Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/232

128 skin, and being braced on their sides like a drum, were probably the instrument called the tabor, or tabret, beat upon by the hands, coupled in earliest ages with the harp, and preserved still in Abyssinia, though its companion, the last-mentioned instrument, is no longer known there.

three following pannels were painted, in fresco, three harps, which merited the utmost attention, whether we consider the elegance of these instruments in their form, and the detail of their parts as they are here clearly expressed, or confine ourselves to the reflection that necessarily follows, to how great perfection music must have arrived, before an artist could have produced so complete an instrument as either of these.

the first harp seemed to be the most perfect, and least spoiled, I immediately attached myself to this, and desired my clerk to take upon him the charge of the second. In this way, by sketching exactly, and loosely, I hoped to have made myself master of all the paintings in that cave, perhaps to have extended my researches to others, though, in the sequel, I found myself miserably deceived.

first drawing was that of a man playing upon a harp; he was standing, and the instrument being broad, and flat at the base, probably for that purpose, supported itself easily with a very little inclination upon his arm; his head is close shaved, his eye-brows black, without beard or