The _fang-hsiang_ was a kind of wood-harmonicon. It contained sixteen wooden slabs of an oblong square shape, suspended in a wooden frame elegantly decorated. The slabs were arranged in two tiers, one above the other, and were all of equal length and breadth but differed in thickness. The _ch’un-tu_ consisted of twelve slips of bamboo, and was used for beating time and for rhythmical purposes. The slips being banded together at one end could be expanded somewhat like a fan. The Chinese state that they used the _ch’un-tu_ for writing upon before they invented paper. The _yü_, likewise an ancient Chinese instrument of percussion and still in use, is made of wood in the shape of a crouching tiger. It is hollow, and along its back are about twenty small pieces of metal, pointed, and in appearance not unlike the teeth of a saw. The performer strikes them with a sort of plectrum resembling a brush, or with a small stick called _chên_. Occasionally the _yü_ is made with pieces of metal shaped like reeds. The ancient _yü_ was constructed with only six tones which were attuned thus――_f_, _g_, _a_, _c_, _d_, _f_. The instrument appears to have deteriorated in the course of time; for, although it has gradually acquired as many as twenty-seven pieces of metal, it evidently serves at the present day more for the production of rhythmical noise than for the execution of any melody. The modern _yü_ is made of a species of wood called _k’iu_ or _ch’iu_; and the tiger rests generally on a hollow wooden pedestal about three feet six inches long, which serves as a sound-board. The _chu_, likewise an instrument of percussion, was made of the wood of a tree called _ch’iu-mu_, the stem of which resembles that of the pine and whose foliage is much like that of the cypress. It was constructed of boards about three-quarters of an inch in thickness. In the middle of one of the sides was an aperture into which the hand was passed for the purpose of holding the handle of a wooden hammer, the end of which entered into a hole situated in the bottom of the _chu_. The handle was kept in its place by means of a wooden pin, on which it moved right and left when the instrument was struck with a hammer. The Chinese ascribe to the _chu_ a very high antiquity, as they almost invariably do with any of their inventions when the date of its origin is unknown to them. The _po-fu_ was a drum, about one foot four inches in length, and seven inches in diameter. It had a parchment at each end, which was prepared in a peculiar way by being boiled in water. The _po-fu_ used to be partly filled with a preparation made from the husk of rice, in order to mellow the sound. The Chinese name for the drum is _ku_.