Of course, the quality of a Kaffir’s voice is not that which would please an European vocalist. Like all uncultivated songsters, the Kaffir delights in strong contrasts, now using a high falsetto, and now dropping suddenly into a gruff bass. It is a very remarkable fact that this method of managing the voice is tolerably universal throughout the world, and that the accomplished vocalist of Kaffirland, of China, of Japan, of Persia, and of Arabia, sings with exactly that falsetto voice, that nasal twang, and that abrupt transition from the highest to the lowest notes, which characterize our uneducated singers in rural districts. Put a Wiltshire laborer and a Chinese gentleman into different rooms, shut the doors so as to exclude the pronunciation of the words, ask them to sing one of their ordinary songs, and the hearer will scarcely be able to decide which room holds the English and which the Chinese vocalist. In the specimens of music which have been given, the reader will notice in several places the sudden rise or drop of a whole octave, and also the curiously jerking effect of many passages, both eminently characteristic of music as performed in country villages where modern art has not modified the voice. The musical instruments of the Kaffir are very few, and those of the most simple kind. One is the whistle that is often diverted from its normal duty as a mere whistle, to become a musical instrument, which, although it has no range of notes, can at all events make itself heard through any amount of vocal accompaniment. And, as a Kaffir thinks that a song is no song unless it is to be sung with the whole power of the lungs, so does he think that the whistle in question is a valuable instrument in his limited orchestra. There is, however, one musical instrument which is singularly soft and low in its tones, and yet which is in great favor with the Kaffir musicians. This is the instrument which is sometimes called a harp, sometimes a guitar, and sometimes a fiddle, and which has an equal right to either title, inasmuch as it has not the least resemblance to either of those instruments. For the sake of brevity, we shall take the first of these names, and call it a harp. At first sight, the spectator would probably take it for an ordinary bow, to which a gourd had been tied by way of ornament, and, indeed, I have known the instrument to be thus described in a catalogue.