The _Vina_ is an Æolian harp. The people of Amboyna have a different kind of Æolian instrument, which is thus described in the first account of D'Entrecasteaux's Voyage: "Being on the sea-shore, I heard some wind-instruments, the harmony of which, though sometimes very correct, was intermixed with discordant notes that were by no means unpleasing. These sounds, which were very musical, and formed fine cadences, seemed to come from such a distance, that I for some time imagined the natives were having a concert beyond the road-stead, near a myriameter {190} from the spot where I stood. My ear was greatly deceived respecting the distance, for I was not an hundred meters from the instrument. It was a bamboo at least twenty meters in height, which had been fixed in a vertical situation by the sea-side. I remarked between each knot a slit about three centimeters long by a centimeter and a half wide; these slits formed so many holes, which, when the wind introduced itself into them, gave agreeable and diversified sounds. As the knots of this long bamboo were very numerous, care had been takes to make holes in different directions, in order that, on whatever side the wind blew, it might always meet with some of them. I cannot convey a better idea of the sound of this instrument, than by comparing them to those of the Harmonica."--LABILLARDIERE. _Voyage in Search of La Perouse_. Nareda, the mythological offspring of _Saraswati_, patroness of music, is famed for his talents in that science. So great were they, that he became presumptuous; and, emulating the divine strains of _Krishna_, he was punished by having his _Vina_ placed in the paws of a bear, whence it emitted sounds far sweeter than the minstrelsy of the mortified musician. I have a picture of this joke, in which _Krishna_ is forcing his reluctant friend to attend to his rough-visaged rival, who is ridiculously touching the {191} chords of poor _Nareda's Vina_, accompanied by a brother bruin on the cymbals. Krishna passed several practical jokes on his humble and affectionate friend: He metamorphosed him once into a woman, at another time into a bear.--MOOR's _Hindu Pantheon_, p. 204. ----_The Sacrifice_ _That should, to men and gods, proclaim him Lord_ _And Sovereign Master of the vassal World._--VII. p. 71. The Raisoo Yug, or Feast of Rajahs, could only be performed by a monarch who had conquered all the other sovereigns of the world.--HALHED. _Note to the Life of Creeshna_. _Sole Rajah, the Omnipotent below._--VII. p. 71. No person has given so complete a sample of the absurdity of oriental titles as the Dutch traveller Struys, in his enumeration of "the proud and blasphemous titles of the King of Siam,--they will hardly bear sense," says the translator, in what he elsewhere calls, by a happy blunder, "the idiotism of our tongue."