The Chinese, long before Englishmen existed, found delight in the dynamical influences of great sounds. Their largest and most potent sources of music were bells and chimes, gongs and drums. These supplied them with that excitement which is afforded us by the masses of sound from our large orchestras and grand organs. We say that their music is nothing more than deafening noise. They say that our music is no music; it is bad noise. So it is only matter of choice how you shall be stimulated. It’s all the same,—opium or whisky: purely a racial question. Very early the Chinese attained great skill in the making of bells; and it may be that among these people the art of Bell Founding originated, and from the east extended over Europe. Bells are particularly associated with religious ceremonials in all countries, and have generally superstitious credentials. The Chinese frighten dragons with them; and the Christians exorcise devils with them. The Russians, who bridge the earth between Europe and China, are especially reverential to bells. The great bell at the Kremlin, Moscow—over 21ft. in height and 67ft. in circumference—is world famous, as we have known since we were boys. The inevitable _Ling Lun_ was ordered to cast twelve bells to correspond to the twelve _lüs_. Metal, the Chinese say, is one of the five elements, and necessarily has its place in music. The bell metal is composed of six parts of copper and one of tin. When melting, the alloy appears to be of an impure dark colour, soon changing into a yellowish white, which gradually passes to a greenish white, and when this last has become green the metal is ready for pouring into the mould. There is in the South Kensington Museum a large and very handsome bell from a Japanese Buddhist temple, which is a fine example of the colour desired. The bells have not clappers, but are struck with wooden mallets. Smaller bells, however, have clappers, and the little “_Fêng-ling_” or “wind-bells,” which hang at the eaves of houses and pagodas, are ingeniously contrived to secure effect, light silk ribbon streamers being attached to their clappers so that the softest breezes awakened the sweet sounds. The wind-bells were often hung in halls and corridors for sake of these effects. Bells of all sizes, from those weighing fifty tons down to the small ones which swing on the eaves of pagodas, used to be found all over China. Some are ornamented with characters, some with designs and symbols; some are round, some are square; and all are mainly used for religious purposes. At the door of each Buddhist temple a bell is seen which the believers on entering strike “to call the attention of the sleeping gods.”