CHAPTER XIV.
The Mongols’ New Home.
THE MYTHICAL FINDING OF THE LÜS.
In considering questions of early origin and of direction of human intelligence, there is no point of more importance to bear in mind than the allowance of long periods for the operation of the process we are now accustomed to call evolution. When we have traced history to its utmost verge in the dim past, the civilization we come then in contact with, in those very ancient days gives evidence of many centuries—aye, even many tens of centuries—having been necessary for that growth of adaptations recognised as the outcome of human intelligence and industry in such communities. So, when I speak of origin, I am thinking of a time when systems were not; of conditions when devices were more the result of spontaneous impulse than deliberate invention.
China, certainly of all existing empires the most ancient, has records which extend almost unbroken back to a period of 2400 B.C., and then beyond that lies the haze of a remote past, where the light of tradition breaks through with no uncertain radiance, revealing points of distance far, far, away, telling of another 2000 years of the still immeasurable past of the “black-haired people” who settled along the banks of the Great Yellow River, and whose descendants in succeeding centuries spread over the valley of the still greater Yang-tse River, and pushing southward appropriated territory after territory, and who to-day outnumber every other nation on the face of the earth. A strange destiny! to increase, yet not to progress.
Many little digressions into the history and customs of the Chinese seem inevitable in attempting an enquiry into the origin and nature of the musical instruments and music of this singular people.
Of Chinese musical instruments none that are ancient exist, and yet the new are still the old, for so far as can be ascertained there has been no essential difference during the thousands of years of civilized life that they have been in national use, and in the authentic records which refer to them, they are described as already old, in periods that are mythical; the whole family of instruments seem to have been born at one date, without any order of precedence. The Chinese have no modern music. The music in use is only their earliest music reappearing from day to day in immemorial custom, and it is to them a completely satisfying survival.
Their system of music is the oldest system that has been placed on record, and for this reason alone it has a special interest.
In the chapters “At the Gates of the Past,” and “In the land of myth” I expressed very clearly the views at which I had arrived concerning the music of the Chinese and its affiliation to the music of the Greeks, stating my belief that in a far distant past both races were in contact with one source, and then came a day of disruption,—one race eastward, one race westward, each pursuing its own pathway. These two races to us have been known as Egyptians and Chinese. Greece deriving from Egypt, I traced the way therefrom across Arabia to the southern part of the great valley of the Euphrates, called Mesopotamia, Chaldæa, Elam, and further, to the Iranian mountains.