunder sometimes heard out of a clear sky may result from some of the clashings of meteorites in space. Shakespeare has immortalized the old myth of the music of the spheres in the well-known lines— “How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins: Such harmony is in immortal souls ; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." Mr. Rowbotham, in his History of Music, has pointed out that musical instruments fall naturally into three divisions. I. Instruments of percussion, that is of the drum kind, beaten by the hand or some other implement, or clashed together like cymbals. II. Instruments termed inflatite, that is played by the mouth, or by bellows inflated by air. III. Pulsatile instruments, deriving their sound from strings moved by the fingers, or by some implement of wood or metal. Following this natural classification, I purpose treating each class separately, commencing with 1 See Hawkins's List. of Music, p. 163. |