54 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
are perpetually stunned with the clash and clangor of 
cymbals, trumpets, drums, together with the din of 
numerous other instruments, as various in form as in 
power. The great charm of their blended harmonies 
to the ravished Indian seems to be in proportion to 
the quantity, not the quality of sound. It is quite 
astonishing to see the extraordinary excitement often 
produced, in the usually phlegmatic Hindoo, by that 
harsh minstrelsy which he is accustomed to think 
the perfection of melody. The effect is electrical. 
His eyes, which were before relaxed into a languid 
expression of half-consciousness, become suddenly kin- 
dled with a blaze of enthusiasm, and he joins the 
procession, which the minstrels are enlivening by 
their discordant strains, with gestures of frantic de- 
light. With him no excitement is higher than that 
caused by the tomtom, the trumpet, and the vina. I 
have frequently seen him wrought to such a pitch of 
intoxication as to be desperately dangerous, foaming 
at the mouth, his eyes darting fire, and ready to per- 
petrate the most ferocious acts upon any person whom 
the prejudices of caste should expose to the exacerba- 
tion of his maniacal frenzy. 
Highly as the natives of Hindostan think of the 
acquirements of Europeans generally, they consider 
that we fall infinitely short of themselves in musical 
skill ; although nothing can be well conceived more 
painfully distracting than the clamour which they 
raise when performing their indigenous strains. The 
vernacular language of the savage is not apparently 
more rough and barbarous than the vernacular music 
of the Hindoos, when produced by those itinerant 
