Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1894 — MUSICAL GRASS. [ARTICLE]

MUSICAL GRASS.

Wonderful Effect* Produced by Cunning Fakirs in India. There yet remain certain corners of the earth where natural wonders of the exceptional sort await the inspection of the more adventurous and curiously inclined. One of these as yet generally unexplored' corners lies not far from the old temple caves of Bagli, in India. Here there is a lake in which is a small islet. Around the shores of the lake, and of the islet especially, is a dense growth of reed gruss. The forest surrounding both swarms with the deadly serpent tribes and other dangerous beasts of prey peculiar to the jungle. The islet itself is but a tiny one, and when "Viewed at a distance looks like a pyramidal basket of verdure, so overgrown is it w 7 ith the tall reeds. The only inhabitants of this isolated spot are the übiquitous monkeys, who rendezvous among a few mango trees that grow in the midst. This reed grass is seven or eight feet high and plumed at the top, the color effect of which is as of “a waving sea of black, yellow, blue, and especially of rose and green.” But the wonder does not become ‘apparent until the evening wind begins to blow. Then the gigantic reeds awake and begin to toss uneasily, and suddenly, in the general silence of the forest around, there is somewhere let loose a whole river of musical sound, first like that of an orchestra “tuning up,” and then a flood of harmony follows, and the whole island resounds as with the strains of hundreds of zEolian harps. It swells and deepens, filling the air with indescribable melody, now 7 sad and solemn as of some funeral march, now rising and trilling upon the air like the song of the nightingale, to die away into silence with a long-drawn sigh. Then again the sounds rise, clashing like hundreds of silver bells; then suddenly changing to the heart-rending howl of a wolf deprived of her young. A gay tarantelle follows; then comes the articulate sound of the human voice to the vague, majestic accords of a violoncello—and all this represented in every direction by hundreds of Responsive echoes. Let the wind but rise, the sounds pour and roll in unrestrainable, overwhelming energy—comparable to nothing but a storm in the open sea. You hear the wind tearing through the rigging, the swish and turmoil and thundering shock of the maddened waves. A lull, and the scene is changed to the dim-lit vault of a cathedral, throbbing to the long-drawn roll of organ notes, ending, perhaps, in the clangor of an alarm bell. And so it goes, until your ears ache and your head reels under the strain. On the opposite side of the lake you will see the fires of the superstitious natives, who congregate to bring offerings to the Indian god Pan and his hosts, who are held responsible for the sounds evoked. The cunning fakirs alone know better, but because of certain benefits that accrue to themselves from these reverential offerings, do not care to enlighten these bronze-faced devotees. The explanation is a very simple one. This reed grass is' hollow; it shelters a species of tiny beetle, and these tiny insects obligingly bore the holes in these innumerable pipes of the great god Pan. Then comes your fakir, and he, with his knowledge of acoustics—for the superior class of Hindu ascetics are deeply versed in natural laws—enlarges and shapes and finishes until each reed is a perfect lute, answering to a certain keynote in'the musical scale Tlx wind is the musician blows the pipes thus prepared with results as describ'd. Why the fakir should go to the trouble of atturiing the reeds is probably due to the habitual fostering of native superstitions by the Brahmins in control.—-[Pittsburgh Dispatch.