The Nakkarah or Nagarah was a great kettledrum, formed like a brazen caldron, tapering to the bottom and covered with buffalo-hide—­at least 3-1/2 or 4 feet in diameter.  Bernier, indeed, tells of Nakkaras in use at the Court of Delhi that were not less than a fathom across; and Tod speaks of them in Rajputana as “about 8 or 10 feet in diameter.”  The Tartar Nakkarahs were usually, I presume, carried on a camel; but as Kublai had begun to use elephants, his may have been carried on an elephant, as is sometimes the case in India.  Thus, too, P. della Valle describes those of an Indian Embassy at Ispahan:  “The Indian Ambassador was also accompanied by a variety of warlike instruments of music of strange kinds, and particularly by certain Naccheras of such immense size that each pair had an elephant to carry them, whilst an Indian astride upon the elephant between the two Naccheras played upon them with both hands, dealing strong blows on this one and on that; what a din was made by these vast drums, and what a spectacle it was, I leave you to imagine.”

Joinville also speaks of the Nakkara as the signal for action:  “So he was setting his host in array till noon, and then he made those drums of theirs to sound that they call Nacaires, and then they set upon us horse and foot.”  The Great Nakkara of the Tartars appears from several Oriental histories to have been called Kurkah.  I cannot find this word in any dictionary accessible to me, but it is in the Ain Akbari (Kawargah) as distinct from the Nakkarah.  Abulfazl tells us that Akbar not only had a rare knowledge of the science of music, but was likewise an excellent performer—­especially on the Nakkarah!

[Illustration:  Nakkaras. (From a Chinese original.)]

The privilege of employing the Nakkara in personal state was one granted by the sovereign as a high honour and reward.

The crusades naturalised the word in some form or other in most European languages, but in our own apparently with a transfer of meaning.  For Wright defines Naker as “a cornet or horn of brass.”  And Chaucer’s use seems to countenance this:—­

  “Pipes, Trompes, Nakeres, and Clariounes,
  That in the Bataille blowen blody sounes.”
      —­The Knight’s Tale.

On the other hand, Nacchera, in Italian, seems always to have retained the meaning of kettle-drum, with the slight exception of a local application at Siena to a metal circle or triangle struck with a rod.  The fact seems to be that there is a double origin, for the Arabic dictionaries not only have Nakkarah, but Nakir and Nakur, “cornu, tuba.”  The orchestra of Bibars Bundukdari, we are told, consisted of 40 pairs of kettle-drums, 4 drums, 4 hautbois, and 20 trumpets (Nakir). (Sir B. Frere; Della Valle, II. 21; Tod’s Rajasthan, I. 328; Joinville, p. 83; N. et E. XIV. 129, and following note; Blochmann’s Ain-i-Akbari, pp. 50-51; Ducange, by Haenschel, s.v.; Makrizi, I. 173.)