great improbability, that any uncivilized people should, by accident,
arrive at this degree of perfection in the art of music, which, we
imagine, can only be attained by dint of study, and knowledge of the
system and theory upon which musical composition is founded. Such
miserable jargon as our country psalm-singers practise, which may be
justly deemed the lowest class of counterpoint, or singing in several
parts, cannot be acquired, in the coarse manner in which it is
performed in the churches, without considerable time and practice. It
is therefore scarcely credible, that a people, semi-barbarous, should
naturally arrive at any perfection in that art, which it is much
doubted, whether the Greeks and Romans, with all their refinements in
music, ever attained, and which the Chinese, who have been longer
civilized than any people on the globe, have not yet found out.

If Captain Burney (who, by the testimony of his father, perhaps the
greatest musical theorist of this or any other age, was able to have
done it) had written down, in European notes, the concords that these
people sing; and if these concords had been such as European ears
could tolerate, there would have been no longer doubt of the fact;
but, as it is, it would, in my opinion, be a rash judgment to venture
to affirm, that they did or did not understand counterpoint; and
therefore I fear that this curious matter must be considered as still
remaining undecided.

[11] An amusement somewhat similar to this, at Otaheite, has been elsewhere
described.