pentatonic scale is employed. The violin stands first among musical
instruments in their estimation. They have also the guitar, the
flageolet, the aeolian flute, a bamboo in which holes are cut, which
produce musical sounds when acted upon by the wind, and both metallic
and wooden gongs.

They have no written system of common arithmetic, and are totally
unacquainted with its higher branches. Their numerals above one
thousand are borrowed from the Hindus, and their manner of counting is
the same as that of the Ainos of Yezo.

Their theory of medicine is derived from Arabia, and abounds in mystery
and superstition. They regard man as composed of four elements and four
essences, and assimilate his constitution and passions to the twelve
signs of the zodiac, the seven planets, etc., exaggerating the
mysterious sympathy between man and external nature. The successful
practice of the hakim or doctor must be based on the principle of
"preserving the balance of power" among the four elements, which is
chiefly effected by moderation in eating.

They know nothing of astronomy, except of some meagre ideas derived
through the Arabs from the Ptolemaic system, and Mr. Newbold, after
most painstaking research, failed to discover any regular treatise on
astronomy, though Arabic and Hindu tracts on interpretations of dreams,
horoscopes, spells, propitious and unpropitious moments, auguries,
talismans, love philters, medicinal magic and recipes for the
destruction of people at a distance, are numerous. They acknowledge the
solar year, but adopt the lunar, and reckon the months in three
different ways, dividing them, however, into weeks of seven days,
marking them by the return of the Mohammedan Sabbath. They suppose the