Now, there can be little doubt but that the simplest form of stringed instrument (played with a bow) was conceived from the idea of a stretched string fixed at two _points_, vibration being excited by means of a jagged stick. The earliest known instrument of this species, according to M. Fétis (a great historical writer on the subject) is the ravanastron, stated to have been invented by an ancient King of Ceylon, called Ravana, some five or six thousand years ago. It consisted of a cylinder of sycamore wood, hollowed out from one end to the other. “This cylinder is about 4⅜ inches long, and has a diameter of 2 inches. Over one end is stretched a piece of boa skin, with large scales, which forms the belly or sound-board. The cylinder is crossed from side to side—at one-third of its length, next the sound-board—by a rod or shank of deal, which serves as a neck, of the length of 22 inches, rounded on its under part, but flat on the top, and slightly inclined backwards. The head of this neck is pierced with two holes for the pegs, half an inch in diameter; not in the side, but in the plane of the sound-board. Two large pegs, 4 inches in length, shaped hexagonally at the top, and rounded at the ends which go into the holes, serve to tighten two strings made of the intestines of the gazelle, which are fixed to a strap of serpent skin attached to the lower extremity of the rod or shank. A little bridge ¾ of an inch long, cut sloping on the top, but flat on the part which rests on the sound-board, and worked out rectangularly in this part, so as to form two separate feet, supports the strings. As to the bow, it is formed of a small bamboo, of which the upper portion is slightly curved, and the lower (nearly) straight. A hole is made in the head of the bow, at the first knot, for fixing a hank of hair, which is strained and fixed at the other end, by binding a very flexible rush string twenty times round it.” Such is this most primitive bow instrument, slight modifications of which still exist in Eastern countries. The Chinese and Japanese fiddles one often sees now in music-shops are not at all unlike the ancient ravanastron. That India appears to have given birth to bow instruments, and to have made them known to other parts of Asia, Egypt and afterwards to Europe, no conjecture is needed, for the instruments themselves exist, and still preserve the characteristics of their native originality. We will now pass over a few thousand years during which time stringed instruments of great variety and of every conceivable shape had been invented and improved upon in different countries of the world, their gradual development (brought about, no doubt, more by circumstances existing at various periods than by any real aim towards artistic achievement) giving birth to the various families of stringed instruments in use at the present day, e.g., the violin family, the harp, guitar, mandoline and pianoforte. * * * * * * * *