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AFRICAN MUSIC. 271 |
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with Jacob. Let us pray for those who still live, and pray for the soul just gone to doom. From vengeance and stern judgment, pray that his soul be delivered. How can the souls be delivered from tribulation? By long prayers. Pray, then, that he be sheltered by Father Abraham, that he may walk in safety by the side of Moses and the prophets, Amen, and Amen! "*
After the grave was closed, the major part of the mourners followed in the train of a musician, who was discoursing lively tunes on an oboe, and one of the priests, who had been mourning so vigorously, offered to show strangers over his cathedral for the consideration of one dollar.
A fitting contrast to this, is the musical ovation tendered to the British Army, after the conquest of King Theodore, April, 1868. The natives came in great numbers to sing praises. They chose for the subject of their psalm, the twenty-second chapter, of the second book of Samuel, (David's song), beginning:—" The Lord is my rock, and my fortress," and they sang it with David's own fervor; and, to make it quite realistic, in imitation of his dancing before the ark, the Abyssinian clergy brought out an imitation of an ark, five yards in length, one yard in breadth, and a foot in height. It was covered with a scarlet cloth, embroidered with gold, and above it was a representation of a mercy-seat of crimson silk, surmounted by a canopy of similar stuff; candlesticks, lavers, priests' robes, hyssops, communion
• Coomaasie and Magdala. by H. M. Stanley, p. 810 |
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