On the Amusements, Musical Instruments, &c. of the Africans.

Upon all occasions of mirth or sorrow, the dance is uniformly introduced, with monotonous songs, sometimes tender and agreeable, at other times savage and ferocious, but always accompanied by a slow movement; and it may with propriety be said, that all the nights in Africa are spent in dancing; for after the setting of the sun, every village resounds with songs, and music; and I have often listened to them with attention and pleasure, during the tranquil evenings of the dry season.

Villages a league distant from each other frequently perform the same song, and alternately change it, for hours together.  While this harmonic correspondence continues, and the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages chaunt their couplets, the youth of both sexes listen with the greatest attention and pleasure.

Among the several kinds of instruments of music which accompany the ceremonies of mourning or mirth among the Africans, the drum is the principal.  It is made from a hard thin wood, about three feet long, which is covered with a skin distended to the utmost.  They strike it with the fingers of the right hand collected together, which serves to beat time in all their dances.  Among the Foulahs and Soosees they have a kind of flute, made of a hard reed, which produces sounds both unmusical and harsh:  but all the Africans of the Windward district are the most barbarous musicians that can be conceived.

They have also a kind of guitar, formed from the calabash, which they call kilara.  Some of these are of an enormous size, and the musician performs upon it by placing himself on the ground, and putting the kilara between his thighs; he performs on it with both his hands, in a manner similar to the playing on the harp in this country.

They have another instrument of a very complicated construction, about two feet deep, four feet long, and eighteen inches wide, which they call balafau.  It is constructed by parallel intervals, covered with bits of hard polished wood, so as to give each a different tone, and are connected by cords of catgut fastened at each extremity of the instrument.  The musician strikes these pieces of wood with knobbed sticks covered with skin, which produces a most detestable jargon of confused noise.

Jugglers and buffoons are very common, and are the constant attendants of the courts of Negro kings and princes, upon whom they lavish the most extravagant eulogiums, and abject flattery.  These jesters are also the panders of concupiscense; they are astrologers, musicians, and poets, and are well received every where, and live by public contribution.

SECTION V.

Concluding Observations.