Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

LETTERS FROM ASIA.

Extract from a series of letters, written by an American gentleman while in Asia, to his friend in Boston. The writer unfortunately died by the plague, on his passage from Alexandria, in Egypt, to Constantinople, in a Grecian vessel.

[Boston Patriot.
[No. 13.]]

The pleasing reflections arising from having perused Eastern tales, which had so often beguiled many of my leisure hours, causing the mind to dwell on scenes that can exist only in the imagination, almost led me to fancy that they would be realized in Asia. Those beautiful compositions often executed in our Theatres under the title of "Turkish Music," tending to strengthen the illusion.

The idea of wandering by moonlight among groves of orange and citron, the senses gratified by inhaling the fragrant perfume of the jessamine and myrtle, while listening to the "Moorish flute" and enchanting voice of some fair Circassian, often during my voyage, banished sleep at the silent hour of midnight. This pleasing dream, however, in a great measure vanished, on discovering that the Turks possess not the least knowledge of vocal music, and what little they knew of instrumental, consisting only in blowing through a copper trumpet, and beating on something composed of wood and sheepskin called a drum, in consequence of its bearing a stronger resemblance to that instrument, than to any other.

To describe the sounds would be impossible:—'tis absolutely necessary to hear them to form any thing like a correct idea of the impression they make on the imagination—something similar however, may be produced by tying several cats together by their tails, taking care to beat time in unison with their voices with a leather-headed drum stick on a board fence.

The music, if such it can be called, apparently gives great delight to the children, and lower order of society, who are seen running after the performers, boasting to each other of its superiority over that of the Europeans.

A Turkish lady who is in the habit of visiting in the family where I reside, fancies she performs remarkably well on the piano forte! Her method is to beat with both hands indiscriminately on any of the keys, and the more noise she makes, the finer she conceives the music. I have never had it in my power to witness this scene, as she is not permitted to enter the house until all the male part of the family are turned out of doors.

The musical instruments used by the Grecians, are the violin and guitar, with another made of the shell of a gourd strung with cat-gut. This, as well as the guitar, is touched with a quill instead of the fingers, and they are universally accompanied by the voice, excepting when used for dancing, at which time the violin is generally introduced. The effect produced by these instruments, combined with the shrill voices of the Greeks, tend merely to prove that the minds of some are as well gratified with discord, as others are with harmony.

It is certainly extraordinary, considering the proximity of Italy, where the science of music has attained its highest state of perfection, and the continual intercourse between the Italians and the inhabitants dwelling on the borders of the Levant seas, that their style should never have been introduced among the Grecians, Egyptians, or Turks: and that the music of all nations to the eastward of Italy, throughout the known world, with the exception of a few places in Europe, should so far vary from the general ideas conceived of harmony in sounds, as to create disgust, rather than pleasure.