FIVE DAYS IN NANING. 
35 
and that one of them who had died or been slain was buried 
at this post. In a short time we left the jungly border 
and came into a fine open country. A moist flat on the 
right was covered with paddy, and here and there women 
were busily cutting it. A thick belt of forest lay between 
it and Gunong Beraga, which rose, great and beautiful, on 
the opposite side of the narrow plain. Gunong Batu was 
now seen, apparently still at some distance in front. Our 
path followed the margin of the dry tract raised eight or 
ten feet above the plain, and into which a little stream, 
fresh and cold from the deep ravines of Beraga, was eating. 
On our right there was a succession of neat cottages amongst 
cocoanut trees, forming the village of Kandang. On nearing 
one of these our ears were saluted by the most melodious 
sounds, some soft and liquid like flute notes, and others 
deep and full like the tones of an organ. These sounds 
were sometimes low, interrupted or even single, and 
presently they would swell into a grand burst of mingled 
melody. I can hardly express the feelings of astonishment 
with which I paused to listen and look for the source of 
music so wild and ravishing in such a spot. It seemed to 
proceed from a clump of trees at a little distance, but I 
could see neither musician nor instrument, and the sounds 
varied so much in their strength that their origin seemed 
now at one place and now at another, as if they sometimes 
came from mid-air and sometimes swelled up from the mass 
of dark foliage, or hovered, faint and fitful, around it. On 
drawing nearer to the clump my companions pointed out 
a slender bambu which rose above the branches, and whence 
they said the musical tones issued. I was more bewildered 
than before, but they proceeded to explain that the bambu 
was perforated, and that the breeze called forth all the 
sounds. Every one knows of the multiplied uses of the 
bambu, how, entire or split as the purpose requires, it 
forms posts, masts, yards, ladders, chairs, stools, screens, 
floors, roofs, bridges, &c., how, when smaller, it is an 
elastic material out of which a great variety of baskets and 
receptacles are formed for containing solids, and how its 
joints make neat and convenient bottles for holding and 
carrying liquids, or, when fine, are fashioned into flutes. 
But here was the crowning triumph of Malayan art, and 
the most wonderful of all the applications of the bambu, for 
what could be more hold and ingenious than the idea of 
converting an entire bambu, rough from the jungle and 
thirty or forty feet in length, into a musical instrument 
