music the wind instruments have a prominent
place. After having heard the Siamese Royal Orchestra a number
of times in London, I came to the conclusion that the players
on the different instruments _improvise_ their parts, the only
rule being the general character of the melodies to be played,
and the finishing together. The effect of the music was that
of a contrapuntal nightmare, hideous to a degree which one who
has not heard it cannot conceive. Berlioz, in his "Soirees de
l'orchestre," well described its effect when he said:

"After the first sensation of horror which one cannot
repress, one feels impelled to laugh, and this hilarity
can only be controlled by leaving the hall. So long
as these impossible sounds continue, the fact of their
being gravely produced, and in all sincerity _admired_
by the players, makes the 'concert' appear inexpressibly
'comic.'"

The Japanese had the same Buddhistic disregard for euphony,
but they have adopted European ideas in music and are rapidly
becoming occidentalized from a musical point of view. Their
principal instruments are the _koto_ and the _samisen_. The
former is similar to the Chinese _che_, and is a kind of large
zither with thirteen strings, each having a movable bridge by
means of which the pitch of the string may be raised or lowered.
The _samisen_ is a kind of small banjo, and probably originated
in the Chinese _kin_.

From Buddhism to sun worship, from China to Peru and Mexico,
is a marked change, but we find strange resemblances in the
music of these peoples, seeming almost to corroborate the
theory that the southern American races may be traced back to
the extreme Orient. We remember that in the Chinese sacred
chants--"official" music as one may call it--all the notes
were of exactly the same length. Now Garcilaso de la Vega
(1550), in his "Commentarios Reales," tells us that unequal
time was unknown in Peru, that all the notes in a song were
of exactly the same length. He further tells us that in his
time the voice was but seldom heard in singing, and that
all the songs were played on the flute, the words being so
well known that the melody of the flute immediately suggested
them. The Peruvians were essentially a pipe race, while, on the
other hand, the instruments of the Mexicans were of the other
extreme, all kinds of drums, copper gongs, rattles, musical
stones, cymbals, bells, etc., thus completing the resemblance
to Chines