BANJO, a musical instrument with strings plucked by fingers or plectrum, popular among the American negroes and introduced by them into Europe. The word is either a corruption of "bandore" or "pandura" (q.v.), an instrument of the guitar type, or is derived from "bania," the name of a similar primitive Sene gambian instrument. The banjo consists of a body composed of a single piece of vellum stretched like a drum-head over a wooden or metal hoop. Attached to the body, which has no back, is a long neck, terminating in a flat head acting as a peg-box and bent back slightly. There are five, six or nine strings to the banjo, which are fastened to a tail-piece, as in the violin, pass over a low bridge on the body, and are strained over the nut or ridge at the end of the neck, where they are threaded through holes and wound round the tuning-pegs fixed in the back of the head in oriental fashion, as in the lute (q.v.). The strings are stopped by the pressure of the fingers against the finger-board which lies over the front of the neck. The vibrating length of the strings from bridge to nut is 24in. for all except the highest in pitch, known as the "chante relle," "melody" or "thumb string," which is only i6in. long, and whose tuning peg is inserted half-way up the neck. The tone of the banjo is louder and harder than that of the guitar.