MU S I CA L I N S T R U M E N T S U S E D BY T H E
MALAYS AT BATAYIA.
In the Sunda districts of Java very good music is
produced by an instrument which consists of a series
of sTnfl.11 bamboo tubes of different lengths, so placed
in a rude framework of wood that they can slightly
vibrate, and strike the sides of the frame when it is
shaken in the hand.
On the peninsula of Malacca a kind of gigantic
JEolian harp is made, by removing the partitions
within a bamboo, thirty or forty feet long, and making
a row of holes in the side as in a flute. This is
placed upright among the dense foliage, and in the
varying breeze gives out soft or heavy notes, until
the whole surrounding forest seems filled with the
harps of fairies.
All these natives are passionately fond of music,
and perhaps in nothing has their inventive genius
been so well displayed as in their peculiar musical instruments,
which have been brought to the greatest
perfection in Java, where they are so elaborate that a
set of eighteen or twenty pieces, for a complete band,
costs from six hundred to one thousand dollars. A
number of these were taken to England by Sir Stamford
Raffles, and carefully examined by a competent
judge, who expressed himself “ astonished and delighted
with their ingenious fabrication, splendor,
beauty, and accurate intonation.”
While we were watching the slow, graceful dance,
dinner was prepared, and we were summoned from
the veranda to an open room in the rear. The wife
of the rajah was the only lady at the table, and, as all
the princes and notables of the other villages were
present, the number of guests who were ready to