The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1896-01-02
THE NEGRoS SONG.


matted hut beside the Niger river q
white traveller lay tossing in the ago
nies of a tropical fever. Sometimes in
his delirium he murmured broken
fragments of Scottish songs -some-
times, as the pangs Of the fever mo-
mentarily abated, the sound of the
bagpipes seemed to ring in his ears,
and, reused to semi-consciousnes by
the sweet illusion, the sick man would
rise from his couch Of reeds and cry:
"Play the Blue Bells Of Scotland,
| piper-play the Blue Bells"
Then woman, dark of face, and
clad only in a blue cotton skirt, entered
the hut, Sitting down beside the in
valid she began to softly Groom song
Of wondrous melody. In the music of
that African song pathos, sympathy
and anxiety seemed to blend with hope
and confidence, while the sound, ever
soft and low, touched gently the ears OF
the sufferer, and soothed him to rest
and sleep, from which he awoke, weak,
but free from the fever's grasp,
That traveller, says the Chicago Globe,
was Mungo Park, In his memoirs he
says: 81 am firmly convinced that the
soft music of that negro woman's song
saved my life and gave me new strength
for my undertaking"
How or when the negro acquired his
love of music history cannot tell. He
rodotus tells of the sounding bows" Of
the Ethiopians-black bows whose
strings gave out melody sweeter than
the notes of Tyre or cithera, and which
were in great demand at festivals. In
Roman times the Mauritanian blacks
were noted for their musical skill, and
the chroniclers of the middle ages often
speak of the sable musicians who de-
lighted the lordly Saracens with their
talent. In the strange, mysterious
land of Africa the negro has little to
do and abundance wherewith to sup
port life. Doubtless, in the earlier ages,
he lounged about his hut day after day,
until at last from sheer ennui, he turned
to music as means of employing his
idle time. AS the centuries rolled on
the black became more and more
skilled in musical art until, when his
race first began to see the shores of
America, he was already avocal and in
strumental genius Of high merit.
But it was among the negro slaves
that the divine art reached its per-
fection. The poor African, torn from
his native land, and sent from ease and
idleness to hard work, under an exact
ing master, could not express his
thoughts in the ordinary language of
common conversation, but all the pa
thos, all the sorrow of his misfortunes
and his surroundings, acting upon his
sensitive and Romantic nature, COM
bined to produce type of song which
the world has never seen surpassed.
Perhaps wife or child would be sold
into seryitude, far away from the poor
slave who composed the song; perhaps
kindly master would pass beyond
deaths river; perhaps the slave himself
mo,,1d h. .o,t ;a+o , d;e+on+ eto+o
,,a,,o,. - -. =, saa tta bon,o r,l;oh b.d
become dear to him by countless ties,
but, whatever the cause, the negro
sea1saoha1r so s-noo+naso nnorra,ors 20 /,
80. ..a.;s,t ,ao;onat;o, ~ 49, "a
s..~a,.d,s,, 80 r III,
$3.50 r
~. eaeie W. seai' y i,sn' ''lu
I, "a pt'liie.e = ~ ~ 4 = III siase' =
.,ie esenils, ,, "len 'iie w., VIZ "ae o.ei' ~,
.iie uaiA ne "ou,u III, 'sasuaDlo sa , ~ ny ny
quateets anu "il.e slo losa'li ..ln On ,'iia
.,ie iloe eahe' siie S"eeS po'aVoeS anu
.iie eotn "oie Doins eooneu ~ pei1s
~ y - sNAlim = a ~ - ~
ulitt Vue DaiAJg 'ouit'eu - ~ anu ~ ~
uploaiioes ga ., cioi =. n,iisieu WIN 'iie
'A1-'-o " 'Aie U-e -"
FROM these festive occasions sprang
tne iuea q ncgro ,nlhsIreisy' Whicil m mas
since become SO uis'ofteu ViiaV not one
person III my horth Vi niasoil anu DIX
ons me mas any iuea ol real piantation
music OF OF tile real oepth ana richness
q those unique anu niavci,iess helooies' w
olnce ehe war sile legro has peen Tree,
put ne mas nov lorgoe'en ms music ana
ne anu ms aescenaahes, even those N
whose VEINS nngers nardiy q crop OF
negro piooo' s.iil sihg the songs taa1
once uei'siiveu young niassa anu rose
sadly around 'oio massas grave but
even among tne negroes tnere was