stretched string by means of friction is one of great antiquity; so much so, indeed, that the question of origin becomes merely one of conjecture. True, the majority of writers look upon the bow as a development of the plectrum, but this is a theory that I must confess does not strike me as being satisfactorily probable. To paraphrase a popular expression, "fingers were made before plectra," the latter being an "improvement" on nature's contrivance. And I see no reasonable objection to the supposition that friction may have been used as a means of tone-production prior to the introduction of the plectrum.

The great dissimilarity between the producing of sound by plucking, and that by friction is such that I see no occasion to evolve one from the other and consider their introduction most probably coeval.

When we come to the direct percussion of a string, as in the dulcimer, piano, etc., we at once perceive a possible connection between the hammer of the one and the rod or bow of the other: the accidental colliding of the bow with the strings of its accompanying instrument would soon suggest experiments ending in the forming of dulcimer-like instruments.* But if we grant that the art of plucking a string had first advanced as far as the substitution of a plectrum for what Mace calls the "nibble end of the flesh," I fail to see how such an implement could suggest the friction of a string, as, if short enough for manipulation in its original use, it would not be long enough to excite the continuous vibrations characteristic of the bow.

* The bow is frequently used now as a means of percussion for certain effects.

I do not accept the theory of a long plectrum used for pizzicato purposes, as I consider, with Engel, that such an implement would have been unmanageably clumsy even for the primitive music of the ancients. Whenever I see a rod, as in the accompanying drawing of the Assyrian Trigonon, I maintain that its purpose was to excite frictional vibrations.

FIG. 2.

FIG. 3.

The method of performance readily suggests itself in this case as it will be seen that it would be quite possible and convenient for the player to pass his rod—probably a rough surfaced reed—between the strings. I do not think it could have been used for percussion as, in that case, it would surely have had some hammer like projection at its end; a salient feature hardly to be missed by the artist as were the less obtrusive details of the true bow in later ages.

We are all familiar with the oft repeated anecdote of Paganini's playing with a light reed-stem, and I remember having seen at Christmas festivities in country homesteads, the village fiddler playing a brisk old-time tune with the long stem of his clay pipe; also, quite recently, I read an account of an "artiste" in the States who charmed his enlightened audiences with his performances on the violin by using a variety of heterogeneous objects in lieu of the conventional bow, including a stick of sealing-wax and a candle!

Now I do not wish to prove that the implement held by the benign Assyrian in Fig. 2, is either of the last named articles, but merely to draw attention to the fact that friction-tone is producible without the aid of a "bow" proper.

The use of plain reed stems or other suitable rods for the production of continuous sounds would naturally soon give place to more elaborately constructed implements; although Rühlmann gives a drawing of a portion of the sculptured decorations that adorn the famous "Golden Porch" at Freiburg which represents a crwth and bow of the twelfth century, the bow being merely a straight rod ornamented at either end with a simple knob (Fig. 3).

He also gives a drawing of a violist of the fourteenth century, sculptured on the cathedral at Cologne, where the bow is even simpler in form. It is, however, impossible to judge how far the sculptor's imagination, or lack of observation, may have been responsible for these representations, so that they can hardly be taken as reliable evidence of the use of such primitive contrivances at so late a period.

ORIENTAL ORIGIN OF THE BOW—INDIAN, CHINESE AND OTHER EASTERN BOWED INSTRUMENTS.

FIG. 4.

In attempting to trace the use of the bow to its source we are obliged to content ourselves with the generalized statement that it is undoubtedly of oriental origin. Thus, that it had an origin is proved beyond "all possible, probable shadow of doubt."

But whether the first form of bowed instrument became extinct prehistorically, or whether it still survives, as some suppose, in the Ravanastron of India, is not easily determined.

My own personal belief in the extreme antiquity of the bow is such as almost to justify the quaint statement of Jean Jacques Rousseau that Adam played the viol in Paradise.

Of existing bowed instruments the Ravanastron (Fig. 4) most certainly seems to be the oldest, as its structure is more primitive than any other.

Concerning this instrument legend runs to the effect that it was invented by Ravana, who was king of Ceylon some 5,000 years prior to the Christian era. How far this is accurate is impossible to say, for the oldest names for the bow known to Sanskrit scholars only take us back 1,500 to 2,000 years. Of these names it is interesting to note that the Kôna was evidently no more than a "friction rod" as, judging from the early descriptions, it would appear to have been without hair. Whether the Gârikâ or Parivàdas approached more nearly to the modern idea of a bow I am unfortunately not in a position to state with any degree of certainty.

The Ravanastron was, like the violin in its earliest stages, played only by the inferior classes of India; a fact that, as Engel clearly points out, makes it seem highly improbable that it was a Mohammedan importation, despite some writers' assertions to that effect. Undoubtedly it was introduced with Buddhism, from India into China, where it became modified in unimportant details into the Ur-heen.

A curious point in connection with some oriental fiddles, such as the Ur-heen, Uh-Ch'in (Fig. 5), Koka, etc., is that the hair of the bow passes between the strings.

FIG. 5.	FIG. 6.

Whether this circumstance is at all confirmatory of the supposition that the rod of the Trigonon