The musical instruments are the moung or gong, struck with a mallet covered with leather; the panma-gyee, or large drum; the tseing or boundaw, is a collection of small drums, disposed within a frame in a circle. The size varies in every case. The player sits in the middle, and strikes them with his fingers. The me-goum or me-kyong, is a kind of guitar, played with the fingers. The sonng is a kind of harp. They have also a kind of violin, called te-yau, very disagreeable, with only two strings. The kyay-wyng is formed by a number of gongs, of different sizes, struck with small sticks, very pleasant of sound. There are also two or three kinds of wind-instruments, but very inferior in tone.
Malcom[187] remarks it as a curious fact, that the Burmese are totally ignorant of whistling.
In making fireworks, the Burmese display great ingenuity, and their delight is immense at a well-made rocket. Sangermano tells us,[188] that “when the great rockets are let off, if these fireworks ascend straight up into the air without bursting or running obliquely, the makers of them burst out into the wildest shouts and songs, and dance about with the most extravagant contortions, like real madmen.”
We will leave them shouting, and turn to the ancient history of the country.
CHAPTER VI.
Ancient history—Pegue—Character of the Burmese—Concluding reflections.
The ancient history of Burmah differs in one remarkable particular from that of almost every other Oriental nation. The historiographers, except where they have been led into speaking of Gaudama and his wondrous career, in effect, present a more coherent chronology than is offered by any other Eastern historians. The simple, almost ungarnished tale of their doings in the country, present self-evident proofs of its truthfulness. The reigns of the kings none of them exceed the limits of probability, and what is more, they are shorter than usual, which shows in every way that there was no desire to magnify the doings of their sovereigns. We find the kings of this early period doing just what the kings of the present dynasty have been doing, and there is no undue disguise of facts; though now and then (as in the narrative of the two blind princes of Sagaing) there is a dash of the marvellous; yet one cannot help wondering at the extraordinary simplicity that pervades the whole narrative given by the Burmese historians.
All that the Burmese know of their emigration from India, and of the founding and history of the ancient city of Tagoung, is to be found in the third volume of the Chronicles of the Kings of Ava. Here is an abstract of the tale.[189]