“Some attribute ... the discovery to the sounds made by a large stone against the frame of an oil-press, and others to meat when roasting, but the sages of Hind [India] are of opinion that it originated in the following accident. As a learned Brahmin was travelling to the court of an illustrious raja, he rested about the middle of the day under the shade of a mulberry-tree, on the top of which he beheld a mischievous monkey climbing from bough to bough, till by a sudden slip he fell upon a sharp-pointed shoot which instantly ripped up his belly, and left his entrails suspended on the tree, while the unlucky animal fell breathless upon the dust of death. Some time after this, as the Brahmin was returning, he accidentally sat down in the same place and, recollecting the circumstance, looked up and saw that the entrails were dried and yielded a harmonious sound every time the wind gently impelled them against the branches. Charmed at the singularity of the adventure, he took them down and, after binding them to the two ends of his walking-stick, touched them with a small twig by which he discovered that the sound was much improved. When he got home he fastened the staff to another piece of wood, which was hollow, and by the addition of a bow which was strung with part of his own beard he converted it into a complete instrument.[5] In succeeding ages the science received considerable improvements. After the addition of a bridge purer notes were extracted; and the different students, pursuing the bent of their inclinations, constructed instruments of various forms according to their individual fancies; and to this whimsical accident we are indebted for the tuneful _ney_, and the heart-exhilarating _rabáb_, and in short all the other instruments of wind and string.”