several of them pierced with holes like a chanter — in
harmony with each other, and inserted into an air-
tight bag ; the chanter when present being a separate
AND THE BAGPIPE. 207
entity. When the chanter-player was absent, the real
piper droned along pleasantly by himself. This
ancient form of Drone Pipe is still to be seen and
heard in Southern Italy, in Sicily, and in Greece ;
and nearly every summer our own country is visited
by one or more bands of strolling Italian pifferari^ as
these pipers are called. The photograph opposite is
one which I took in front of my own house. It shews
a characteristic group of these Italian performers,
and also shews their method of playing upon the
Zampogna. The chanter is in the hands of the
pompous-looking individual on the extreme left of the
picture, and next to him is the zampognatore, or
piper proper. Notice the enormous size of the
drones ; they are the largest that I have ever
seen, but in spite of this they gave forth low soft
music. The woman with the tambourine, and the
little rogue with the bird-cage, are unnecessary
accidentals.
I took a photograph of another group of Italian
pipers some weeks earlier than the one shewn here.
It was to complete a series of magic-lantern slides
which I was anxious to shew next evening at a
Bagpipe lecture. Being in a hurry, I sent the film
to be developed by my daughter, knowing that she
would do it quicker than the average photographer,
and set off hopefully on my afternoon's round.
When I got back in the evening, all impatient to
know the result, the first question I put was, " Has
Nelly done my pipers?"
"There is a note from Nelly: it has just come:
208 SOME REMINISCENCES
you can read it ! " said my wife. And what I read,
with sinking heart and falling face, was this —
'* Dear mother, — Break it gently to father. He has
drowned his pipers." I read no further, but turned
to the picture. The explanation of the phenomenon
flashed upon me in a moment. Taking sea-waves in
Tiree the week before, I had omitted to turn off the
last film, and there, in the midst of the angry waters,
with nothing but their heads shewing through the
salt sea-spray, the poor pifferari looked out at me
with reproachful eyes. Sure enough, I had drowned
my pipers. But to return to the Greek Bagpipe !
The chanter, which still remains divorced from the
drones, has a much wider range of notes now than
it had in days gone by. This is partly due to a
peculiar method the player has got of pinching the
reed with his lips when playing, and partly due to
the addition of extra notes ; and although it has very
little music of its own, and that little of a very ancient
order, the extended scale unfortunately lends itself to
all kinds of modern airs, which are accordingly played
upon it by these strolling players with great vigour,
to the inglorious accompaniment of tambourine,
triangle, cymbal, and drum, and to the utter disgust
of all genuine lovers of the Bagpipe. But as to the
thing itself — the SumpJionia ! — modern improvements
have passed it by, leaving it untouched and primitive
as when it was played upon before the golden image
set up by the great King Nebuchadnezzar, and when
at its call the princes and the mighty of the land
bowed down and worshipped.
Italian Pifkerari.
AND THE BAGPIPE. 2O9
As a good deal of misapprehension has arisen
over the meaning of the word Sumphonia — a mis-
apprehension which has acted prejudicially in the
past to the claims of the Bagpipe — a few words
of explanation may not be thought amiss at this
stage.
Sumphonia is first met with in Plato {h 429 B.C.),
where it means harmony, or symphony. For over
two hundred years it retained this meaning. The
harmony might be one of voices, or of instruments,
or of a combination of these two. But about the end
of the third, or beginning of the second century,
B.C., the word came to mean a specific musical
instrument — the Bagpipe ; it being the thing which
produced the harmony; and this latter meaning it
has ever since retained.
Polybius, who flourished exactly one hundred
years after Theocritus, is the first writer next to
Daniel to use the word in its new meaning. To
those classical scholars who did not recognise when
the change took place, or did not perceive that the
change was a permanent one, the word became a
stumbling-block, and so arose those misconceptions in
the Bible and elsewhere which have gathered round
Sumphonia. In this way Sumponyah in Daniel iii. 5
(which is just the Greek word for Bagpipe transcribed
into Aramaic) was translated dulcimer — a stringed
instrument. "To you it is commanded, O people,
nations, and languages, that at what time ye hear
the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery,
dulcimer'''' — i.e., Bagpipe — "and all kinds of music,
o
210 SOME REMINISCENCES
ye fall down and worship the golden image that
Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up."
There was some excuse for the old divines going
astray on this occasion, because when the Bible was
first translated, the Book of Daniel was supposed to
have been written in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar,
who ruled over Babylon some six hundred years
before the Christian era, and at that time if the
word Sumphonia existed at all, which is more than
doubtful, it did not mean a musical instrument, and
could not therefore be the Bagpipe.
But the context shewed those old divines that
a complex instrument of some sort was intended,
and taking the first meaning of the word, — a con-
cord of sounds — what instrument was more likely
to be meant than a many-stringed instrument like
the dulcimer, which gave to the sweep of the
fingers or to the tappings of the plectrum a har-
monious combination of sounds ?
It was a very good guess on the part of the old
translators, but it was nothing more than a guess,
and one which we, to-day, know to have been mis-
leading.
All classical scholars are now, however, agreed that
the Book of Daniel was not written for at least
three hundred years after the reign of Nebuchad-
nezzar, and this knowledge, which was not available
to the earlier critics, has cleared up many dark
problems in the book, including the true meaning
of the word Sumponyah. It is quite incomprehen-
sible to me why, under these circumstances, the
AND THE BAGPIPE. 211
translators of the revised Bible should have left the
word dulcimer in the text, and only timorously-
inserted *'or Bagpipe" in the margin.
Now, arguing from this word alone, and seeing
that it is a Greek word, which only came into use
some one hundred and fifty years after Nebuchad-
nezzar's time; and that it was first used by the
Greeks in the sense of Bagpipe about 170 B.C., I
am at one with those Biblical scholars who believe
the Book of Daniel to have been written — in part
at least during the reign of Antiochus (175-168 B.C.),
and, in corroboration of this view I would point
out that a large part of Daniel is devoted to an
account of the Syrian monarch and his doings, — he
is the "Little Horn" in the book — and it is in con-
nection with this same Antiochus, King of Syria, that
Polybius first mentions the Bagpipe. Polybius thus
divides the honour with Daniel of being one of the
two first writers to mention the "Pipes" in history,
and both give it the same title of Sumphonia, which
shews that the Jews were familiar with the Greek
Bagpipe in very early times. It is also more than
probable that Antiochus, who was a great propagator
of everything Greek, first introduced the Pipe into
Palestine.
Now this Antiochus was a grevious thorn in the
side of the Jewish nation, and there is no doubt that
he treated it badly on more than one occasion. The
Jews could only retaliate upon him by giving him a
bad character, which they accordingly did. In spite
of this bad character, which has stuck to him ever
212 SOME REMINISCENCES
since, the king was a strong man in many ways, and
a good ruler over his own people. He was also a
good soldier, and a man of refined tastes, and ener-
getic to his finger tips. He was, however, an
undoubted mischief-maker : a genius run to seed,
and his prototype is to be seen to-day in the person
of a very high and mighty European potentate
who is also a constant "thorn in the flesh" to his
neighbours.
Epiphanes, he called himself, or God manifest.
"Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of
the host " ; but his contemporaries called him Epi-
manes, or the madman, playin-g in Greek fashion
upon the word Epiphanes.
Now in reading Polybius, one is left in doubt as
to whether the Syrian monarch did not himself play
upon the Bagpipe, as well as keep pipers. The
Bagpipe which his piper proper played upon was a
Drone Pipe, exactly like the present Greek and
Calabrian Pipe, and a second player blew the chanter.
This much we learn from one passage, where we
are told that the king was in the habit of stealing out
at night with his pipers, and if he came upon a
band of young men enjoying themselves in a quiet
place, he would creep near them, unseen, and with a
sudden blast upon " the chanter and Bagpipe," so
startle them that they fled as if the devil were behind
them. Which latter statement also points to the
fact that the Bagpipe was of very recent introduction
into Syria, and but little known as yet among the
people.
AND THE BAGPIPE. 213
In another passage of his book, Polybius tells us
that Antiochus danced to the music of the *' Pipes."
Antiochus, you will perhaps remember, had esta-
blished games at Daphne, on a scale of unparalleled
magnificence, so as to eclipse the world-famed Roman
games held in Macedonia ; and on this occasion, the
ceremonies were opened by a procession headed by
the king in person, which took a whole day to pass a
fixed point, and which even to-day beggars descrip-
tion in its magnificence.
It w^as during this festival, which lasted thirty days,
and at one of the costly banquets given nightly by
the king, — and when men had well drunken — that the
incident about to be related occurred. I will give it
in the words of Polybius, as translated by Shuck-
burgh, who, clever scholar and great authority though
he be, misses the meaning of the Greek word Sum-
phonia.
"And when the festivities had gone on for a long
time, and a good many of the guests had departed,
the king was carried in by the mummers, completely
shrouded in a robe, and laid upon the ground as
though he were one of the actors. Then at the signal
given by the music" — i.e.^ by the Zu/x^Wa, or Bag-
pipe ! — "he leapt up, stripped, and began to dance
with the jesters, so that all the guests were scandalised
and retired. In fact, every one who attended the
festival, when they saw the extraordinary wealth dis-
played at it, the arrangements made in the processions
and games," — all conducted by the king in person —
"and the scale of splendour on which the whole was
214 SOME REMINISCENCES
managed, were struck with amazement and wonder
both at the king, and the greatness of his kingdom ;
but when they fixed their eyes on the man himself," —
stripped! — "and the contemptible conduct to which
he condescended, they could scarcely believe that so
much excellence and baseness could exist in one and
the same breast."
So much for Antiochus and his *' Pipes."
Mentioned once in the Old Testament, the Bagpipe
is also once mentioned in the New Testament. This
occurs in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Now
the Master always illustrated His object lessons from
the daily life around. His illustrations, which were
addressed to the poor and the illiterate, commended
themselves to the simplest intelligence, and were
forcible in proportion to their simplicity. The very
titles of these parables shew this. We have, for
example, the parable of the Sower and the Seed ; the
parable of the Lost Sheep ; of the Unjust Steward ; of
the Marriage Feast ; of the Prodigal Son. He spoke
of things which were familiar to His hearers: of things
which were being enacted daily under their very eyes;
and for this reason any inaccuracies would at once
be detected by His audience. When, therefore. He
introduces the Bagpipe and the chorus or dance as
the outward signs of the joy felt over the return of the
prodigal, we may take it that the Bagpipe and the
dance in conjunction were well known to the common
people among the Jews of Christ's time : a fact which
has been boldly denied by more than one writer.
Those responsible for the revised edition of the
AND THE BAGPIPE. 215
Bible, which I do not wonder has "fallen flat," have
here again failed — it seems to me — to do their duty.
They have translated the words, ^ ' tJKova-e crvfKpwvla^
Ktti x^P^^y' o**' ^s ^^^y ^^^^ *" ^^^ Latin, 'â– 'â– andivet
symphoniam et chorum,'' into the emasculate sen-
tence, "and he heard music and dancing," when it
should have been "and he heard the Bagpipe and
dancing." Not as a scholar — which I do not profess to
be — but as a lover of fairplay, and a Highlander who
has some regard for this old and "semi-barbarous"
instrument, I must enter my protest here, and assert
that the Bagpipe deserves better recognition in the
future from critics and translators than it has had
vouchsafed to it in the past.
It should no longer be entirely slurred over in the
New Testament, or marked only by a marginal refer-
ence in the Old ; and Greek scholars should recognise
by now, that Sumphonia in the pages of Polybius,
means a musical instrument, and only one musical
instrument, the Bagpipe.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE NATIVITY AND THE BAGPIPE.
TT is a curious and interesting fact, that tradition
associates piping with two of the greatest events
which ever happened in the world's history : the
Nativity and the Crucifixion. And it is more than
passing strange, that Christ Himself should supply
those, who like myself believe in the tradition of the
shepherds piping on Christmas morn, with a very
important link in the chain of evidence.
As I pointed out in last chapter, it has been
asserted that the Bagpipe was unknown to the Jews,
or at least that there was no evidence that it was
known, and that it could not therefore be the instru-
ment which these poor shepherds played upon.
Christ's reference to it in the parable of the Prodigal
settles the question for all time : it shews clearly, that
in His day the Bagpipe was well known to the pas-
toral peoples in Palestine, and further, that it was an
instrument of some repute, otherwise it would not be
found in the home of the rich and great.
Now, with regard to the traditions which have
gathered round the birth and the death of our Lord,
The Zampogna of Italy : the Old Simphonia of
THE Greeks.
Bought in Rome and presented to the Author by Mrs Aitkicn
of Gartcows, Falkirk.
AND THE BAGPIPE. 217
sacred and profane writers are at one in asserting that
strange and hitherto unheard of phenomena marked
these events.
The world, which was satiated with and heartily-
sick of its owm licentiousness, was expecting and
eagerly watching for the advent of a deliverer, and
the expected at length came to pass, but not in the
expected way. No earthly, no human pomp and
glory, found room for display in a cold rude
manger. The simple birth was a distinct disappoint-
ment to the Jews, with their love of phylacteries
and fondness of outward display. It was different,
however, with nature.
We read in the Gospel of St. James of strange hap-
penings which took place at the birth of Christ : of
how the world stood motionless in awe and wonder !
Of how the song of bird, and the lowing of calf,
and the bleat of lamb, was hushed ; and the chatter
of women was turned into silence. And there were
workmen lying on the earth with their hands in a
vessel and — to give the very words of St. James,
they are so extraordinary ! — " those who handled
did not handle it, and those who took did not lift,
and those who presented it to their mouth did not
present it, but the faces of all were looking up ; and
I saw the sheep scattered, and the shepherd lifted up
his hand to strike, and his hand remained up ; and
I looked at the stream of the river, and the mouths of
the kids were down and were not drinking ; and
everything which was being propelled forward was
intercepted in its course."
2l8 SOME REMINISCENCES
To the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem a
glimpse of the real glory of the event was shewn ;
wonderful sights were seen, and angel voices spoke
glad tidings. To these lonely midnight watchers,
guarding their flocks from the attack of wild beast,
or roaming thief, the hush and the darkness were
suddenly broken into. A great light shone round
about them, and out of the midst of it came a voice
like a trumpet call — the voice of the Herald Angel
proclaiming " Peace on earth, to men of goodwill."
Quickly these two phenomena came, and as quickly
they fled, and once more all was still on the
plains, but for the tumultuous beating of over-
joyous hearts, and once more all was darkness but
for the glorious light which shone within, never
more to be quenched.
As the great, the all-absorbing, truth dawned upon
these simple folk in all its radiancy, they felt their joy
too great to be "pondered in their hearts" ; it must
have some outward expression, and what better way
than Christ's way in the parable of the Prodigal
Son.
So, tuning up their Bagpipes, while the wondering
sheep gathered around, they gave vent to their
surcharged feelings in sweet strains of praise that
startled for the second time on that eventful night
the starry silence of the skies.
This beautiful tradition is still kept alive in the
Roman Catholic Church.
In Rome, or in any of the great cities in Italy,
it is the habit of the people to erect at Christmas time
AND THE BAGPIPE. 219
a grotto representing the manger in which Christ was
born. In it they place a live ox and a live ass,
while Mary is represented by a young woman with
a babv in her arms.
Some distance beyond is a green patch with
shepherds piping ; these pipers are always present ;
they represent the shepherds on the plains of
Bethlehem.
At Christmas time, too, the shepherds come down
in numbers from the hills to the towns, and there
they stand all day long playing before the little
shrines of the Virgin and her Child, which are to
be seen at the corners of the streets.
An Englishman once — with more money possibly
than sensibility — a well-groomed, pompous English-
man ! — said with a sneer to one of these humble
players, "Who are you playing to?" The shepherd
pointed to the shrine of the Virgin Mary. ** What ! "
said the Englishman, "do you think a grown-up
woman could enjoy such wretched music as yours ? "
"Ah!" said the poor man, " ?/ is to the child I
am playing ; children are easily pleased."
In my experience, nothing pleases the little ones
more than the Bagpipe.
I remember once coming home late for dinner. I
found the house quiet and deserted. The mother
had gone out with the children to some entertainment.
Nobody seemed to expect me, so, tired and worried, I
threw myself down before the fire to rest. At that
moment my eye fell on one of the many Bagpipes
which I keep lying about. " Ah ! " I thought, " now
220 SOME REMINISCENCES
for a tune ! it's the very thing I want. Fiat justitia^
mat ccelum. Should the heavens rain, I will have a
tune." So, taking up the Pipe, I soon played my-
self back into a comfortable state of mind. I had
scarcely laid the instrument down when a knock at the
door announced the nurse. " Please, sir, do you
want anything to eat?" "My sensations decidedly
tend that way," I said ; " but where have you been?
Where is everybody?" "Out, sir; I am left alone
with baby, and when she discovered that her mother
had gone out, and the rest of the children with her,
she got into a state of panic, and it has been the
cry with her ever since, ' Hold baby's hand, nuss !
Hold baby's hand ! ' But this is what I wanted to
tell you, sir. You had not been playing many
seconds, when she said to me, ' Let doe baby's hand,
nuss ! 'Oo can doe now ! Baby's doin' to seep ! '
and she did go to sleep while you were still
tuning up."
I could not resist the temptation of having a peep
into the nursery, and stole upstairs on tip-toe, and
there lay the little one — the lately, wide-eyed, terror-
stricken one — with a smile upon her lips, sound
asleep ; dreaming, perhaps, of the piper-shepherds
on the plains of Bethlehem : a little pink spot upon
her sweet cheek alone hinting at the late storm,
through which she had passed.
Children as a rule do love the Bagpipe, as I have
had innumerable opportunities of proving; but it may
be, as the poor Italian piper said, only " because they
are easily pleased."
CHAPTER XXVI.
AN OLD TRADITION.
"VTOW! if the world were awe-struck at the Nativity,
^^ it was thunder-stricken at the Crucifixion. "For
three hours," St. Matthew tells us, "there was dark-
ness over all the land." And when the weary spirit
of the Crucified One, with "a loud cry," passed into
the beyond, "behold the veil of the temple was rent
in twain from top to bottom ; and the earth did quake,
and the rocks rent ; and the graves were opened ; and
the sleepers awoke."
When the Jewish mob, filled with insensate passion,
cried aloud for the blood of our Lord, and its prayer
was granted, then did the Christian religion become
firmly established.
Then did the old gods, tottering, fall each from
his golden chair.
Then did the oracles become for ever dumb.
Then did the Pipe fall from the nerveless fingers
of the dying Pan.
There is a tradition, first mentioned by Plutarch,
who wrote a few years after our Lord's death, record-
ing strange happenings which he attributes to Pan's
222 SOME REMINISCENCES
death, but which are supposed really to have occurred
at the Crucifixion.
It would have given a too great prominence to the
small, and — from the heathen point of view — insig-
nificant body called Christians, to attribute any such
extraordinary events as then happened, to the death of
their leader : the heathen gods in such a case would
be altogether eclipsed by the new and as yet little
known God, Christ. And so Plutarch tells the story
in his own way, with a bias towards heathendom.
Can we blame him heavily for this : for being faith-
ful to the gods of his fathers, and to the religion
instilled into his mind by his parents from his youth
upwards? To understand the story which Plutarch
tells, you have to read between the lines, keeping St.
Matthew's narrative in view. The old order is pass-
ing away, and this is the heathen writer's descrip-
tion of an event in which he may be said to have
participated.
One day, — he tells us — a sailor who was steering his
ship through the narrow windings of the ^gean Sea,
heard a voice commanding him in imperious fashion,
to cry aloud when he arrived at a certain place,
" Pan, Great Pan, is dead ! "
An eerie message to deliver, and got in an eerie
way, but the unseen voice shall be obeyed ! This
brave mariner accordingly, when opposite Palodis,
which was the appointed place, stepped on to the
poop of his ship, and raising his voice, cried aloud,
in stentorian accents, "Pan, Great Pan, is dead!"
And while his cry still reverberated from shore to
AND THE BAGPIPE. 223
shore, and from rock to rock, there went up from
all nature a cry of deepest agony and distress.
'* And that dismal cry rose slowly,
And sank slowly through the air ;
Full of spirits melancholy
And eternity's despair !
And they heard the words it said —
Pan is dead— great Pan is dead —
Pan, Pan is dead."
The sorrow was real, and the cry of anguish was
the cry of a thousand breaking hearts. Pan was a
great favourite with man and beast. His music was
divine. To dance to it once was to dream of it for
ever. The woodland creatures well may mourn,
for now that Pan is dead, no longer will nymphs
and swains dance in the cool of the evening to the
piping of the great piper. No longer will the birds
of the air and the beasts of the field gather round
to listen to the god's sweet music. No more will
his merry strains be heard at feast or harvesting.
There is none to fill Pan's chair.
No wonder, then, if at such a time, sounds of
universal mourning fill the grove and echo through
the vale.
The sun heard the cry in high heaven, and fled
shuddering to its rest through lowering banks of
golden cloud ; the sea was troubled and turned to