27 
THE VOICE OF MIRTH . 
to melody. I am afraid we often allow ourselves to 
speak contemptuously, and therefore foolishly, of native 
music because we do not understand this matter. The 
first stage in the development of the musical faculty is 
the sense of time, and in this the Indian musician is 
incomparably superior to the European. His time is 
faultless and very complicated. You may not be able 
to enjoy his strains, because you 
have arrived at a higher stage, just 
as you now call books childish 
which would have charmed you 
when you were a child. But the 
music of time is music still, and 
the drummer-boy is a living wit- 
ness to its mysterious power over 
the hearts of men. 
Now it has struck me, as it may 
CICADA. 
have struck others, that there may 
be a rhythm in the shrill tones of a cricket, which we 
have not the keenness of sense to detect. The song 
of the Cicada appears to us to be one long note, a pro- 
tracted, ear-rending scream ; as if one were drawing an 
iron nail across the teeth of an endless iron comb. But 
