Every chief has his band, vocal and instrumental; but Sindhia, some years since, carried away the most celebrated vocalists of Udaipur. The Rajputs are all partial to music. The tappa is the favourite measure. Its chief character is plaintive simplicity; and it is analogous to the Scotch, or perhaps still more to the Norman.[4.24.36] The Rana, who is a great patron of the art, has a small band of musicians, whose only instrument is the _shahna_, or hautboy. They played their national [649] tappas with great taste and feeling; and these strains, wafted from the lofty terrace of the palace in the silence of the night, produced a sensation of delight not unmixed with pain, which its peculiarly melancholy character excites. The Rana has also a few flute or flageolet players, who discourse most eloquent music. Indeed, we may enumerate this among the principal amusements of the Rajputs; and although it would be deemed indecorous to be a performer, the science forms a part of education.[4.24.37] Who that has marched in the stillness of night through the mountainous regions of Central India, and heard the warder sound the _turai_ from his turreted abode, perched like an eyrie on the mountain-top, can ever forget its graduated intensity of sound, or the emphatic _ham! ham!_ “all’s well,” which follows the lengthened blast of the cornet reverberating in every recess.[4.24.38] =Bagpipes.=—A species of bagpipe, so common to all the Celtic races of Europe, is not unknown to the Rajputs. It is called the _mashak_,[4.24.39] but is only the rudiment of that instrument whose peculiar influence on the physical, through the moral agency of man, is described by our own master-bard. They have likewise the double flageolet; but in the same ratio of perfection to that of Europe as the _mashak_ to the heart-stirring pipe of the north. As to their lutes, guitars, and all the varieties of tintinnabulants (as Dr. Johnson would call them), it would fatigue without interesting the reader to enumerate them.