stage of mind at which the Chinese stay—checked, undeveloped. The development of the mind of the child life that is growing around our feet we watch with never-failing interest, well knowing that childish things will be put away, and its illusionary world will fade and be as a world of dream. Yet the future of the Chinese we cannot so interpret by any signs of the present outlook, nor imagine how many centuries must pass before their minds can be fitted to work in parallel grades with European thought and culture. CHAPTER XXIV. Evolution of the Lyre, Harp, and Lute. THE BOW WITH THE BOAT. Art is always the superfluous. Food and shelter are the first necessaries, they drive man into direct courses of activity; he becomes a fruit gatherer, a hunter in forests, a hut builder, or cave dweller; his intelligence prompts him to the making of bows and to using of arrows, and this is an advance in mechanical perception; beyond the mere force of darts or spears in this new aid to his strength. After his chief wants are satisfied he has leisure, and his instinct, after rest, is towards activity of some kind, and what he does then is pass-time. To please himself, that is the object of his exertion, willingly he undergoes much to this end. The man who first fixed a second string to his bow began the art of making stringed instruments of music. In the chase this second string is of no use to him. He put it there solely for his pleasure. Many a morn preparing his bow for the chase, many an eve, ere setting it aside unstrung, he has “heard the tense string murmur,” has listened and the sound has pleased him; it is the voice of the string; a chance wish comes into his quiet mood, and from desire to gain another sound, he adds another string to please him more. The beginning of a lyre is in the bow; but something beyond is needed for the endurance of the sounds, and the aid required is found in the boat allied with the bow. When the hunter came down from the mountains and the dark forests, into the vast fertile valleys of the great rivers, he naturally turned his industry to cultivation of the land, and here, amongst the water-courses set himself to the task of constructing boats, that he might go hither and thither. Perhaps the bark of old fallen trees prompted his first ventures, or as native races do at this day, he made a boat of papyrus stems, plaiting them together; the flowering ends of the stalks closely gathered up, naturally curved forming the prow, and in this way, leaving the after portions to be spread out, filled in between a floor of reeds in such a fashion as would produce a floating raft, or a carrying vessel capable of bearing him and the produce he would convey upon the waters. Singularly enough this simple craft presents an appearance that may have furnished the idea of a prow. The prow is so persistent a feature in the build of ancient vessels, that possibly its ornamental retainment maybe due to the early rudimentary possession.