Among the ancient Arabs poetry and song were closely related. The poet recited or chanted his own compositions in the evening mejlis, or more frequently at the public fairs and festivals, especially the national one held annually at Okatz. Here it was that the seven noble fragments still extant of their earliest literature were first read and applauded, and accounted worthy (if this part of the story be not fabulous) to be suspended, written in gold, in the Kaaba.
It is unfortunate that the Arabs, with all their wealth of language and literature, have no musical notation, so that we can only surmise what their ancient tunes may have been. Were the early war songs of Omar and Khalid sung in the same key as this modern war chant of the Gomussa tribe, as interpreted by Lady Ann Blunt?
And did Sinbad the sailor sing the same tune on his voyages down the Persian Gulf to India which now the Lingah boatmen lustily chant as they land the cargo from a British India steamer? Or was it like this sailors’ song on the Red Sea? To both of these questions the only answer is the unchangeableness of the Orient; and this puts the probability, at least, so far that the sailors of to-day could easily join in Sinbad’s chorus.
The people of Jauf, in Northern Arabia, are most famous for music at the present day, according to Burckhardt. They are especially adept at playing the _Rebaba_. This may well be considered the national instrument of music. It is all but universal in every part of the peninsula, and as well-known to all Arabs as the bag pipe is to the Scotch. I have heard the highland shepherd boys of Yemen play on a set of reed-pipes rudely fastened together with bits of leather thong. The drum _tabl_, is common among the town Arabs, and is used at their marriage and circumcision feasts; but all over the desert one only hears the rebaba. It is simplicity itself in its construction, when made by the Bedouins; the finer ornamental ones are from the cities. A box frame is made ready, a stick is thrust through, and in this they pierce an eye-hole for a single peg; a kidskin is then stretched upon the hollow box; the string is plucked from a mare’s tail, and setting under it a bent twig for the bridge, their music is ready.