Part 5

“In the year 1799, a portion of an ice-bank, near the mouth of the river Lena in the north of Siberia, having fallen down, a Tungusian fisherman perceived a strange shapeless mass projecting from the remaining cliff of ice, but at a height far beyond his reach. The next year it was a little more exposed, by the dissolving of the ice; and in the end of the summer of 1801 he could distinctly see that it was the frozen carcase of some enormous animal. He continued to watch it till the year 1804, when the ice having melted earlier and to a greater degree than usual, the carcase became entirely disengaged, and fell down from the ice-cliff on an accessible part of the shore. The fisherman carried away both the tusks, and so well had the ice preserved the ivory, that he sold them for fifty rubles. This circumstance having come to the knowledge of Mr. Adams in 1806, he travelled to the spot to examine the animal, but he found the body greatly mutilated; much of the flesh had been taken away by the natives to feed their dogs, and one of the fore legs had been carried off, probably by the white bears. The rest of the skeleton was entire; the head was uninjured, even the pupil of the eye was still distinguishable; and the ears were well covered with bristly hair. A large quantity of the skin remained, which was extremely thick and heavy; and there was a long black mane on the neck, the stiff bristles of which were more than a foot in length.

“About thirty pounds weight of reddish brown bristly hair was collected in the mud, into which it had been trampled by the bears while devouring the carcase, as well as a quantity of coarse wool of the same colour. The wool was evidently the same kind of covering that lies next the skin of all the inhabitants of cold climates; and this very interesting fact proves that the fossil elephants of Siberia were residents of that country, and that they belonged to a race which no longer exists, which was fitted by nature for a rigorous climate, and which could not have endured the sultry regions where those animals are at present found, and where their skin is nearly bare.”

My uncle added that it was impossible to conjecture at what period this elephant had been buried in the ice, but that it was evident he had been frozen at the moment of his death, which sufficiently accounts for the preservation of the flesh. In cold countries it is common to preserve meat through the longest winter by freezing it; and all kinds of provisions are sent at that season from the most remote of the northern provinces, to St. Petersburgh.

Gmelin, a German traveller, tried how deep the ground had been thawed by the heat of a whole summer at Jakutsk, in 62° north latitude: he found it soft to the depth of two feet and a half; there it became harder; and at half a foot lower, it scarcely yielded to the spade. The inhabitants of that place keep their provisions continually frozen in caves which are only six feet below the surface.

_30th, Sunday._--I asked my uncle to-day to explain to me the nature of those three feasts at which all the Israelites were enjoined to attend in the course of the year; the feast of Unleavened Bread; the feast of Weeks; and the feast of Tabernacles[3].

“Feasts,” he replied, “were appointed to commemorate those great events with which the existence of the Israelites, as a separate people, was identified; they also afforded opportunities of giving general instruction, of expounding the law, and of keeping up a useful connexion between the distant tribes, by meeting each other at stated times in the holy city. The first and most ancient of feasts, you know, was the Sabbath, a day of general rest, in memory of the creation; and there was also a Sabbatical year of rest every seven years; and a jubilee year every seven times seven years. The feast of Atonement took place in the seventh month; the feast of Trumpets celebrated the first day of the year; and in after times feasts were instituted on the restoration of the Temple, and on the deliverance of the Jews from Haman’s plot.

“But of all the annual festivals, the three about which you inquire were the most sacred and important. The feast of Unleavened Bread was only another name for the feast of the Passover. It lasted seven days after the Paschal lamb had been killed; sacrifices were offered on each of the days; no bread but such as was unleavened was permitted to be eaten during its continuance; and the first and the last days were observed with peculiar and impressive ceremonies. The departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and the wonderful acts of Divine power by which their liberation had been accomplished, were the objects commemorated at this great assemblage of the people;--but we have so often conversed on the Passover, that I need not renew that subject now.

“The feast of Weeks,” my uncle continued, “was so called because it was kept at the end of seven weeks, or a _week of weeks_, after the Passover, that is, on the fiftieth day; and therefore it has been also called the feast of Pentecost, from a Greek word signifying fiftieth. It lasted seven days, and was held in remembrance of the law which was given to the people at Mount Sinai on the fiftieth day after their leaving Egypt. At this feast two loaves of bread and a certain quantity of meal, to represent the first-fruits of the ground, were offered as a solemn and grateful acknowledgment for the harvest which in that fine climate and fertile country had already commenced. The modern Jews keep this festival with great strictness; but they mix various traditional rites with the ceremonies. In this country, I understand that they decorate their houses with garlands of flowers, and strew roses in the synagogues; and in Germany each Jewish family has a high rough cake, to represent Mount Sinai, composed of seven layers of paste, to designate the seven heavens through which they pretend that Jehovah descended to declare the law to Moses. As the Passover was the type of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, so the feast of Weeks was the type of our Christian Pentecost, which took place fifty days after the resurrection, and on which the astonishing miracle was performed, of the gift of tongues to the Apostles.

“The feast of Tabernacles was established in the middle of the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year, or in the first month of the civil year, which began in September. All Israel were obliged to assemble in order to celebrate this feast, and to live in tents or booths made of green boughs, during its continuance. The same word in Hebrew signifies both tabernacles and tents, and this great religious festival was held in memory of the journey through the wilderness, and of the mode in which their forefathers had dwelt there in tents, during forty years. On the first day, the people, with branches of palm trees, willows, and myrtles in their right hands, and a citron bough bearing its fruit in the left, joined in procession round the altar, waving the branches and singing Hosannas. The six following days burnt offerings were made, and the latest fruits of the year were presented at the temple; on the eighth and last day the procession with branches was repeated with still greater solemnity, and the whole feast concluded with what was called the Hosanna Rabbah, or the great Hosanna. This word literally means ‘Save, I beseech thee;’ it was a common form of religious blessing or salutation; and thus to that ancient mode of solemnizing the feast of tabernacles you may trace the branches that were cut down, and the acclamations of ‘Hosanna to the son of David,’ with which our Saviour was received on his public entry into Jerusalem.”

_May 1st._--This has been a day of amusement; and the Miss Maudes and their brother, who came here yesterday, have greatly added to our gaiety. Very early this morning we all went out, not exactly to gather May-dew, but to see the numbers of people that went out Maying. Several May-poles and garlands had been erected; but we were most interested by that which the little school children had dressed up opposite to their house. They had also placed an arch of flowers and hawthorn branches over the door; with a magnificent C in the middle of it, made of daisy flowers strung on thread.

This was in compliment to Caroline, and when she passed under it, they all joined in chorus, singing these lines of their own composition:--

We’ll welcome Miss Caroline with flowers so gay, To the school where she teaches us goodness and truth; Oh! may she be happy on ev’ry May-day, And most graciously pardon the follies of youth.

My uncle says it has been always the custom to celebrate May-day in this county,--and that to have a pretty May-bush is still considered quite important.

In Huntingdonshire, Miss Maude told us that the children hang every place with garlands, and sometimes they make very pretty triumphal arches. To a horizontal hoop, two semi-hoops are fixed, so as to form a sort of crown, which is ornamented with flowers, ribbons, necklaces, spoons, and all kinds of finery. This is suspended across the road by a flowery rope, extending from house to house, while the children sing, dance, toss their balls over it, and ask money from the passengers: Miss Maude repeated to us their usual song.

_The May-day Garland._

“To the lilac, laburnum, and iris, which cheer, The hawthorn, the cowslip, and king-cob so gay, Each beauty which gladdens the spring of the year, And the kerchiefs and ribbons our friends have supplied In bows and in streamers are tastefully tied, And form our sweet garland, our garland of May.

“Beneath it we’ll dance, and we’ll throw up the ball, And all shall be gladness, good humour, and play, We’ll sing, and in chorus we’ll join one and all, And glad as the season, we’ll lift up our voice, And all, within measure and reason, rejoice Beneath the gay garland, the garland of May.”

My uncle observed, that in Cornwall, where customs have been less changed than in most parts of England, the May-day ceremonies are kept up with great care. He learned from a friend, who lived in a remote town in that county, that all the houses were thrown open; lively music was everywhere heard, and the young maidens, decked with wreaths and festoons of flowers, danced along the streets, or formed dancing parties in every house they chose to select.

“The annual celebration of this day,” he continued, “may be traced up to a very high antiquity. The Romans had their Floralia, or games in honour of Flora, during the calends of May; and in Asia, when the sun entered the constellation of Taurus, which corresponded to that period, the same kind of festivities took place, accompanied by a similar display of flowers. Some antiquaries have shown that May-day was celebrated in this country long before the Roman invasion, and they ascribe the introduction of the custom to an Asiatic colony that settled here, and who of course brought with them their national habits. In the East, customs have undergone but little change; and many of the sports which are prevalent on May-day in some parts of England and Ireland, and which, at first sight, appear to proceed from unmeaning caprice, may be proved to be fragments of ancient Eastern ceremonies, by their similarity to those still practised there on that day.”

My aunt said, that she had seen a May-bush very prettily hung with flowers at Chamouni, in Switzerland; and she added, “in the old-fashioned custom too of making fools on the first of April, there is probably a vestige of the Eastern celebration of the season when the sun enters Aries; that is, when the year commences. In Persia, medals of gold were struck with the head of the Ram, on the festival of the Nauruz or new year’s-day; and the frolic of making fools still distinguishes the Nauruz festival, and is practised, I believe, from one end of India to the other.”

I asked my uncle when that Eastern colony to which he had alluded came to England, as I did not recollect seeing it mentioned in the History of England.

“The ancient Britons,” said my uncle, “had a tradition of their being descended from an Eastern tribe called Sacca; and undoubtedly there are many points of resemblance between their modes of worship, and those practised in some of the Indian provinces. It would probably be tiresome to a young person like you, Bertha, to read all the arguments on this disputed point; but hereafter you may find it a subject of curious inquiry to examine the coincidences said to exist in the manners of such remote nations of the East and the West.”

_3rd._--I have such a severe cold, that, fine as the weather is, I am not allowed to go out; so I can write without interruption to my dear mamma. I must confess my own foolish imprudence was the cause of this cold: on the evening of May-day, my aunt allowed the school children to have a dance on the green, and we all joined in it round their pretty May-bush. I exerted myself so much, that I was soon over-heated; and, then stood in the wind to cool myself. My aunt warned me of the consequence, but I was too much diverted to attend immediately to her advice, and the next morning I had a violent head-ache, and all the symptoms of a heavy cold. However, as my uncle had arranged every thing for showing a cloth manufactory, several miles from this, to the Maudes and Miss Perceval, I could not bear to give up what I might not have another opportunity of seeing. Besides, we were to cross the river at the ferry, where horses had been ordered to meet us; and I hoped to see a great deal of new country. My friends, indeed, advised me to remain in bed, but I would not acknowledge how ill I was; and persisted in accompanying them. Of course my head grew very painful, and my cold oppressed and stupified me so much, as to prevent my remembering distinctly the half of what I saw.

I recollect, however, being shewn how the wool was washed and beaten in order to clean it. When well dried and picked, it was _carded_ on large cylindrical brushes, made of wire instead of hair, which laid all the fibres in one direction; the wool was then oiled, and again combed or brushed with finer cards on the knee, and at last spun into yarn--that intended for the _warp_ being always smaller and more twisted than that of the _woof_. The yarn for the woof was then wound on little _bobbins_ or tubes; and in weaving, one of these is placed in the middle of the _shuttle_, on a pin, round which it easily turns, so as to let the thread run off through a hole called the _eye_ of the shuttle, as it travels from side to side of the loom.

I will not tease you with the manner of warping the yarn from one _beam_ to the other; nor with a description of the _heddles_, or looped strings, which raise and depress the alternate threads of the warp for the shuttle to pass between them, and which the weaver works by his feet; nor of the _batten_ and _reed_ for driving the woof home every time the shuttle carries it across; all these appeared very simple, while looking at the operation, but I am afraid that I should give but a very lame account of them. Still less can I attempt to describe a power-loom which has been just set up; it seems to do every thing without the interference of the weaver--the heddles rise and fall, the batten strikes in regular time and with equal force, and the shuttle flies to and fro from selvage to selvage as if it was alive.

At another loom they were taking off the cloth from the beam on which it had been rolled in the process of weaving, and many hands were immediately employed with iron nippers in trimming and cutting off the knots and threads. The obliging proprietor of the manufactory partly described and partly shewed us the subsequent operations of scouring the cloth with potter’s clay, steeping and _fulling_ it, and then stretching it lengthwise to take out the wrinkles. This is repeated several times, then it is washed in clear water, and given wet to other workmen to raise the nap, by means of a flower called _teasel_, which somewhat resembles a thistle. When the nap is well raised on the right side, it is given to the shearers, and then to the dyer; and when dyed it is again washed in plain water, and spread on a table, where the nap is laid properly with a brush. It is then hung up to dry, and stretched in every direction; after which it is folded and laid under a press.

It seemed very curious to see a homely wild plant like the teasel, fresh from the field, used along with so much complex machinery: many imitations of it have been tried, but nothing answers so well as the beautiful little hooks contrived by nature. In the west of England, therefore, wherever the soil is dry and gravelly, teasels are cultivated on a large scale for the cloth manufactories.

I remember little more of what I saw or heard yesterday, except that my uncle remarked as we passed a sheep-walk in our drive home, what an astonishing number of people combine their labours to produce any one manufacture, and how necessary the different trades are to each other. From the grazier, for instance, who rears the sheep and sells the wool, and the various artificers employed in preparing, spinning, weaving, dyeing, and pressing it, up to the retail shopkeeper who keeps the cloth ready for our use. “But in fact,” said he, “these are only a few links of the chain; we must recollect the numerous hands employed in making the machinery, the miner who raises the iron ore, the smelter who converts it into metal, the smith who works it, and the collier who supplies them with coals; the carpenter who constructs the frame-work, and the engineer who contrives the whole. Then come the merchants, and shipwrights, and sailors who bring home from distant countries the articles requisite to colour the cloth, and the dyer, who, by the aid of chemistry, compounds them; and lastly, the farmer who cultivates the humble teasels. See, Bertha, what a prodigious number of heads and hands are thus toiling for the accomplishment of a single object, and, though all impelled by individual interest, yet all co-operating for the general good.”

_4th._--As I am still paying for my imprudence, and confined to my room, kind Mary has been entertaining me with the conversation she had heard below stairs, and particularly with Mr. Maude’s account of Venice. Nothing in Italy so much struck his imagination, as the view of that city, with all her towers and pinnacles rising from the sea, where, the poet said,

“Venice sits in state, throned on her hundred isles!”

But now it has a most melancholy appearance: the port, which in times of prosperity was crowded with shipping, is now almost empty; and the muddy canals which intersect the town in every direction, are no longer enlivened by multitudes of gondolas gliding swiftly through the water. The showy palaces which rise from the sides of these watery streets, were once adorned with all that painting and sculpture could perform; but they are now neglected, moss-grown, the habitations of owls and bats, and fast sinking to decay: and many of the great families who had inherited their wealth and honours in direct succession for a thousand years, are now obliged to part with their splendid mansions, or to see them gradually crumbling into ruins, from the want of means to repair them.

Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Maude says that Venice is still a magnificent looking place; and amongst its many beautiful buildings, he describes the cathedral as being most venerable and interesting. It was built so long ago as the ninth century, and enriched with the spoils of Greece and of Constantinople. He once went through the city at night, to see the effect of moonlight on its superb buildings; but the few of them which were still dazzling with lamps, as if enjoying their former glory, made such a contrast with the pale light and dark shade of the moon, and with the general stillness, that the whole scene had even a more deserted appearance than in the day-time. Now and then the gloomy silence was interrupted by the sounds of the harp or guitar, or by the wild and plaintive airs of a few gondoliers, as they kept time to the gentle splashing of their oars.

Mr. Maude, she says, added a great deal about the present government, the state of society, and the remaining commerce of Venice; and my uncle, who was much pleased with his observations, remarked that few of the changes recorded in history, offered a subject of deeper interest, than the long-continued grandeur and present fall of Venice. “It rose,” he said, “as it were, from the waves, when, on the invasion of Italy by the Huns, numbers of people took refuge in that cluster of islands where the city now stands. So early as the year 421, they formed a little state, strong enough to oppose the invaders, or at least to secure themselves from molestation. Commerce soon followed security; and from this small beginning arose that wealth and power which continued for many centuries, and which extended the influence of Venice over all the states with which she was connected. Her foundations were laid in the darkest ages of Italian misery; but she soon became the spectator of the dissolution of the Roman Empire. She witnessed the ravages of many continental wars, and the rise and fall of many nations; till at length she fell in her turn also. Somebody has well remarked, that she was the last surviving witness of antiquity, the common link between the two periods of civilization.

“Her whole history,” continued my uncle, “has a paradoxical and peculiar character. Her romantic achievements in the East; the noble lead she took in the struggles of Christendom with the empire of the Turks; and the heroic defence she made against the attacks of numerous enemies, place her resources and power in singular contrast with the smallness of her territory. On the other hand, her selfish policy; her imperious conduct wherever her influence extended; and her deadly jealousy of the neighbouring republic of Genoa, rendered her the object of universal envy and hatred. While at home the rigorous despotism of her government, which was ill concealed under the mask of republican freedom, and the inquisitorial tyranny of the senate, which silently pervaded every house, and controlled almost the thoughts of every individual, could tend only to alienate her subjects. These are points of deep moral and historical interest; but it may be safely said that her government outlived the age to which it was suited; no timely reform adapted it to the growing changes in the public mind--no concessions to the people united them in common cause with their haughty masters--and the fall of Venice may be ascribed more to her internal vices, than to the overpowering armies of France.”

_5th._--I have been so much better all day that I was allowed to go down to tea; and had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Maude describe the _fruitiéres_ in Switzerland. I quite misunderstood that word at first; for I find that it means a kind of dairy, something like that described to us by our Savoyard friends last winter. The person by whom the fruitiére is managed receives their milk daily from all the neighbouring peasants; he sells the cream, and butter, and makes the cheese; and at the end of the season pays the contributors either in cheeses or money. He keeps an exact account, not only of the quantity of milk brought in, but to prevent fraud, such as mixing it with water, he ascertains its quality by a kind of hydrometer, or floating gauge. Persons detected in cheating are struck out of the book, and lose what they had already contributed. The fruitiére man who manages the business and keeps the accounts, is paid by a small per centage on each cheese.