Egypt, in the days of Hosea, affords a reign of twenty-five years a-piece to the eight kings enumerated by Herodotus, which is more than the medium rate allowed by most calculators. The pyramids must have been raised, when Memphis was the capital, in a time of long uninterrupted peace, when the nation was wealthy, magnificent, and servile. There is not the smallest reason for calling in question the account of their founders by Herodotus. Posterity might have attempted to forget the names of Cheops, Cephren, and Mycerinus, but they were too memorable to sink into oblivion.

These observations may be balanced against the vague accounts of the Greek writers, on whose authority the reign of Sesostris is made to precede the age of Shishak. The identity of the two princes is no new doctrine, but the arguments produced here in support of it, and of the theory of Mr Bruce, have not been discussed in any statement of that opinion.

No. III.

LETTER FROM MR BRUCE TO DR BURNEY, ON EGYPTIAN AND ABYSSINIAN MUSIC*.

DEAR SIR,

Kinnaird, October 20. 1774.

I HAVE employed the first leisure that bad weather has en

abled me to steal from the curiosity and kindness of my friends, to make you two distinct drawings of the musical in

struments you desired of me. I sit down now to give you

some particulars relative to them, and to other instruments of less consequence, which I found in my voyage in Abyssinia, to the fountains of the Nile.

I need not tell you that I shall think myself overpaid, if this, or any thing else in my power, can be of service to you, or towards the history of a science which I have always cultivated, with more application than genius; and to which I

* This letter, the first publication to which Mr Bruce affixed his name, is copied from Dr Burney's General History of Music, Vol. I. pp. 205. 214. It was addressed to that ingenious and elegant writer, for whom Mr Bruce had conceived a high esteem, soon after the traveller had arrived in his native country. It contains a minute description of the musical instruments used at present in Abyssinia, and might have resolved, in the most satisfactory manner, the doubts of those, had they been capable of examining the subject, who suspected the truth of his journey into that kingdom. It is placed here, on account of its relation to the travels in Egypt. E.

may say, however, that I owe some of the happiest moments of my life. I have kept both the lyre and harp of such a size, as not to exceed the bounds of a quarto page; but I hope you will find all the parts appear distinctly. I did not chuse to embarrass the harp with the figure which is playing upon it, because this would necessarily conceal great part of the instrument; your business is with the instrument, not with the figure.

There are six musical instruments known in Abyssinia; the flute, the trumpet, the kettle-drum, the tambourine, the sistrum, and the lyre.

The four first are used in war; and are by much the most common; the fifth is dedicated to the service of the church; and the sixth is peculiarly an attendant on festivity and rejoicings.

There are two principal languages in Abyssinia; the Æthiopic, which is the literary or dead language; and the Amharic, or language of Amhara, spoken by the court.

The flute in the Æthiopic is called kwetz, a word difficult to be written or sounded in English; in the Amharic it is called agădă; it is about the shape and size of the German flute, but played upon long-ways, with a mouth-piece resembling that of the clarinet; its tone is loud, but accompanied with a kind of jar, like a broken hautbois; not owing to any accidental defect, but to construction and design, as it would not be esteemed without it.

The kettle-drum is called in both languages nagareet, because all proclamations are made by the sound of this drum (these are called năgăr); if made by governors they have the force of laws in their provinces; but if made by the king they are for all Abyssinia. The kettle-drum is a mark of sovereign power: whenever the king promotes a subject to be governor, or his lieutenant-general in a province, he gives him a kettle-drum and standard as his investiture. The king has forty-five of these drums always beating before him when he marches. They are in shape and size like ours, only they are braced very disadvantageously; for the skin is strained over the outer rim, or lip of the drum, and brought a third down its outside, which deadens it exceedingly, and deprives it of that clear metallic sound, which ours has. Each man has but a single drum, upon the left side of his mule; and

beats it with a crooked stick about three feet long. Upon the whole its sound is not disagreeable, and I have heard it at an incredible distance.

The third instrument is the small drum, called kăbăro in Æthiopic and Amharic; though in some parts of Amhara it is also called hătămo. It is about half the diameter, and twice the length, of our common drum; it is just the tambourine of Provence, only rounded to a point at the lower end. This is beaten always with the hand, and carried sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, when any inferior officer (not having a nagareet) marches.

The trumpet is called mělěkēta, or mělěket; and kenet in Amharic, but keren in Æthiopic (or horn); which shows of what materials it was antiently formed. It is now made of a cane that has less than half an inch aperture, and about five feet four inches in length. To this a long stalk is fixed at the end, a round piece of the neck of a gourd, which has just the form of the round end of our trumpet, and is on the outside ornamented with small white shells; it is all covered over with parchment, and is a very neat instrument. This trum pet sounds only one note, E, in a loud, hoarse, and terrible tone f. It is played slow when on a march, or before an enemy appears in sight; but afterwards it is repeated very quick, and with great violence, and has the effect upon the Abyssinian soldiers of transporting them absolutely to fury and madness, and of making them so regardless of life, as to throw themselves into the middle of the enemy, which they do with great gallantry. I have often, in time of peace, tried what effect this charge would have upon them, and found that none who heard it could continue seated, but that all rose up, and continued the whole time in motion.

The fifth instrument is the sistrum; it is used in the quick measure, or in allegros in singing psalms of thanksgiving. Each priest has a sistrum, which he shakes in a very threatening manner at his neighbour, dancing, leaping, and turning round with such an indecent violence, that he resembles rather a priest of Paganism, whence this instrument was derived,

↑ The trumpet is often called in Abyssinia, nesser kano, which seems to signify "the note of the eagle." E.

than a Christian. I have forgot the name of the sistrum in Æthiopic, but on looking into my notes I shall find it.

The sixth and last instrument is the lyre, which is never played solo, but always in accompanying the voice, with which it plays constantly in unison; nor did I ever hear music in parts in any nation, savage or polished, out of Europe: this is the last refinement music received, after it was in possession of complete instruments, and it received it probably in Italy.

1

The lyre has sometimes five, sometimes six, but most frequently seven strings, made of the thongs of raw sheep or goat-skins, cut extremely fine and twisted; they rot soon, are very subject to break in dry weather, and have scarce any sound in wet. From the idea, however, of this instrument being to accompany and sustain a voice, one would think that it was better mounted formerly. The Abyssinians have a tradition, that the sistrum, lyre, and tambourine were brought from Egypt into Æthiopia, by Thot, in the very first ages of the world. The flute, kettle-drum, and trumpet, they say, were brought from Palestine, with Menelek, the son of their queen of Saba, by Solomon, who was their first Jewish king.

The lyre in Amharic is called bēg (the sheep); in Æthiopic, it is called měsinkō; the verb sinko signifies to strike strings with the fingers: no plectrum is ever used in Abyssinia, so that mesinko, being literally interpreted, will signify the stringed instrument played upon with the fingers. This would seem as if antiently there was no other stringed instrument in Abyssinia, nor is there any other still.

Indeed the guitar is sometimes seen in the hands of the Mahometans, but they have brought it with them from Arabia, where they go every year for trade or devotion. This instrument having a neck, is from that circumstance surely modern. Necks were probably invented after strings of different lengths and sizes had been so multiplied upon the harp and lyre, that more could not be added without confusion. This improvement of producing several notes upon one string, by shortening it with the momentaneous pressure of the fingers, was then introduced, and left little more to do, besides the invention of the bow, towards bringing stringed instruments to their greatest perfection.