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He had painted gourds filled with pebbles that rattled when they

were shaken; the long clarin of the Mexicans, into which the

performer does not blow, but through which he inhales the air;

the harsh ture of the Amazon tribes, that is sounded by the

sentinels who sit all day long in high trees, and can be heard,

it is said, at a distance of three leagues; the teponaztli, that

has two vibrating tongues of wood and is beaten with sticks that

are smeared with an elastic gum obtained from the milky juice of

plants; the yotl-bells of the Aztecs, that are hung in clusters

like grapes; and a huge cylindrical drum, covered with the skins

of great serpents, like the one that Bernal Diaz saw when he went

with Cortes into the Mexican temple, and of whose doleful sound

he has left us so vivid a description.