1883.] Indian Music. 273 
The announcement came, it seems, unexpectedly, and the explo- 
sion was that of a volcano of grief—terrible jets from time to 
time, then a quiet interval, and then again a great outburst, and 
soon. I have heard in Germany and elsewhere many master- 
pieces of music, but nothing to be compared with this dramatic 
and spontaneous opera. The exclamations were exclamations of 
grief, of pain, and the more quiet intervals were recitals of the 
whole life of the departed, by the sister, narrating how they had 
grown up together as children, how they had played and some- 
times quarreled, and so on through later periods to the moment 
of receiving the news. His virtues and other qualities were 
reviewed and then grief overcame the woman and she cried out 
again, singing most distressfully: 
“Thus I came to understand how their ‘ operas’ originated 
and how natural a mode of expression they are.” 
Mr. Blume also states that the musical compositions of Peru 
may be classed under three heads: yaravis, catchuas and catchar- 
parts, the two latter being used for dancing. “I saw at Totora,” 
he writes me, “a grand procession at the funeral of a dead child. 
They had it adorned and tied to a shingle like a crucifix, but not 
with arms outstretched ; and an Indian, holding the child high 
above his head in a vertical position, led the procession, which 
danced to the music of a weird song, from one village to 
another.” 
This ceremony and the accompanying music were said to be 
very ancient. In the north of Peru the Indians have an instru- 
ment made of a flute and a bladder—a primitive bag-pipe—and 
another, a sort of xylophone, made of a series of pieces of hard, 
Sonorous wood 
The historian Garcilasso quaintly writes of the ancient Peru- 
vans: “In Musick they arrived to a certain harmony, in which 
the Indians of Colla did more particularly excell, having been 
the Inventors of a certain Pipe made of Canes glued together, 
every one of which having a different Note of higher and lower, 
in the manner of Organs, made a pleasing Musick by the disso- 
DNF Ot sounds, the Treble, Tenor and Basse, exactly corre- 
sponding and answering each to other; with these Pipes they 
often plaid in consort, and made tolerable Musick, though they 
Wanted the Quavers, Semiquavers, Aires, and many voices which 
Perfect the Harmony amongst us. They had also other Pipes, 
