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He was a great lover of entertainments; at his tavern marriages

and christenings were celebrated; every Sunday he had musicians

come from the village, including a bass viol and bagpipes.

He was familiar with music and was himself famous for his musical

talent; with the dulcimer, his national instrument, he had once

wandered from estate to estate and amazed his hearers by his

playing and his songs, for he sang well and with a trained voice.

Though a Jew, he had a fairly good Polish pronunciation, and was

particularly fond of the national songs, of which he had brought

back a multitude from each trip over the Niemen, kolomyjkas70

from Halicz and mazurkas from Warsaw. A report, I do not know how

well founded, was current throughout the district, that he was

the first to bring from abroad and make popular in that time and

place the song which is to-day famous all over the world, and

which was first played in the Ausonian land to Italians by the

trumpets of the Polish legions.71 The talent of song pays well in

Lithuania; it gains people's affection and makes one famous and

rich.