Every phase of human life in Christian countries is now ushered in by bells, as beautifully sung by Schiller, and the joys and sorrows of life are all thus announced to a community which cares little or nothing for them. Yet "That offspring of consuming fire, And man's creative hand, High from the summit of the spire Shall bid the sons of mirth be glad, Shall add to superstitious fear, And peal in rapt devotion's ear The sounds of Paradise; And all his changeful fate brings down Shall murmur from its metal crown, Mr. Rowbotham has pointed out some curious instances of reversion in the use of musical instruments, as that the rattles of the Mexicans were by preference in the shape of the old Maraca rattle, whilst the noseflute is still used in the ritual of the Brahmins, although no longer known in civilized communities. A still more singular case of this reversion is to be found in Roman Catholic countries, where, during a certain time, bells are silenced, but are replaced by the primitive rattle of the ancient Chinese type, which consisted of twelve writing tablets strung together. The rattles used in Roman Catholic churches during the few days preceding Easter, are also of wooden tablets shaken together, and known as troccole; but I have never heard any reason assigned for their use, although the boys in Italy, who are privileged during these days to sound these clappers everywhere, even in the churches, call it "breaking the bones of Judas Iscariot." custom is, however, doubtless of pre-Christian origin, for we are told these wooden clappers were in use in ancient Greece. The China possesses many singular instruments of per cussion; but perhaps the most singular is that in the shape of a tiger, with twenty-seven wooden teeth along the back, which are scraped gently with a rod. It is impossible to associate much music with an instrument of this kind, or with that wooden instrument in shape of a bushel or square box, with a hammer fastened inside, to be pulled backwards and forwards by the hand. And this brings us back to the drum, that universal instrument of many forms, the smaller of which throughout the East are still played with the hand only, as represented on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, and illustrated in that very interesting exhibition from Ceylon, which some years since was located in the Agricultural Hall. There was a drum from the West Coast of Africa in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, which much. resembled the Chinese bushel or box drum, being made of a block of very resonant wood hollowed out, and struck with a club from the inside. The drums of the Kaffirs are their skin shields, which they clash together or strike with their assegais, whereby they approach the nearest to the very primitive drum of the Australians. Thus we see that in all ages and in all countries these instruments of percussion, from the simple stretched skin of the Australians to the highly elaborated instru- X ments of the Chinese, Siamese, and Japanese, and including rattles, gongs, and bells of all descriptions, have been employed in religious services, in marches and war dances, in signalling and calling together of assemblies; but in the earliest of times, and among the most barbarous peoples they were fetishes, and this fetishism still lurks in the use of bells and the superstitions attaching to them even in the most highly civilized countries. We shall point out later how far this applies to instruments of the flute and lyre type, and how far we may follow these too into that night of ages, when music under the name of Orpheus taught stones and trees and savage beasts to move responsive to his lyre, and well-nigh prevailed even over death and the grave; or to that still earlier time when, as George Eliot sings, Jubal standing beside his brother Tubal Cain at his smithy "Watched the hammer till his eyes No longer following its fall or rise Seemed glad with something that they could not see, Wherein dumb longings inward speech had found, Won from the common store of struggling sound. * Concords and discords, cadences and cries, 'Twas easy following where invention trod ; * But from the simple instrument of percussion to the innumerable inflatile and pulsatile instruments of today, the progression is wonderful, and would seem to have required the skill of many an Orpheus. CHAPTER XVII. PRIMITIVE INSTRUMENTS OF MUSIC. II. THE FLUTE. Inflatile Instruments-Flutes in Paleolithic Times-Pandean Pipes-Ornithoparcus on Jubal-George Eliot's Poem-The Bagpipe-The Horn and the Trumpet-Etruscan Bronze Trumpets found in Ireland-Trumpets of an Enemy's Armbone Hebrew Trumpets-Egyptian, Assyrian, Etruscan, and Greek Pipes and Double Pipes The Nose-Flute-Chinese Bamboo Flutes-Flutes of Peru and Mexico-Egyptian Reed Pipes with Straws Inserted-Clay Pipe of Babylon-Effect of Music upon Animals-The Organ-St. Dunstan—Krisna and Marsyas. IN treating of those musical instruments termed inflatile, the flute must of necessity take the first place, being, as far as we know, the most ancient of musical instruments, for the French caves belonging to paleolithic times, which have afforded us the earliest speciinens of pre-historic drawing and sculpture, have also furnished us with a proof that these remarkable cave people cultivated the art of music, since, amongst other relics, has been found a wind instrument of the flute kind, made of bone, and pierced with two holes. It is of course possible that other musical instruments may have been known in those remote times, but stringed instruments would have quickly decayed, leaving no trace, and wooden drums would not have been much more durable; but it remains to be discovered whether some of the heavy chipped stones called implements may not also have served as musical instruments, after the manner of the Chinese harmonicons and the modern rock band. For the present we must be content to believe that this flute, the origin of which was probably the hollow reed growing on the margins of their lakes and rivers, was the first of all musical instruments.2 Doubtless these reeds would soon be arranged in a cluster of different lengths, like those still forming the Pandean pipes, which perhaps of all musical instruments is the one which has varied least in form since those far-distant Arcadian days, when Pan, the god of nature. in its rudest form, piped to the skin-clad fauns and satyrs of the primeval forest, causing them to dance to "The dreary melody of bedded reeds, In desolate places where dank moisture breeds And from this primitive instrument, through various stages, has been elaborated the mighty organ, with all its complicated machinery and wonderful modulations. The earliest instrument which can be called an organ was probably the Hebrew Masrakitha, which resembled Pandean pipes fitted into a kind of wooden chest_open at the top, but at the bottom stopped with wood and covered with a skin. "By means of a pipe fixed to this chest, wind was conveyed into it from the lips." 3 It is somewhat remarkable that the rise of almost all the arts is attributed in the Bible to the posterity of Cain. Cain himself is described as the first builder of cities, and therefore the first architect; whilst to the 1 The Caribs and Tamanacs still show the "Drum of Amalivaca bedded in the rock, with which, Amphion-like, he brought order out of chaos and the elements into harmony after the devastation of the Deluge" (Rowbotham's History of Music, p. 26). This would seem to denote a very early knowledge of the musical properties of stone. 2 We must not, however, forget that it is quite as likely that the flute may have been accidentally discovered quite as early as the stone drum, in blowing or sucking marrow from a broken bone, and the fact that the earliest flutes, or rather whistles, discovered, have been of bone, favours this view; as also the fact recorded by Thunberg, that "when a Caffre has discovered a spot where several buffaloes have assembled, he blows a pipe made of the thigh-bone of a sheep, which is heard at a great distance." 3 Hawkins's History of Music, cap. xx. |