it was rendered
sometimes short and sometimes long. In this manner they sang
in chorus, and not only produced octaves to each other,
according to their species of voice, but fell on concords
such as were not disagreeable to the ear.

[Footnote 308: These bamboos were, no doubt, the same as the
_kaekeeke_, elsewhere described. (See P. 122.)]

Now, to overturn this fact, by the reasoning of persons who
did not hear these performances, is rather an arduous task.
And yet there is great improbability that any uncivilized
people should by accident arrive at this perfection in the
art of music, which we imagine can only be attained by dint
of study and knowledge of the system and the theory on which
musical composition is founded. Such miserable jargon as our
country psalm-singers practice, which may be justly deemed
the lowest class of counterpoint, or singing in several
parts, can not be acquired in the coarse manner in which it
is performed in the churches without considerable time and
practice. It is, therefore, scarcely credible that a people,
semibarbarous, should naturally arrive at any perfection in
that art which it is much doubted whether the Greeks and
Romans, with all their refinements in music, ever attained,
and which the Chinese, who have been longer civilized than
any people on the globe, have not yet found out.
[Page 151]
If Captain Burney (who, by the testimony of his father,
perhaps the greatest musical theorist of this or any other
age, was able to have done it) has written down in European
notes the concords that these people sung, and if these
concords had been such as European ears could tolerate, there
would have been no longer doubt of the fact; but, as it is,
it would, in my opinion, be a rash judgment to venture to
affirm that they did or did not understand counterpoint; and
therefore I fear that this curious matter must be considered
as still remaining undecided. (A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean,
undertaken by the command of His Majesty, for making
discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere. Performed under the
dir