trangest of all, for the instrument consists
of a life-size wooden tiger. It has a number of teeth or pegs
along the ridge of its back, and it is "played" by stroking
these pegs rapidly with a wooden staff, and then striking the
tiger on the head. This is the prescribed end of every Chinese
orchestral composition, and is supposed to be a symbol of man's
supremacy over brute creation. The tiger has its place in the
northwest corner of the orchestra.

The sound of bamboo is represented in the familiar form of
Pan's pipes, and various forms of flutes which hardly need
further description.

And finally the sound of the gourd. The gourd is a kind of
squash, hollowed out, in which from thirteen to twenty-four
pipes of bamboo or metal are inserted; each one of these
pipes contains a metal reed, the vibration of which causes
the sound. Below the reed are cut small holes in the pipes,
and there is a pipe with a mouthpiece to keep the gourd,
which is practically an air reservoir, full of air. The air
rushing out through the bamboo pipes will naturally escape
through the holes cut below the reeds, making no sound, but
if the finger stops one or more of these holes, the air is
forced up through the reeds, thus giving a musical sound,
the pitch of which will be dependent on the length of the
pipes and the force with which the air passes through the reed.

Other instruments of the Chinese are gongs of all sizes,
trumpets, and several stringed instruments somewhat akin to our
guitars and mandolins. Neither the Chinese nor the Japanese
have ever seemed to consider the voice as partaking of the
nature of music. This is strange, for the language of the
Chinese depends on flexibility of the voice to make it even
intelligible. As a matter of fact, singing, in our sense of
the word, is unknown to them.

V

THE MUSIC OF THE CHINESE (Continued)

Having described the musical instruments in use in China
we still have for consideration the music itself, and the
conditions which led up to it.

Among the Chinese instruments mentioned in the preceding
chapter, the preponderance of instruments of percussion, such
as drums, gongs, bells, etc., has probably been noticed. In
connection with the last named we meet with one of the two cases
in Chinese art in which we see the same undercurrent of feeling,
or rather superstition, as that found among western nations. We
read in the writings of Mencius, the Chinese philosopher (350
B.C.