er one of the great inundations.
The Nile had overflowed its banks and the land had been submerged.
But now the water had subsided, and as Hermes walked along the shore,
his foot struck accidentally against the shell of a dead tortoise.
Across the inside of the shell the dried sinews were tightly stretched.
Hermes picked it up and touched the sinews with his fingers. He was
amazed to hear the sweet tones which the picking of the strings
produced. He set to work to make a musical instrument, using the shell
of a tortoise for the body and placing strings across it. In
substantiation of this legend we find in examining the lyre of the
ancient Greeks that almost every one was ornamented with a tortoise. We
find also in the records of the Hindus, the Chinese, the Persians, and
the Hebrews that these people had stringed musical instruments at a
very early date and that the most common among them was the lyre in its
various modifications.

The famous sepulcher of Rameses III is elaborately ornamented with
harps. Specimens of this instrument have been found also in excavations
made in comparatively recent years. In 1823 Sir J. G. Wilkinson
discovered in an old Egyptian tomb a harp which, despite the fact that
three thousand years had gone by since it had been put to sleep beside
its royal master, was in an excellent state of preservation. The strings
were of cat-gut and were in marvelously good condition. The custom which
the Egyptians had of portraying their daily life upon their city walls,
their temples, and tombs has been of incalculable value to the
antiquarians in search of authentic information. From the pictures which
ornament these temples and tombs we have learned that the harp and the
lyre were the favorite instruments of the Egyptians, and these carvings
alone furnish indisputable proof of their use by these people.

But all the research which man, thus far, has been able to make has not
revealed just who it was that first discovered music in a lifeless
instrument. This fact will always be deeply veiled in mystery. All
attempts to unravel the threads have failed. None knows yet just who
they were who first

"Struck the chorded shell,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship the celestial sounds.
Less than a God they thought there scarce could dwell
Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly and so well."

Just how many strings Hermes had on his tortoise-shell instrument