Before leaving the Orientals, we want to cross the bridge with you between the Orient (East) and the Occident (West). Sometimes we find the same customs and ways of doing things in places very far apart. Sometimes this likeness will appear in a religious ceremony, a dance or song, a piece of pottery, or in a musical instrument. To find these similarities makes one believe that at sometime in the world’s history, these people so far away from each other, must have been closely related. Such a likeness can be traced in the music of the ancient Chinese and the Aztecs of Mexico, and the Incas of Peru, some of which has been sung to us by Marguerite d’Alvarez, from Peru. The Peruvians played pipes and had music in the same rhythm as the sacred chants of the Chinese. The Mexicans had all kinds of drums, rattles, stones, gongs, bells and cymbals which resemble the Chinese instruments. On the other hand we read in Prescott’s _Conquest of Peru_ of a Sun Festival which recalls the Sun Dance of our own American Indian. The Inca or the ruler of Peru, his court and the entire population of the city met at dawn in June and with the first rays of the sun, thousands of wind instruments broke forth into “a majestic song of adoration” accompanied by thousands of shouting voices. From the kind of instruments that the Aztecs in Mexico used, we know that their music was more barbaric than that of the Peruvians. A curious combination of love for music and barbarism is shown in the custom they had of appointing each year a youth to act as the God of music, whose name _Tezcatlipoca_, he was given. He was presented with a beautiful bride and for the one year he lived like a prince in the greatest luxury. He learned to play the flute and whenever the people heard it, they fell down and worshipped him! But this wonderful life was not all it seemed, for at the end of the year the beautiful youth was offered as a living sacrifice to the blood-thirsty God of Music whom he was impersonating. CHAPTER VI The Arab Spreads Culture—The Gods Give Music to the Hindus Arabia is the southwestern peninsula of Asia and is bounded by the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. It was well situated to come in contact with the ancient nations of the world. This story of Arabia and its music will include all those peoples to whom the Arabs gave of their learning. Saracen, Mussulman, Mohammedan and Islamite are different names for the same people, but they are all Arabs, even though they are not Arabians living in Arabia. Arab music fills in the gaps between the ancient civilizations, the beginnings of early Christian music and the time of the Minnesingers and the Troubadours.