694 REPORT—1904. 
from South America into an African developmental series. But, when we 
recall the fact that evidence of the existence of indigenous stringed instruments of 
music in the New World has yet to be produced, coupled with the certain know- 
ledge that a considerable number of varieties of musical instruments, stringed and 
otherwise, accompanied the enforced migration of African natives during the days 
of the slave trade, and were thus established in use and perpetuated in many parts 
of the New World, including the north-east regions of South America, we may, I 
think, admit with some confidence that in this particular instance from Guiana to 
Guinea is no very far cry, and that the more than probable African origin of this 
instrument from South America gives it a perfect claim to take its place in the 
African sequence. I still anticipate that this type of instrument will be forth- 
coming from some hinterland region in West Africa. Were no evidence at all 
forthcoming of such a form, either in past or present, we should be almost com- 
pelled to infer that such a one had existed, as this stage in the sequence appears 
to be necessary to prevent a break in the continuity of forms leading to what is 
apparently the next important stage, represented by a type of instrument common 
in West Africa, having five little bows, each carrying its string, and all of which 
are fixed by their lower ends into a box-like wooden resonator. This method of 
attaching the bows to the now improved body of the instrument necessitates the 
lower attachment of the strings being transferred from the bows to the body, so 
that the bow-like form begins to disappear. The next improvement of which 
there is evideace from existing types consists in the substitution of a single, stouter, 
curved rod for the five little ‘bows,’ all the five strings being serially attached to 
the upper end of the rod, their lower ends to the body as before. This instrument 
is somewhat rare now, and it may well be a source of wonder to us that it has 
survived at all (unless it be to assist the ethnologist), since it is an almost 
aggressively inefficient form, owing to the row of strings being brought into two 
different planes at right angles to one another. The structure of this rude instru- 
ment gives it a quaintly composite appearance, suggesting that it is a banjo at one 
end and a harp at the other. This is due to the strings remaining, as in the 
preceding form, attached to the resonating body in a line disposed transversely, 
while the substitution of a single rod for the five ‘bows’ has necessitated the 
disposal of their upper attachments in a longitudinal series as regards the longer 
axis of the instrument. Inefficient though it be, this instrument occupies an 
important position in the apparent chain of evolution, leading on as it does 
through some intermediate types to a form in which the difficulty as regards the 
strings is overcome by attaching their Jower ends in a longitudinal series, and so 
bringing them into the same plane throughout their length. In this shape the 
instrument has assumed a harp-like form—a rude and not very effective one, it is 
true, but it is none the less definitely a member of the harp family. The modern 
varieties of this type extend across Africa from west to east, and the harps of ancient 
Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and India were assuredly elaborations of this primitive 
form. The Indian form, closely resembling that of ancient Egypt, still survives 
in Burma, while elsewhere we find a few apparently allied forms. In all these 
forms of the harp, from the rudest Central and West African types to the highly 
ornate and many-stringed examples of Egypt and the East, one point is especially 
noteworthy. This is the invariable absence of the fore-pillar, which in the modern 
harps of Western Europe is so important, nay, essential, a structural feature. In 
spite of the skill and care exercised in the construction of some of the more 
elaborate forms, none were fitted with a fore-pillar, the result being that the 
frame across which the strings were stretched was always weak and disposed to 
yield more or less to the strain caused by the tension of the strings. This implied 
that, even when the strings were not unduly strained, the tightening up of one of 
them to raise its pitch necessarily caused a greater or less slackening of all the 
other strings, since the free end of the rod or ‘neck’ would tend to be drawn 
slightly towards the body of the instrument under the increased tension, One can 
picture the soul-destroying agonies endured by two performers upon these harps 
when endeavouring, if they ever did so, to bring their refractory instruments into 
unison, while, as for the orchestral music of the old Assyrian days—well, perhaps 
