Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

animal is struck with terror; even the dogs of the hunters are seized with such dread, that they will fall on the ground and become immoveable till the cause is over."— Ibid.

All Souls' Day.

"Ir is a custom at Naples on All Souls' Day, to throw open the charnel houses, lighted up with torches, and decked out with all the flowery pageantry of May-day; crowds follow crowds through these vaults to behold the coffins, nay, the bodies of their friends and relations. The floors are divided into beds like a garden, and under these heaps of earth the corpses are laid in regular succession. The place is perfectly dry, for the soil is rather a pounded stone than earth, and parches up the flesh completely in a twelvemonth; when that period is elapsed the body is taken up, dressed in a religious habit and fixed like a statue in a niche many retain a horrid resemblance to what they were when animated, and some shew strong marks of agony in their distorted features."-SWINBURNE.

"Ir was customary at Salerno, till a provincial synod held in the 15th Century condemned and abolished the practice, on the eve of All Souls to provide a sumptuous entertainment and beds in every house, that the souls from purgatory might come, make merry, and afterwards take a nap. During the whole night, the house was abandoned by its inhabitants, and that family was looked upon as accursed by Heaven, on whose table the smallest remnant of victuals was to be seen the next morning when the proprietor returned. This dreaded event seldom, if ever befell them, for the expected feast drew together all the thieves in the country, who went from house to house, revelling without control, and carrying off what they had not time to consume, while the master of the house was on his knees in the cold church."-Ibid.

Pausanias Ghost-haunted.

"PAUSANIAS, in the heat of his lust, sent for Cleonice, a free-born virgin of Byzantium, with an intention to have enjoyed her; but when she came, out of a strange sort of jealousy and provocation, for which he could give no reason, stabbed her. This murder was attended with frightful visions, insomuch that his repose in the night was not only interrupted with the appearance of her shape, but still he thought he heard her uttering these lines:

To execution go, the gods are just, And rarely pardon murder join'd with lust.'

After this, the apparition still haunting him, he sailed to Psycopompeion, in Hereclea, and by propitiations, charms, and dirges, called up the ghost of the damsel; which, appearing before him, told him in few words that he should be free from all his affrights and molestations upon his return to Lacedæmon; where he was no sooner arrived but he died."-PLUTARCH. Concerning such whom God is slow to punish. Pausanias says, he went to Phigalea, to the Arcadian avocators of souls.

Effects of a Demigod's death. "DEMETRIUS related that about Britain there were many small and desolate islands, some of which were called the Isles of dæmons and demy gods; and that he himself, at the command of the emperor, sailed to the nearest of those places for curiosity sake, where he found few inhabitants, but that they were all esteemed by the Britons as sacred and divine. Not long after he was arrived there, he said, the air and the weather were very foul and tempestuous, and there followed a terrible storm of wind and thunder; which at length ceasing, he says, the inhabitants told him that one of the demons or demy-gods was deceased. For as a lamp, says he, while 'tis lighted, offends nobody with its scent, but when 'tis

extinguished it sends out such a scent as is nauseous to everybody; so these great souls, whilst they shine, are mild and gracious, without being troublesome to any body; but when they draw to an end, they cause great storms and tempests, and not seldom infect the air with contagious distempers. They say, farther, that Saturn is detained prisoner in one of those islands, where he keeps fast asleep in chains, and that he has several of those dæmons for his valets and attendants."-PLUTARCH. Why the Oracles cease.

War-engine.

"WHEN Archidamus the son of Agesilaus, beheld a dart to be shot from an engine, newly brought out of Sicily, he cried out, O Hercules! the valour of man is at an end.-Ibid.

Sleeping Naked.

"IN 1387, William of Wykeham visited the priory of Selborne. Among other complaints, he says, it has been evidently proved to him that some of the canons, living dissolutely after the flesh, and not after the spirit, sleep naked in their beds without their breeches and shirts,'' absque femoralibus et camisiis,' he enjoins that these culprits shall be punished by severe fasting, especially if they shall be found to be faulty a third time; and threatens the prior and sub-prior with suspension if they do not correct this enormity.

"The rule of not sleeping naked was enjoined the Knights Templars, who also were subject to the rules of St. Augustine." -GURTLERI, Hist. Templariorum.

"He also forbids them foppish ornaments, and the affectation of appearing like beaux with garments edged with costly furs, with fringed gloves, and silken girdles trimmed with gold and silver."-WHITE's Antiquities of Selborne.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

"WHILE We condemn the beech timber, we must not omit to praise the mast, which fats our swine and deer, and hath in some families even supported men with bread.' Chios endured a memorable siege by the benefit of this mast; and in some part of France they now grind the Buck2 in mills; it affords a sweet oil which the poor people eat most willingly. But there is yet another benefit which this tree presents us— that its very leaves, being gathered about the fall, and somewhat before they are frostbitten, afford the best and easiest mattresses in the world to lay under our quilts instead of straw; because, besides their tenderness and loose lying together, they continue sweet for seven or eight years long, before which time straw becomes musty and hard. They are thus used by divers persons of quality in Dauphiné; and in Switzerland I have sometimes lain on them to my great refreshment. So as of this tree it may properly be said—

[blocks in formation]

Jefr we Jame. "THE most celebrated work of Ali is intituled Jefr we Jame; it is written upon parchment in mysterious characters intermixed with figures, wherein are couched all the grand events that are to happen from the beginning of Muslemanism to the end of the world. This parchment is deposited in the hands of those of his family, and even to this time nobody has decyphered it in any sort of manner but Jaafer Sadek, for, as for the entire explication of it, that is reserved for the twelfth Imam, who is surnamed by way of excellence the Mohdi, or grand director."—OCKLEY, H. of

the Saracens."

www

Egyptian Almanack.

"THE Abbé Pluche, in his History of the Heavens, maintains, and I believe with reason, that the Egyptian grotesque figures, for example, a man with a dog's head, &c. were a sort of almanacks indicating the time of the increase of the Nile, &c. As the French have now in their almanack, opposite to every day in the year, a plant, an animal, or an instrument of husbandry, it would if engraved resemble not a little an Egyptian almanack. It is curious to observe how very ancient fashions and practices are revived."-MAC LAURIN. Lord Dreghorn.

Holidays originally humane.

"LINGET in his Annales Politiques, vol. 2, p. 180, after approving very much of the abolition of several holidays which had recently taken place (in 1770), maintains that no blame can attach to those who introduced a great number of holidays; their motive, he says, was humanity, not superstition; for at that time, the common people were serfs, 'adscripti glebæ,' whose labour was entirely for the benefit of the master, who gave them little more than bare maintenance. It certainly was, therefore, humane to diminish the number of working days at that time; but now that the common people

are free, it is necessary to increase them, as they have in general even by industry little enough to support themselves."—Ibid.

m

Seasons altered.

"IT is long since many, of whom I am one, have maintained, that the seasons are altered; that it is not so hot now in summer as when we were boys. Others laugh at this, and say that the supposed alteraselves, from our having become older and tion proceeds from an alteration in ourconsequently colder.

versation I had with my brewer, who is very "In 1783 or 1784, in the course of a conintelligent and eminent in his way, he maintained that an alteration had taken place. This observation he made from a variety of circumstances; the diminution of the number of swallows, the coldness that attends rain, the alteration in the hours of labour at the time of sowing barley, which a great many years ago was a work performed very early in the morning, on account of the intenseness of the heat after the sun had been up for some time. He added that for many years past he had found that the barley did not malt as formerly, and the period he fixed on was the year in which the earthquake at Lisbon happened.

"I was much surprised at this last observation, and did not pay much attention to it till last summer, when I happened to read Les Annales Politiques of Linguet, a very scarce book, which I was sure my brewer had never read; for there to my astonishment I found the very same opinion, with this additional fact, that in Champagne, where he was born, they have not been able since that earthquake to make the same wine. He says too that he has seen the title-deeds of several estates in Picardy, which proved that at that time they had a number of excellent vineyards, but that now no such crop can be reared there. He also attempts to account philosophically for that earthquake having such effects."-Ibid.

dato.

Murder of Fergus.1 "FERGUSIUS III. periit veneno ab uxore Alii scribunt, cum uxor sæpe exprobrasset ei matrimonii contemptum, et pellicum greges, neque quicquam profecisset, tandem noctu dormientem ab eâ strangulatum. Quæstione de morte ejus habitâ cum amicorum plurimi insimularentur, nec quisquam ne in gravissimis quidem tormentis quicquam fateretur, mulier alioqui ferox tot innoxiorum capitum miserta in medium processit; ac è superiore loco cædem à se fac tam confessa, ne ad ludibrium superesset, pectus cultro transfodit: quod ejus factum variè pro cujusque ingenio est acceptum, ac perinde sermonibus celebratum."-Bu

CHANAN.

tents.

Dog-ribbed Indian Woman.

"ON the 11th January (1772) as some of my companions were hunting, they saw the track of a strange snow-shoe, which they followed; and at a considerable distance came to a little hut, where they discovered a young woman sitting alone. As they found that she understood their language, they brought her with them to the On examination, she proved to be one of the Western Dog-ribbed Indians, who had been taken prisoner by the Athapuscow Indians, in the summer of 1770; and in the following summer, when the Indians that took her prisoner were near this part, she had eloped from them, with an intent to return to her own country; but the distance being so great, and having after she was taken prisoner been carried in a canoe the whole way, the turnings and windings of the rivers and lakes were so numerous that she forgot the track; so she built the hut in which we found her, to protect her from the weather during the winter, and here she had resided from the first setting

in of the fall.

"From her account of the moons past

See the "Wife of Fergus," a Mono-drama. Poems, p. 111.-J. W. W.

since her elopement, it appeared that she had been near seven months without seeing a human face; during all which time she had supported herself very well by snaring partridges, rabbits, and squirrels; she had also killed two or three beavers, and some porcupines. That she did not seem to have been in want is evident, as she had a small stock of provisions by her when she was discovered, and was in good health and condition; and I think one of the finest women, of a real Indian, that I have seen in any part of North America.

"The methods practised by this poor creature to procure a livelihood were truly admirable, and are great proofs that necessity is the real mother of invention. When the few deer sinews that she had an opportunity of taking with her were all expended in making snares and sewing her clothing, she had nothing to supply their place but the sinews of the rabbits' legs and feet; these she twisted together for that purpose with great dexterity and success. The rabbits, &c. which she caught in those snares not only furnished her with a comfortable subsistence, but of the skins she made a suit of neat and warm clothing for the winter. It is scarcely possible to conceive that a person in her forlorn situation could be so composed as to be capable of contriving or executing any thing that was not absolutely necessary to her existence; but there were sufficient proofs that she had extended her care much farther, as all her clothing, beside being calculated for real service, shewed great taste, and exhibited no little variety of ornament. The materials, though rude, were very curiously wrought, and so judiciously placed as to make the whole of her garb have a very pleasing, though rather romantic appearance.

"Her leisure hours from hunting had been employed in twisting the inner rind

or bark of willows into small lines, like net

twine, of which she had some hundred fathoms by her; with this she intended to make a fishing-net as soon as the spring advanced. It is of the inner bark of willows

twisted in this manner that the Dog-ribbed Indians make their fishing nets.

"Five or six inches of an iron hoop made into a knife, and the shank of an arrow-head of iron, which served her as an awl, were all the metals this poor woman had with her when she eloped; and with these implements she had made herself complete snowshoes, and several other useful articles.

"Her method of making a fire was equally singular and curious, having no other materials for that purpose than two hard sulphurous stones. These, by long friction and hard knocking produced a few sparks, which at length communicated to some touchwood; but as this method was attended with great trouble, and not always with success, she did not suffer her fire to go out all the winter.

"When the Athapuscow Indians took this woman prisoner, they, according to the universal custom of those savages, surprised her and her party in the night, and killed every soul in the tent except herself and three other young women. Among those whom they killed were her father, mother, and husband; her young child, four or five months old, she concealed in a bundle of clothing, and took with her undiscovered in the night; but when she arrived at the place where the Athapuscow Indians had left their wives, which was not far distant, they began to examine her bundle, and finding the child, one of the women took it from her, and killed it on the spot.

"This last piece of barbarity gave her such a disgust to those Indians, that notwithstanding the man who took care of her treated her in every respect as his wife, and was, she said, remarkably kind to and even fond of her; so far was she from being able to reconcile herself to any of the tribe that she rather chose to expose herself to misery and want than live in ease and affluence among persons who had so cruelly murdered her infant. The poor woman's relation of this shocking story, which she delivered in a very affecting manner, only excited laughter among the savages of my party.

a

"The singularity of the circumstance, the comeliness of her person and her approved accomplishments, occasioned strong contest between several of the Indians of my party who should have her for a wife; and the poor girl was actually won and lost at wrestling by near half a score different men the same evening. My guide, Matonabbee, who at that time had no less than seven wives, all women grown, besides a young girl of eleven or twelve years old, would have put in for the prize also, had not one of his wives made him ashamed of it, by telling him that he had already more wives than he could properly attend. This piece of satire, however true, proved fatal to the poor girl who dared to make so open a declaration; for the great man, Matonabbee, who would willingly have been thought equal to eight or ten men in every respect, took it as such an affront that he fell on her with both hands and feet, and bruised her to such a degree, that, after lingering some time she died."- HEARNE'S Journey to the Northern Ocean.

Trees, &c.

"THE trees are pine, larch, juniper, poplar, birch, and bush-willow, growing very high, and alder.

"Gooseberries spread along the ground like vines, the fruit most plentiful and best on the under branches, owing to the reflected heat from below, and the shelter. They thrive in stony and rocky ground, exposed to the sun. Cranberries. Heathberries grow close to the ground, a favourite food of many birds that migrate there in summer, particularly the grey goose.

"Dewater-berries best in swampy ground covered with moss. The plant is not very unlike the strawberry, but the leaves larger. Out of the centre of the plant shoots a single stalk, sometimes seven or eight inches high, and each plant only produces one berry, which at some distance resembles a strawberry; but not so conical. Some have three or four lobes, some nearly twenty. Currans

« НазадПродовжити »