Next, the Croats have a rude kind of flute possessed of the same Romance name _Fluta_, the Wallachian Flaute, the Italian Flauto; and lastly, the favourite instrument of all—the _Tamburica_, a simple form of lute with a straight neck and oval body, and four strings, or rather wires. Its name seems connected with the Persian drum or Tambûr; though in form, but for its extra chord, it is almost an exact reproduction of the three-stringed lute, the Nefer, which Thoth, their Mercury, is said to have given to the Egyptians, which dates back at least to the time when the Second Pyramid was built, which was handed on by the Egyptians to the Phœnicians and Greeks, who knew it as Nafra and Pandoura, under which name they gave it to the Romans.[152] Among the Latin peoples of the West, at least, it never died out, and though at times changing its form it has given the Italians their Pandora, the French their Mandore, the Spaniards their Bandurria and Bandole,[153] and even to us our Bandoline and—horresco referens!—the Banjo. Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s description of the Egyptian Nefer will almost answer to describe the Croatian Tamburitza of to-day. It had, he tells us, ‘a long flat neck and hollow oval body, either wholly of wood or covered with parchment, having the upper surface perforated with holes to allow the sound to escape. Over this body and the whole length of the handle were stretched three strings of cat-gut, secured at the upper extremity either by the same number of pegs or by passing through a hole in the handle.’ [Illustration: Outlines of Croatian Musical Instruments. 1, 2. Fistjela, or whistles. 3, 4. Svirala. 5, 6, 7. Tamburica. 8, 9. Fluta.] It would be easy to show that the conical-shaped baskets, the _Corpa_, which the Croat countryman on p. 4 has in his hand, is as like the Roman _Corbis_ in form as it is in name, and may claim sisterhood with the _Corbella_ of the Campanian peasant of to-day. Some even of the windows of Agram have a Roman air, for in several upper-storeys and outhouses, to save glass, they are provided with a heavy unglazed plate tracery of an angular kind, which is an exact reproduction of the Roman tracery, to be seen, for example, in the Amphitheatre of Pola in Istria. [Illustration: Outline of Tracery.]