for several centuries. A fuller account of the Hindoo
drama is given in Wilson's "Theater of the Hindoos." The curious
circumstance of the drama of the Hindoos of this epoch is that it was
contemporaneous with another very celebrated development of musical
drama in Greece.

Besides the primitive form of the bowed instrument, the ravanastron
(Fig. 16), many forms more advanced are figured among the instruments
from India in European museums, but as they are all of absurd and
impossible acoustical conception, besides being most likely of
comparatively modern origin, we do not present them at this point.
Later, in the history of the violin, one or two of the most curious
will be given.

II.

China has had an art of music from extremely remote periods, and
singularly sagacious ideas concerning the art were advanced there very
long ago, at a time when Europe and most other parts of the world were
still in the darkness of barbarism. For example: There is a saying of
the Emperor Tschun, about 2300 B.C., "Teach the children of the great;
thereby reached through thy care they will become mild and
reasonable, and the unmanageable ones able to receive dignities
without arrogance or assumption. This teaching must thou embody in
poems, and sing them therewith to suitable melodies and with the play
of instrumental accompaniment. The music must follow the sense of the
words; if they are simple and natural then also must the music be
easy, unforced and without pretension. Music is the expression of
soul-feeling. If now the soul of the musician be virtuous, so also
will his music become noble and full of virtuous expression, and will
set the souls of men in union with those of the spirits in heaven."
(Quoted by Ambros.)

[Illustration: Fig. 17.]

The principal instruments of Chinese music are the Kin and the Ke. The
former is a sort of guitar, of which no illustration has come to hand.
The main instrument of their culture-music is the ke, a stringed
instrument entirely unlike any other of which we have accounts, saving
the Japanese ko-ko, which was most likely derived from it. The ke is
strung with fifty strings of silk. Originally it had but twenty-five,
but in the reign of Hoang-Ti, about 2637 B.C., it is said to have been
enlarged to its present dimensions and compass. The appearance of the
ke and the arrangement of its bridges are shown in Fig. 17. The
strings were plucked with the fingers.

In the earlier times the Chine