Yuen cheou sang koue.
Yu pao kı tê,
Hao Tıen ouang kı.
Yu tsin san hıen.
Duo sin yué y.

At private and ceremonial banquets, also, dancing to orchestral accompaniment is usual. Solo, in the province of Yunnan, the most southwestern division of China, supplies the musicians and dancers for the private orchestras and entertainments of mandarins throughout the Celestial empire. Then, too, the Chinese orchestra finds a place in theatrical representations. The songs to be heard in every Chinese city at eventide to the crude accompaniment of mandolins and guitars may attest a popular fondness for music, but the gongs continually sounding in the temples and innumerable tinkling bells upon the towers and pagodas can hardly be said to constitute music.

In Siam, Burmah, Cambodia, and Java the arts of music and dancing have always been held in high esteem. In Java the native dances are marked by gravity and harmony of movement. The average ambulant band in that country consists of six players, while the gamelags of native sovereigns like the sultan of Djokka or the emperor of Solo usually comprise a dozen. The Siamese have ballet performances of posturing and slow, deliberate dancing, most of which are pantomime plays with orchestral accompaniment, the story chanted by a kind of Greek chorus behind the scenes. The king of Cambodia maintains a large troupe of dancers, chosen among the most beautiful women in his realm, who preserve the tradition of the ancient dances of the land. The following air is a prelude to one of these Cambodian dances, sung by a female chorus with orchestral accompaniment:

Cambodian Dance.

[PNG] [[audio/mpeg]]

In both these countries, as in Annam and Burmah, it is not the orchestra that leads the dancers, but the dancers who are followed by the orchestra. And in nearly all cases these pantomimes are of an allegorical or mythological character. Similar performances, notably ‘devil dances,’ are given in lamaseries of Tibet, Mongolia, and Siberia in which the Buddhist monks, in costume and mask, represent gods, devils, mythological kings, and other traditional characters.

The airs of the sampan-men of the Hue River in Annam are often beautiful. In alternation with their wives they sing simple ballads full of poetry and grace as they float down stream at night. Peculiar are the orchestras of the blind, made up of poor families, some one member of which is sightless, who sing love-songs before the village tea-houses for a pittance.