618 PINCKARD —EVLIA EFFENDI — MACKENZIE — BARROW. [Description of Scenery.] "THE ground rises at intervals to a considerable height, and stretching inwards to a considerable distance: at every interval or pause in the rise, there is a very gently ascending space or lawn, which is alternate with abrupt precipices to the summit of the whole, or at least as far as the eye could distinguish. This magnificent theatre of nature has all the decorations which the trees and animals of the country can afford it: groves of poplars in every shape vary the scene, and their intervals are enlivened with vast herds of elks and buffaloes, the former choosing the steeps and uplands and the latter preferring the plains. At this time the buffaloes were attended with their young ones, who were frisking about them, and it appeared that the elks would soon exhibit the same enlivening circumstance. The whole country displayed an exuberant verdure; the trees that bear a blossom were advancing fast to that delightful appearance, and the velvet rind of their branches reflecting the oblique rays of a rising or a setting sun, added a splendid gaiety to the scene, which no expressions of mine are qualified to describe. The east side of the river consists of a range of high land, covered with the white spruce and the soft birch, while the banks abound with the alder and the willow."-MACKENZIE. [Forms of Speech among the Greek "A GREEK woman who wants to enforce strenuously any thing she has advanced, says, May I live! May I preserve my sight! If she wants to make a falsehood pass current, a thing which happens occasionally in Greece as well as in all other countries, she changes the latter phrase, and expresses herself thus, May I lose my sight! Though the imprecation is generally uttered with a kind of hesitation which betrays some apprehension for the safety of the eyes.”—PouQUEVILLE, p. 131. [Effect of the Hot Winds.] "It was one of those hot winds, such as we had once before experienced on the banks of the Great Fish River. They happen most frequently upon the Karroo plains, where they are sometimes attended with tornadoes that are really dreadful. Waggons are overturned, men and horses thrown down, and the shrubs torn out of the ground. The dust and sand are whirled into the air in columns of several hundred feet in height, which at a distance look like the waterspouts, seen sometimes at sea; and with those they are equally, if possible, avoided, all that falls in their way being snatched up in their vortex. Sometimes dust and small pebbles are hurled into the air with the noise and violence of a sky-rocket. Rain and thunder generally succeed those heated winds, and gradually bring about a decrease of temperature to the common standard.” -BARROW. TOPHAM-COUNTESS OF NEWCASTLE- COWLEY-GASCOIGNE. 619 [Negligence of the English.] CAPTAIN TOPHAM mentions it (1775) as an instance of the negligence of the English, To dig and delve for new-found roots, where old might well suffice; To proyne the water bowes, to picke the mossy trees, that "the youth of seventeen is seen with (Oh how it pleased my fancy once) to kneel his hair dishevelled, in the dress of an infant."-Letters from Edinburgh, p. 341. [Use of Wine and Oil for Curing Wounds.] "HOME is he brought, and layd in sumptuous bed: Where many skilfull leaches him abide And softly gan embalme on everie side." [Imperiousness of Fashion.] "THERE is in this kingdom some foolish and unnecessary customs, which have been brought from foreign parts, which ought to be abolished. One is to dig holes in the ears to set pendants in, which puts the kingdom to a charge of pain, and also is a heavy burthen therein. The second is to pull up the hedges of the eyebrows by the roots, leaving none but a narrow and thin row, that the eyes can receive no shade therefrom. The third is, to peel the first skin off the face with oil of vitriol, that a new skin may come in the place, which is apt to shrivel the skin underneath.". COUNTESS OF NEWCASTLE. The Annual Parliament. [Forest-work Hangings.] COWLEY speaks of "a convenient brick house, with decent wainscot, and pretty forest-work hangings." [Gascoigne's Country Delight.] "To plant strange country fruits, to sow such seeds likewise, upon my knees, To griffe a pippin stock when sap begins to swell; But since the gains scarce quit the cost, Fancy, quoth he, farewell." GASCOIGNE. [Early Marriages.] "MANY giglets I have married seen, Ere they forsooth could reach eleventeen." WITHER. Weakness. [The Poem of Robin Conscience, or Conscionable Robin.] In the poem of Robin Conscience, or Conscionable Robin, "his Progress through Court, City, and Country, with his bad entertainment at each several place," &c. Edinburgh, 1683, reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, it appears that haberdashers sold hats when those verses were written, and that Paternoster Row was inhabited by mercers and silkmen. [Latimer on City Monopoly.] "YEA, and as I hear say, Aldermen now a days are become colliers. They be both woodmongers and makers of coals. I would wish he might eat nothing but coals for a while till he had amended it. There cannot a poor body buy a sack of coals but it must come through their hands."-LATIMER. [Tirante establishes a Military Watch at Constantinople.] WHEN Tirante undertakes the defence of Constantinople, he finds the city full of 620 SIR THOMAS CARLETON - LANGSDORFF-THEVENOT. thieves, in consequence of the war; and to prevent their depredations he establishes a military watch, and orders that half the houses in every street should place lights on the outside of their windows from close of day till midnight, and the other half from midnight till morning.-P. 1, c. 43, ff. 202. [Destruction of a great Vastil House of James Douglass.] "AFTER that I made a road in by Crawfurth Castle to the head of Clyde, where we sieged a great vastil house of James Douglass, which they held till the men and cattle | were all devoured with smoke and fire; and SO we returned to the Loughwood. At which place we remained very quietly, and in a manner in as civil order both for hunting and all pastime, as if we had been at home in our own houses."-1547. Account by SIR THOMAS CARLETON, in NICOLSON and BURN's Westmoreland and Cumberland, vol. 1, p. 55. [Low Entrances of all uncivilized Nations.] "Ir has always appeared to me extraordinary," says LANGSDORFF, "that in the habitations of all uncivilized nations the entrance should be so disproportionably low. In cold climates, inhabited by a pigmy race of men, a good reason may be assigned for it, that the smaller the opening the more easily can the cold be kept out; but it is incomprehensible how the custom can have become universal among the large and robust inhabitants of warm climates, who must find the inconvenience of it very sensibly." -Vol. 1, p. 127. guages; and, by universal consent, hath been appropriated to particularize the forbidden fruit. Abel, or, as the Hebrews soften it, avel (by a transmutation frequent in all languages of the letters b, f and v), signifies sorrow, mourning and woe. And it is exactly agreeable to the figurativeness of that language, to transfer the word to this fruit upon the aforesaid consideration. Our English-Saxon word evil seems to spring from the same source, and a doer of evil, for the same reason, is contracted into Devil. Malum to signify an apple, may possibly have been received into the Latin tongue from the like cause."-NICOLSON and BURN's Westmoreland, vol. 1, p. 309. [Chain-pump.] "In the lower deck they had a very convenient pump; it is an iron chain in form of a chaplet, that reaches down to the sink, having little pieces of leather about half as long as one's hand, and somewhat hollow, and fastened to it at every half foot's distance; this is turned by two handles, one on each side, and it is incredible how much water it will raise; insomuch, that if a ship were full, she might be emptied by such a pump in two hours."-THEVENOT. [Subterraneous Fires.] THE Continuator of Monstrellet says, that in 1477, "in some parts subterraneous fires broke forth, from the vehemence of which may God preserve us."-JOHNES's Monstrellet, vol. 11, p. 277. [Early Street Lighting in Paris.] "JULY 14, 1465. Proclamation was made in all the public places at Paris, that every candle burning before his dwelling during householder should keep a lanthorn and the night."-Continuation of MONstrellet, vol. 10, p. 389. FYNES MORYSON-HOARE-P. H. BRUCE. [The Image of the Virgin at Venice.] "I WOULD passe over the image of the Virgin Mary, painted a la Mosaica, that is, as if it were engraven, but that they attribute great miracles to it, so as weomen desirous to know the state of their absent friends, place a wax candle burning in the open aire before the image, and believe that if their friend be alive, it cannot be put out with any force of wind; but if he be dead, that the least breath of wind puts it out, or rather of itself it goes out and besides for that I would mention that those who are adjudged to death, offer waxe candles to this image, and as they passe by, fall prostrate to adore the same. To conclude, I would not omit mention thereof, because all shipps coming into the haven, use to salute this image, and that of Saint Marke, with peeces of ordinance, as well and more than the Duke. A merchant of Venice saved from shipwreke, by the light of a candle in a darke night, gave by his last will to this image, that his heirs for ever should find a waxe candle to burn before the same."-FYNES MORYSON. [Coracles and the Superstition grounded upon the Use of them.] "THE boats which they employ in fishing or in crossing the rivers are made of twigs, not oblong nor pointed, but almost, or rather triangular, covered both within and without with raw hides. When a salmon thrown into one of these boats strikes it hard with his tail, he often oversets it, and endangers both the vessel and its navigator. The fishermen, according to the custom of the country, in going to and from the rivers, carry these boats on their shoulders; on which occasion that famous dealer in fables, Bledhere, who lived a little before our time, thus mysteriously said: 'There is amongst us a people who, when they go out in search of prey, carry their horses on their backs to 621 prey, they leap upon their horses, and when it is taken, carry their horses home again upon their shoulders."-HOARE's Giraldus. [Influence of Superstition.] DURING the captivity of the Infante D. Fernando the plague raged at Fez, and the Moors asked of their prisoners what remedies they used in Christendom; when it was answered that they removed from the infected places, they laughed at them as fools. -Chronica do Infante Santo D. Fernando, cap. 27. Ir should be added, to characterize both superstitions, that these very prisoners carried about them written prayers and the names of Saints as amulets, and drew crosses upon their doors.—Ibid. [Millstone of Novogorod and St. Anthony.] "IN Novogorod they shew a great millstone, upon which they say St. Anthony performed his devotions from Rome to this place that he came down the Tiber into the Mediterranean, through the streights, over all the seas in his way to the Baltick, on this stone, and going up the Wologda, at last fixed his residence at Novogorod: after he came ashore, he agreed with some fishermen for the first draught of their net, which proved to be a large chest, containing the Saint's canonical robes, his books and money; with the money he built this monastery, where he ended his days, and his body still remains uncorrupted."-P. H. BRUCE. [Indian Superstition-Preservation of their dead Warriors.] those "THE people who dwell upon branches of the Oroonoko called Capuri and Macureo when their commanders die they use great lamentation, and when they think the place of plunder; in order to catch their the flesh of their bodies is putrefied, and 622 SIR WALTER RALEIGH — HERRERA — ABBOT. fallen from the bones, they take up the carcase again, and hang it in the cassqui's house that died, and deck his skull with feathers of all colours, and hang all his gold plates about the bones of his arms, thighs, and legs."-SIR WALTER RALEIGH, However this may be, the swallow having got some of his whiskers flew to Jedda, where she took also some of Eve's hair, and made in that way the first steps towards uniting them again. In recompense for what the swallow carried on as internuncio between Adam and Eve, she is allowed to nestle in the dwellings of men."-Quare? [Why the Swallow is the Friend of Man, and nestles in his Dwellings.] ADAM, when descending from Paradise to the earth, first put his foot on the Island of Serendib, and Eve descended at Jedda. Adam being alone, began to lament his fate in so piteous a manner, that the Cherubim, touched by his lamentations, complained to the AlmightyGod sent the swallow which came to Adam, and begged him to give her some hair of his whiskers. Some historians that Adan had neither beard nor whiskers in Paradise, and that it began to grow only after his having been driven from the presence of the Lord. Some say that it grew when he first saw Eve lying in labour. say [Travel to the Nigra Rupes by the Aid of Negromancy.] "CONCERNING those places which may be supposed to be near unto the Northern Pole, there hath in times past something been written, which for the particularity thereof might carry some shew of truth, if it be not thoroughly looked into. It is therefore by an old tradition delivered, and by some written also, that there was a Friar of Oxford who took on him to travel into those parts which are under the very Pole; which he did partly by negromancy, wherein he was much skilled, and partly again by taking advantage of the frozen times, by means whereof he might travel upon the ice even so as himself pleased. It is said of him that he was directly under the Pole, and that there he found a very huge and black rock, which is commonly called Nigra Rupes, and that the said rock being divers miles in circuit, is compassed round about with the sea; which sea being the breadth of some miles over, doth run out into the more large ocean by four several currents, which is as much as to say that a good pretty way distant from the Nigra Rupes there are four several lands of reasonable quantity, and being situated round about the rock, although with some good distance, are severed each from other by the sea running between them, and making them all four to be islands almost of equal bigness. But there is no certainty of this report, and therefore our best mathematicians in this latter age have omitted it."-ARCHBISHOP ABBOT's Brief Description of the World, p. 326. |