Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/411

 Each of the Korean musical instruments has a long history back of it. The komungo may be described as a long, narrow bass viol without any neck. It lies upon the floor, and the player plucks the strings with his right hand while he " fingers " them with his left hand near the " bridge." In other words, he reverses the method which we adopt and plucks where we would finger and fingers where we would bow. The result is not particularly edifying, but they have never learned, even during nearly seventeen hundred years, that they are playing at the wrong end of the instrument. This komungo dates from the days of ancient Silla, and history takes particular pains to describe its origin. The flute is commonly used in Korea, but it differs in shape from ours. If a Western flute were sawed in two through the mouth hole, it would approximate to the Korean instrument. It is held squarely against the mouth, the lower lip of the performer closing the open end of the tube while he blows down into the semicircular hole. Of all the Korean instruments this sounds most like our Western ones. The flute is also a very ancient instrument, for we read in history of a jade flute that formed one of the heirlooms of the Silla dynasty nearly two thousand years ago. The curious story is told of it that if carried to any other place than the town of Kyong-ju, the site of the ancient Silla, it would emit no sound whatever. Koreans firmly believe that it is still preserved among the archives of that southern town. The hageum, or violin, looks like a large croquet mallet with a short handle; moreover, the head is hollow. The strings, two in number, are stretched from the head to the end of the handle, where they are fastened to a spool-like peg. The hair of the bow is interlaced between the strings of the violin, and the fingering is done by throwing the thumb around the " handle " and then hooking- one or other of the fingers over the strings. The result is anything but edifying, and it is safe to say that this instrument must have existed many centuries to have taken the hold it has upon the affections of the Korean people. They have a species of zither,