doing things in a
smaller way; but he was bent on magnificence. It was quite treat enough
to lie on the soft turf, with the thick shade above, and to allow the
hours to pass away as they led on evening. But he had been at the
trouble to retain a band of musicians for our sakes. Such a set they
were!--surpassing, in discordant prowess, the worst street musicians
among our beggar melodists. It is quite surprising that invention has so
long slumbered with these native artistes. With Musard concerts and
Wilhelm music-meetings all around them, it is wonderful that they do not
catch the note of something better than their villanous mandolins and
single-noted pipes. Does any one need to be told what a mandolin is? It
is something very different, let me assure him, from the ideal
instrument of Moore's Melodies. Not even the lovely maidens that Moore
paints could render tolerable a performance upon it; whereas it is made
to resound by some especially ugly fellow, whose rascality of
appearance, is relieved by no touch of the poetic. I did once hear a
Turco-Greek lady perform, and on a more civilised instrument--a lady of
high reputation as a performer on the guitar and a vocalist. And seldom
has the spirit of romantic preparation received a more sudden chill than
did mine on that occasion. Nothing could be more outrageously absurd
than the whole thing was--accompaniment and song. I never afterwards was
solicitous to hear an Oriental's musical performance; and am quite
satisfied, that in them dwells no musical faculty, creative or
perceptive: or that at least it is in a dormant state.

These musicians began with a symphony on the full band--mandolins
leading, drums doing bass, and the whole lot of ugly fellows screeching
forth what might have been esteemed air or accompaniment, as the case
might be. That a sorry musical effect was produced will surprise no one
who considers the build of the most musical of their instruments. The
mandolin is by way of being a guitar, or banjo--only in a very small way
indeed. Nothing has been added to the idea since first Mercury stumbled
on the original _testudo_--indeed, I should guess that the dried sinews
of a tortoise would give out a far purer sound than the jingling wires
with which the mandolin is mounted. I have sometimes stood at the door
of a _cafe_, or, to give it the real name [Greek: kapheneion], and
listened in wonder to the strains of some minstrel holding forth within.
The wonder w