The Congoese are passably brave amongst themselves; crafty and confined in their views, they carry "knowledge of life" as far as it is required, and their ceremonious intercourse is remarkable and complicated. They have relapsed into the analphabetic state of their ancestors; they are great at eloquence; and, though without our poetical forms, they have a variety of songs upon all subjects and they improvise panegyrics in honour of chiefs and guests. Their dances have been copied in Europe. Without ever inventing the modes of the Greeks, which are still preserved by the Hindoos, they have an original music, dealing in harmony rather than in tune, and there are motives, of course all in the minor key, which might be utilized by advanced peoples; these sons of nature would especially supply material for that recitative which Verdi first made something better than a vehicle for dialogue. Hence the old missioners are divided in opinion; whilst some find the sound of the "little guitar," with strings of palm-thread and played with the thumbs of both hands, "very low, but not ungrateful," others speak of the "hellish harmony" of their neophytes' bands. The instrument alluded to is the nsambi or nchambi; four strings are attached to bent sticks springing from the box; it is the wambi of the Shekyanis (Du Chaillu, chap. xii), but the bridge, like that of our violin, gives it an evident superiority, and great care and labour are required in the maker. This form of the universal marimba is a sounding-board of light wood, measuring eight inches by five; some eight to eleven iron keys, flat strips of thin metal, pass over an upright bamboo bridge, fixed by thongs to the body, and rest at the further end upon a piece of skin which prevents "twanging." The tocador or performer brings out soft and pleasing tones with the sides of the thumbs and fingers. They have drums and the bell-like cymbals called chingufu: M. Valdez (ii. 221 et passim), writes "Clincufo," which he has taken from a misprint in Monteiro and Gamitto. The chingufu of East Africa is a hollow box performed upon with a drum-stick of caoutchouc. The pipes are wooden tubes with sundry holes and a bridge below the mouth-piece; they are played over edge like our flutes. The "hellish harmonies" mostly result from an improvised band, one strumming the guitar, another clapping the sticks, and the third beating the bell-shaped irons that act as castanets.