76 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
voices
sing, " What are you goin' to wear ? " and the reply comes from the
deep bass voices, " I'se goin' to wear a standin' collar." Native
African chants are rarely heard in the compound, except sometimes as an
accompaniment of native dances.
At
all hours of the day, until the stir and buzz throughout the big
compound are hushed in the sleep of its thousands of inmates, the
rattling and humming and squeaking of imbilas and gubos, and various
other crude instruments of native fashioning, are to be heard, more or
less widespread. The "imbila" is the same as the maninba noted by Dr.
Livingstone in his travels in Africa. In the native villages it is made
by fixing strips of board across dry calabashes. By grading the size of
these gourds, different notes are produced when the overlaid strips are
struck by a drumstick with an elastic gum knob. In the compounds empty
dynamite boxes with tin cans fastened underneath the strips of wood
supply the lack of calabashes, and the striking knob is imitated by
twisting a piece of rag tightly round the end of a stick. The native
"gubo," as the Zulus call it, is an instrument also common throughout
South Africa. This is a bow of bamboo with a tightly stretched string.
The player holds the end of the bow against his parted lips with one
hand and strikes the tight string with a slip of split bamboo. A
peculiar effect is obtained in playing on this bow in the compound by
attaching a calabash to the back of the bow, and holding this
improvised sounding-board against the breast. These are the favorite
instruments, but there are others, like the bone whistles of the
Basutos, which are much cruder, and grate far more harshly on the ear
of listening white men.
That
the native African has an inborn fondness for music is signally shown
by its persistent pursuit in the compounds, even through refuse boxes
and bones. It may advance in time, with education, to high artistic
appreciation and accomplishment. Even at its present barbaric stage the
Kafir may be greatly moved by the art of a great singer, as was evident
when Madame Albani came to the diamond mines, for she never saw an
audience so passionately enraptured as the black men massed about her
within the walls of De Beers Compound.
