The _La-pa_ is another trumpet with telescope slide, and is, one would suppose, the most modern of the three. It is the military trumpet, and it gives four notes, differently estimated by different writers. It is singularly like the ancient Roman Lituus, and I conceive it probable that the players were in advance of the procession, and that the return curve of the bell was made with the intent that the sounds or signals should be thrown backward for the better hearing by the hosts following. The itinerant knife-grinders are stated, by ancient privilege, to be accustomed to use the trumpet to proclaim their calling in the streets. [Illustration: _The La-pa._ _Fig. 45._] Of the drums used by the Chinese, little need be said; drums are much alike all the world over. The Chinese have them of great size, and as large as five feet in in diameter. They are highly ornamented. Various sizes are ordained to be used in the Confucian temple, each with some specially allotted service; thus one placed on the Moon Terrace is struck six times at the end of each verse, giving two beats in answer to three beats of the larger drum. So orderly is everything arranged and traditionally kept up. [Illustration: _Fig. 46._ _The Yü or Tiger._] There is one instrument—the _Yü_—so singular and original in character, that it is worth serious consideration whether it would not be well to introduce it into our orchestra, to further the Wagnerian development of the music of the future. We have great use in our day for triangles and cymbals, but they cannot reach the effect produced by the _Tiger_, a Chinese picture of which is here given. The animal is somewhat idealised, it must be admitted; almost as much so as permitted in a photograph. Mark the singularly fascinating expression of the face embodying pain, possibly torture; and then the reposeful attitude of the tail; the whole figure symbolising the two conditions under which music exists. In the musical scheme of the Chinese the normal state of the animal is quiescent, but its voice is indispensable to the winding up of the finale. You see that the _Tiger_ rests upon a resonant box, about three feet long and twenty inches or so wide; and it has on its back twenty-seven teeth, neither more nor less—an elaborate mystical engarnishment much resembling a saw. At the end of the grand Confucian Hymn performed in the presence of the Emperor and all his Court, attended by his feather-swinging dancers, the chief officer assigned to this service strikes the _Tiger_ on the head three times; three fateful knocks (thus let it be noticed anticipating Beethoven’s ominous device). Then with a vigorous swish he passes his stick three times along the projections on the _Tiger_’s back to announce the end of the strophe; three weird screeches are heard succeeding each other (to the great delight of Straussians) rapid as flashes of lightning, and in a hideous screech the scene ends. And,—the Emperor retires. CHAPTER XXIII.