into a dreadful roar. Is there no way out of it?"

"I at least cannot help it. But keep up your patience, you will soon get
accustomed to it. Besides, there will be intervals when the wind falls."

We were told that there are many such natural orchestras in India. The
Brahmans know well their wonderful properties, and calling this kind of
reed vina-devi, the lute of the gods, keep up the popular superstition
and say the sounds are divine oracles. The sirka grass and the bamboos
always shelter a number of tiny beetles, which make considerable holes
in the hollow reeds. The fakirs of the idol-worshipping sects add art to
this natural beginning and work the plants into musical instruments. The
islet we visited bore one of the most celebrated vina-devis, and so, of
course, was proclaimed sacred.

"Tomorrow morning," said the Takur, "you will see what deep knowledge
of all the laws of acoustics was in the possession of the fakirs. They
enlarged the holes made by the beetle according to the size of the reed,
sometimes shaping it into a circle, sometimes into an oval. These
reeds in their present state can be justly considered as the finest
illustration of mechanism applied to acoustics. However, this is not to
be wondered at, because some of the most ancient Sanskrit books about
music minutely describe these laws, and mention many musical instruments
which are not only forgotten, but totally incomprehensible in our days."

All this was very interesting, but still, disturbed by the din, we could
not listen attentively.

"Don't worry yourselves," said the Takur, who soon understood our
uneasiness, in spite of our attempts at composure. "After midnight the
wind will fall, and you will sleep undisturbed. However, if the too
close neighborhood of this musical grass is too much for you, we may as
well go nearer to the shore. There is a spot from which you can see the
sacred bonfires on the opposite shore."

We followed him, but while walking through the thickets of reeds we did
not leave off our conversation. "How is it that the Brahmans manage to
keep up such an evident cheat?" asked the colonel. "The stupidest man
cannot fail to see in the long run who made the holes in the reeds, and
how they come to give forth music."

"In America stupid men may be as clever as that; I don't know," answered
the Takur, with a smile; "but not in India. If you took the trouble to
show, to describe, and to explain how all this is done to any