[Illustration: Nakkaras.

(From a Chinese original.)]

The privilege of employing the Nakkara in personal state was one granted by the sovereign as a high honour and reward.

The crusades naturalised the word in some form or other in most European languages, but in our own apparently with a transfer of meaning. For Wright defines Naker as "a cornet or horn of brass." And Chaucer's use seems to countenance this: -

"Pipes, Trompes, Nakeres, and Clariounes, That in the Bataille blowen blody sounes." - The Knight's Tale.

On the other hand, Nacchera, in Italian, seems always to have retained the meaning of kettle-drum, with the slight exception of a local application at Siena to a metal circle or triangle struck with a rod. The fact seems to be that there is a double origin, for the Arabic dictionaries not only have Nakkarah, but Nakir and Nakur, "cornu, tuba." The orchestra of Bibars Bundukdari, we are told, consisted of 40 pairs of kettle-drums, 4 drums, 4 hautbois, and 20 trumpets (Nakir). (Sir B. Frere; Della Valle, II. 21; Tod's Rajasthan, I. 328; Joinville, p. 83; N. et E. XIV. 129, and following note; Blochmann's Ain-i-Akbari, pp. 50-51; Ducange, by Haenschel, s.v.; Makrizi, I. 173.)

[Dozy (Supp. aux Dict. Arabes) has [Arabic] [naqqare] "petit tambour ou timbale, bassin de cuivre ou de terre recouvert d'une peau tendue," and "grosses timbales en cuivre portees sur un chameau ou un mulet." - Devic (Dict. Etym.) writes: "Bas Latin, nacara; bas grec, [Greek:

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