In the afternoons on Sundayes, they have their musicke, which is of kettledrums, and those of severall sises; upon the smallest the best musitian playes, and the other come in as Chorasses: the drum all men know, has but one tone; and therefore varietie of tunes have little to doe in this musick; and yet so strangely they varie their time, as ’tis a pleasure to the most curious eares, and it was to me one of the strangest noyses that ever I heard made of one tone; and if they had the varietie of tune, which gives the greater scope in musick, as they have of time, they would doe wonders in that Art. And if I had not faln sicke before my comming away, at least seven months in one sickness, I had given them some hints of tunes, which being understood, would have serv’d as a great addition to their harmonie; for time without tune, is not an eighth part of the science of Musick. I found _Macow_ very apt for it of himselfe, and one day comming into the house, (which none of the _Negroes_ use to doe, unlesse an Officer, as he was,) he found me playing on a Theorbo, and singing to it which he hearkened very attentively to; and when I had done took the Theorbo in his hand, and strooke one string, stopping it by degrees upon every fret, and finding the notes to varie, till it came to the body of the instrument; and that the neerer the body of the instrument he stopt, the smaller or higher the sound was, which he found was by the shortning of the string, considered with himselfe, how he might make some triall of this experiment upon such an instrument as he could come by; having no hope ever to have any instrument of this kind to practise on. In a day or two after, walking in the Plantine grove, to refresh me in that cool shade, and to delight my selfe with the sight of those plants, which are so beautifull, as though they left a fresh impression in me when I parted with them, yet upon a review, something is discern’d in their beautie more then I remembred at parting: which caused me to make often repair thither; I found this _Negro_ (whose office it was to attend there) being the keeper of that grove, sitting on the ground, and before him a piece of large timber, upon which he had laid crosse, sixe Billets, and having a hand-saw and a hatchet by him, would cut the billets by little and little, till he had brought them to the tunes, he would fit them to; for the shorter they were, the higher the Notes which he tryed by knocking upon the ends of them with a sticke, which he had in his hand. When I found him at it, I took the stick out of his hand, and tried the sound, finding the sixe billets to have sixe distinct notes, one above another, which put me in a wonder, how he of himselfe, should without teaching doe so much. I then shewed him the difference between flats and sharpes, which he presently apprehended, as between _Fa_, and _Mi_: and he would have cut two more billets to those tunes, but I had then no time to see it