Allowing for any exaggeration as to chronology, natural to the lively imagination of Asiatics, there is no reason to doubt that the Chinese possessed long before our Christian era musical instruments to which they attribute a fabulously high antiquity. There is an ancient tradition, according to which they obtained their musical scale from a miraculous bird, called foung-hoang, which appears to have been a sort of phœnix. When Confucius, who lived about B.C. 500, happened to hear on a certain occasion some Chinese music, he became so greatly enraptured that he could not take any food for three months afterwards. The sounds which produced this effect were those of Kouei, the Orpheus of the Chinese, whose performance on the _king_--a kind of harmonicon constructed of slabs of sonorous stone--would draw wild animals around him and make them subservient to his will. As regards the invention of musical instruments the Chinese have other traditions. In one of these we are told that the origin of some of their most popular instruments dates from the period when China was under the dominion of heavenly spirits, called Ki. Another assigns the invention of several stringed instruments to the great Fohi who was the founder of the empire and who lived about B.C. 3000, which was long after the dominion of the Ki, or spirits. Again, another tradition holds that the most important instruments and systematic arrangements of sounds are an invention of Niuva, a supernatural female, who lived at the time of Fohi. [Illustration] According to their records, the Chinese possessed their much-esteemed _king_ 2200 years before our Christian era, and employed it for accompanying songs of praise. It was regarded as a sacred instrument. During religious observances at the solemn moment when the _king_ was sounded sticks of incense were burnt. It was likewise played before the emperor early in the morning when he awoke. The Chinese have long since constructed various kinds of the _king_, one of which is here engraved, by using different species of stones. Their most famous stone selected for this purpose is called _yu_. It is not only very sonorous but also beautiful in appearance. The _yu_ is found in mountain streams and crevices of rocks. The largest specimens found measure from two to three feet in diameter, but of this size examples rarely occur. The _yu_ is very hard and heavy. Some European mineralogists, to whom the missionaries transmitted specimens for examination, pronounce it to be a species of agate. It is found of different colours, and the Chinese appear to have preferred in different centuries particular colours for the _king_. The Chinese consider the _yu_ especially valuable for musical purposes, because it always retains exactly the same pitch. All other musical instruments, they say, are in this respect doubtful; but the tone of the _yu_ is neither influenced by cold nor heat, nor by humidity, nor dryness.