Part 38
The sides of the houses are generally closed in with bamboo, opened and rendered flat by notching or splitting the circular joints on the outside, chipping away the corresponding divisions within, and laying it to dry in the sun pressed down with weights. This is sometimes nailed to the upright timbers or bamboos, but in the country parts it is more commonly interwoven or matted in breadths of six inches, and a piece or sheet formed at once of the size required. In some places they use for the same purpose the inner bark procured from some particular trees. When they prepare to take it, the outer bark is first torn or cut away; the inner is then marked out with a proper tool to the requisite size, usually three cubits by one; it is afterwards beaten for some time with a heavy stick to loosen it from the stem, and being peeled off, laid in the sun to dry, care being taken to prevent its warping. The bark used in building has nearly the texture and hardness of wood; but the pliable and delicate bark of which clothing is made is procured from a bastard species of the bread-fruit.
The most general mode of covering houses is with the leaf of a kind of palm called _nipah_. These, before they are laid on, are formed into sheets about five feet long, and as deep as the length of the leaf will admit, which is doubled at one end over a slip or lath of bamboo. They are then disposed on the roof so that one sheet shall lap over the other, and are tied to the bamboos which serve for rafters.
THE NOSS IN SHETLAND.
Off Bressay is the most remarkable of the rock phenomena of Shetland, the Noss, a small high island, with a flat summit, girt on all sides by perpendicular walls of rock. It is only 500 feet in length, and 170 broad, and rises abruptly from the sea to the height of 160 feet. The communication with the coast of Bressay is maintained by strong ropes stretched across, along which a cradle or wooden chair is run, in which the passenger is seated. It is of a size sufficient for conveying across a man and a sheep at a time. The purpose of this strange contrivance is to give the tenant the benefit of putting a few sheep upon the Holm, the top of which is level, and affords good pasture. The animals are transported in the cradle, one at a time, a shepherd holding them upon his knees in crossing.
The temptation of getting access to the numberless eggs and young of the sea-fowl which whiten the surface of the Holm, joined to the promised reward of a cow, induced a hardy and adventurous fowler, about two centuries ago, to scale the cliff of the Holm, and establish a connexion by ropes with the neighbouring main island. Having driven two stakes into the rock and fastened his ropes, the desperate man was entreated to avail himself of the communication thus established in returning across the gulf. But this he refused to do, and in attempting to descend the way he had climbed, he fell, and perished by his foolhardiness.
SWALLOWED UP BY AN EARTHQUAKE AND THROWN OUT AGAIN.
A tombstone in the island of Jamaica has the following inscription:--
"Here lieth the body of Lewis Galdy, Esq., who died on the 22nd of September, 1737, aged 80. He was born at Montpellier, in France, which place he left for his religion, and settled on this island, where, in the great earthquake, 1672, he was swallowed up, and by the wonderful providence of God, by a second shock was thrown out into the sea, where he continued swimming until he was taken up by a boat, and thus miraculously preserved. He afterwards lived in great reputation, and died universally lamented."
CUSTOMS OF THE BORDER BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.
In the courts held by the lords wardens of the Marches, a jury was established: the English lord chose six out of Scotland, and the Scotch six out of England. The defendant, upon the trials, was acquitted upon his own oath; these oaths are singular: we transcribe them.--1. JUROR'S OATH. You shall clean no bills worthy to be fouled: you shall foul no bills worthy to be cleaned; but shall do that which appeareth with truth, for the maintenance of truth, and suppressing of attempts. So help you God.--2. PLAINTIFF'S OATH. You shall leile (little) price make, and truth say, what your goods were worth at the time of their taking, to have been bought and sold in the market, taken all at one time, and that you know no other recovery but this. So help you God.--3. DEFENDANT'S OATH. You shall swear, by heaven above you, hell beneath you, by your part in Paradise, by all that God made in six days and seven nights, and by God himself, you are whart and sackless, of art, part, way, witting, ridd, kenning, having, or reciting, of any of the goods and chattles named in this bill. So help you God. These oaths and proceedings arose from the frequent incursions of both Scotch and English, on both sides the wall, to where they had no right.
TURKISH MODE OF REPARATION.
On April 25th, 1769, at Constantinople, the Turks were removing the standard of Mahomet, making a grand procession through the city; all Christians, upon this occasion, were forbid to appear in the streets or at their windows. But the wife and daughter of the Imperial minister, being excited by curiosity, placed themselves at a secret window to observe the procession; which was no sooner discovered by the Turks, than they attacked the ambassador's house, and endeavoured to force an entrance. But the servants of the minister opposing them, well-armed, a dreadful fray ensued, in which no less than one hundred persons lost their lives, and the ambassador's lady was very severely treated. Some of the rioters dragged her down into the court-yard, and made preparations to strangle her; when a party of Janissaries, who were despatched to her assistance by an aga in the neighbourhood, happily came and preserved her. Upon complaint being made of this outrage, by her husband, to the grand vizier, that minister expressed great sorrow for the insult that had been offered, and assured him he should have all the reparation it was possible to procure. A few hours after the vizier sent the Imperial minister a rich present of jewels for his lady, _and a bag, which was found to contain the heads of the three principal rioters_.
HAIR TURNED GREY BY FRIGHT.
There is an interesting anecdote of a boy, in one of the rudest parts of the County of Clare, in Ireland, who, in order to destroy some eaglets, lodged in a hole one hundred feet from the summit of a rock, which rose four hundred feet perpendicular from the sea, caused himself to be suspended by a rope, with a scimitar in his hand for his defence, should he meet with an attack from the old ones; which precaution was found necessary; for no sooner had his companions lowered him to the nest, than one of the old eagles made at him with great fury, at which he struck, but, unfortunately missing his aim, nearly cut through the rope that supported him. Describing his horrible situation to his comrades, they cautiously and safely drew him up; when it was found that his hair, which a quarter of an hour before was a dark auburn, was changed to grey.
MEMORABLE SNOW-STORM.
The following characteristic account is taken _literatim_ from the parish register of the village of Youlgrave in Derbyshire:--"This year 1614-5 Jan. 16 began the greatest snow which ever fell uppon the earth, within man's memorye. It cover'd the earth five quarters deep uppon the playne. And for heapes or drifts of snow, they were very deep, so that passengers, both horse and foot, passed over yates hedges and walles. It fell at ten severall tymes, and the last was the greatest, to the greate admiration and fear of all the land, for it came from the foure p{ts} of the world, so that all c'ntryes were full, yea, the south p'te as well as these mountaynes. It continued by daily encreasing until the 12{th} day of March, (without the sight of any earth, eyther uppon hilles or valleys) uppon w{ch} daye, being the Lordes day, it began to decrease; and so by little and little consumed and wasted away, till the eight and twentyth day of May, for then all the heapes or drifts of snow were consumed, except one uppon Kinder-Scout, w{ch} lay till Witson week."
ROADS IN 1780.
A squire from the neighbourhood of Glastonbury, journeying to Sarum in his carriage, about 1780, took care that his footman was provided with a good axe to lop off any branches of trees that might obstruct the progress of the vehicle.
WONDERFUL PEDESTRIAN FEAT.
Captain Cochrane, who set out from St. Petersburg in May, 1820, to walk through the interior of Russia to the east of Asia, with a view of ascertaining the fact of a north-east cape, travelled at the rate of _forty-three miles a day for one hundred and twenty-three successive days_. He afterwards walked upwards of four hundred miles without meeting a human being. Wherever he went he seems to have accommodated himself to the habits of the people, however rude and disgusting. With the Kalmucks, he ate horse-flesh, elks, and wolves; and with the Tchutski he found as little difficulty in pasturing upon bears, rein-deer, and _raw frozen fish_, the latter of which he considered a great delicacy.
BOOK-SHAPED WATCH.
The unique curiosity, of which the annexed is an accurate representation, was one of the choicest rarities of the Bernal collection, and is, therefore, highly appropriate to our pages. It once belonged to, and was made for, Bogislaus XIV., Duke of Pomerania, in the time of Gustavus Adolphus. On the dial-side there is an engraved inscription of the Duke and his titles, with the date 1627, and the engraving of his armorial bearings; on the back of the case there are engraved two male portraits, buildings, &c.; the dial-plate is of silver, chased in relief; the insides are chased with birds and foliage. This watch has apparently two separate movements, and a large bell; at the back, over the bell, the metal is ornamentally pierced in a circle, with a dragon and other devices, and the sides are pierced and engraved in scrolls. It bears the maker's name, "Dionistus Hessichti."
THE RULING PASSION.
Mr. Henry Stribling, farmer, who died at Goodleigh, near Barnstaple, August 1st, 1800, in the eightieth year of his age, was one of the greatest fox-hunters in Devonshire, and had collected such a number of foxes pads, all of which he had himself cut off when in at the death, that they entirely covered his stable door and door-posts. At his own particular request, a pad was placed in each of his hands in his coffin, and he was attended to the grave by the huntsmen and whippers-in of the packs with which he had hunted.
EDICTS AGAINST FIDDLERS.
An idea may be formed of the strictness with which all popular amusements were prohibited when the Puritans had the ascendancy, from the fact that in 1656-7 Oliver Cromwell prohibited all persons called fiddlers or minstrels from playing, fiddling, or making music in any inn, alehouse, or tavern, &c. If they proffered themselves or offered to make music, they were to be adjudged to be rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy vagabonds, and were to be proceeded against as such.
SCENE OF DESOLATION.
The pass of Keim-an-eigh is one of the numerous wonders of nature. It is situated on the road from Macroom to Bantry, in the county of Cork, and winds through a deep and narrow rocky defile, about two English miles in length. Its name means, in Irish, "The Path of the Deer." Perhaps, in no part of the kingdom, is there to be found a place so utterly desolate and gloomy. A mountain has been divided by some convulsion of nature, and the narrow pass is overhung on either side, as seen in our engraving, by perpendicular cliffs clothed in wild ivy and underwood, with, occasionally, a stunted yew-tree or arbutus growing among them. At every step advance seems impossible--some huge rock jutting out into the path, or sweeping round it, seeming to conduct only to some barrier still more insurmountable; while from all sides rush down the "wild fountains," and forming for themselves a rugged channel, make their way onward, the first tributary to the gentle and fruitful Lee. Nowhere has Nature assumed a more apalling aspect, or manifested a more stern resolve to dwell in her own loneliness and grandeur, undisturbed by any living thing; for even the birds seem to shun a solitude so awful, and the hum of bee or chirp of grasshopper is never heard within its precincts.
THE FIRST ENGLISH NUN.
Face, widow of Edwin, king of Northumberland, is said to have been the first English nun; and the first nunnery in England appears to have been at Barking, in Essex, which was founded by Erkenwald, Bishop of London, wherein he placed a number of Benedictine or black nuns. The most rigid nuns are those of St. Clara, of the order of St. Francis, both of which individuals were born and lived in the same town: the nuns are called poor Clares, and both they and the monks wear grey clothes. Abbesses had formerly seats in parliament. In one, held in 694, says Spelman, they sat and deliberated, and several of them subscribed the decrees made in it. They sat, says Ingulphus, in a parliament held in 855. In the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. four of them were summoned to a national council, viz. those of Shaftesbury, Barking, Winchester, and Wilton.
PRESENCE OF MIND--ESCAPE FROM A TIGER.
In 1812, a party of British naval and military officers were dining in a jungle at some distance from Madras, when a ferocious tiger rushed in among them, seized a young midshipman, and flung him across his back. In the first emotion of terror, the other officers had all snatched up their arms, and retired some paces from their assailant, who stood lashing his sides with his tail, as if doubtful whether he should seize more prey, or retire with that which he had already secured. They knew that it is usual with the tiger, before he seizes his prey, to deprive it of life, by a pat on the head, which generally breaks the skull; but this is not his invariable practice. The little midshipman lay motionless on the back of his enemy; but yet the officers, who were uncertain whether he had received the mortal pat or not, were afraid to fire, lest they should kill him together with the tiger. While in this state of suspense, they perceived the hand of the youth gently move over the side of the animal, and conceiving the motion to result from the convulsive throbs of death, they were about to fire, when, to their utter astonishment, the tiger dropped stone dead; and their young friend sprung from the carcass, waving in triumph a bloody dirk drawn from the heart, for which he had been feeling with the utmost coolness and circumspection, when the motion of his hand had been taken for a dying spasm.
COST OF ARTICLES IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
The following article is taken from Martin's _History of Thetford_. It is copied from an original record in that borough, when John le Forester was mayor, in the tenth year of Edward the Third, A.D. 1336. It is so far curious, as it exhibits an authentic account of the value of many articles at that time; being a bill, inserted in the town book, of the expenses attending the sending two light-horsemen from Thetford to the army, which was to march against the Scots that year.
L s. d. To two men chosen to go into the army against Scotland 1 0 0
For cloth, and to the tailor for making it into two _gowns_ 0 6 11
For two pair of gloves, and a stick or staff 0 0 2
For two horses 1 15 0-1/2
For shoeing these horses 0 0 4
For two pair of boots for the light-horsemen 0 2 8
Paid to a lad for going with the mayor to Lenn (Lynn), to take care of the horses (the distance between Thetford and Lynn is 53 miles) 0 0 3
To a boy for a letter at Lenn (viz., carrying it thither) 0 0 3
Expenses for the horses of two light-horsemen for four days before they departed 0 1 0
LAW AND ORDER IN THE STREETS OF LONDON IN 1733.
What an extraordinary state of things does the following extract from the _Weekly Register_ of December 8th, 1733, disclose! The stages and hackney-coaches actually made open war upon private carriages. "The drivers," says the paragraph, "are commissioned by their masters to annoy, sink, and destroy all the single and double horse-chaises they can conveniently meet with, or overtake in their way, without regard to the lives or limbs of the persons who travel in them. What havoc these industrious sons of blood and wounds have made within twenty miles of London in the compass of a summer's season, is best known by the articles of accidents in the newspapers: the miserable shrieks of women and children not being sufficient to deter the villains from doing what they call their duty to their masters; for besides their daily or weekly wages, they have an extraordinary stated allowance for every chaise they can reverse, ditch, or bring by the road, as the term or phrase is." Verily, we who live in the present day have reason to rejoice that in _some_ things there is a decided improvement upon "the good old times."
NEVER SLEEPING IN A BED.
Christopher Pivett, of the city of York, died 1796, aged 93. He was a carver and gilder by trade; but during the early part of his life served in the army, and was in the retinue of the Duke of Cumberland, under whose command he took part in the battle of Fontenoy, as he did at the battle of Dettingen under the Earl of Stair; he was likewise at the siege of Carlisle, and the great fight of Culloden. His house, after he had settled at York, being accidentally burnt down, he formed the singular resolution of never again sleeping in a bed, lest he should be burned to death whilst asleep, or not have time sufficient, should such a misfortune again befall him, to remove his property; and this resolution he rigidly acted upon during the last forty years of his life. His practice was to repose upon the floor, or on two chairs, or sitting in a chair, but always with his clothes on. During the whole of this period he lived entirely alone, cooked his own victuals, and seldom admitted any one into his habitation: nor would he ever disclose to any the place of his birth, or to whom he was related. He had many singularities, but possessed, politically as well as socially, a laudable spirit of independence, which he boldly manifested on several trying occasions. Among other uncommon articles which composed the furniture of his dwelling, was a human skull, which he left strict injunctions should be interred with him.
AMULET BROTCHE.
The subjoined engraving represents an ancient Gaelic Brotche, which was made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and once belonged to a Highland Chief, Maclean of Lochbuy in the Isle of Mull, being formed of silver found on his estate. It is of circular form, scolloped, and surrounded by small upright obelisks, each set with a pearl at top; in the centre is a round crystalline ball, considered a magical gem; the top may be taken off, showing a hollow, originally for reliques. On the reverse side of the brotche are engraved the names of the three kings of Cologne, with the word _consummation_. It was probably a consecrated brotche, and worn not only for the purpose of fastening the dress, but as an amulet.
THE GOLYNOS OAK.
This wonderful tree grew on the estate from which it takes its name, about four miles from Newport, Monmouth. It was purchased by Thomas Harrison, Esq., in the year 1810, for 100 guineas, and was felled and converted by him the same year. Five men were twenty days stripping and cutting it down; and a pair of sawyers were employed 138 days in its conversion. The expense of stripping, felling, and sawing was L82. The trunk of the tree was 9-1/2 feet in diameter, and no saw could be found long enough to cut it down; two saws were therefore brazed together. The rings in its butt being reckoned, it was discovered that this tree had been improving upwards of 400 years! and, as many of its lateral branches were dead, and some broken off, it is presumed it must have stood a century after it had attained maturity. When standing it overspread 452 square yards of ground, and produced 2,426 feet of timber. When all its parts were brought to market they produced nearly L600.
CARFAX CONDUIT.
In the grounds at Nuneham Courtenay, near Oxford, belonging to Mr. Harcourt, on one of the slopes that ascend directly from the river Thames, stands the ancient and far-famed Carfax Conduit, which formerly stood as a kind of central point to the four principal streets of Oxford. Certain alterations requiring its removal, it was, with the most perfect propriety, presented to the Earl Harcourt.
It was built in 1610, by Otho Nicholson--a liberal and enterprising gentleman--in order to supply the city with pure water, brought from a hill above North Hinksey; and although the conduit is removed, the pipes still remain, and afford a partial supply that will be superseded by the new City Waterworks. It is a square, decorated in accordance with the taste of the time--mermaids holding combs and mirrors, and dragons, antelopes, unicorns, being scattered about, while the Empress Maude is introduced riding an ox over a ford, in allusion to the name of the city. The letters O. N., the initials of the founder, are conspicuous; while above the centres of the four arches are the cardinal virtues--Justice, Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence.
Carfax is from a Bishop of that name, who presided over the diocese of Tours in France, and died in the year 399. He was canonized, and is the tutelar saint of Carfax, or St. Martin's church, in the city of Oxford.
DESTRUCTION OF LIBRARIES IN THE TIME OF HENRY VIII., AT THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES.
It is a circumstance well known, to every one at all conversant in English history, that the suppression of the lesser monasteries by that rapacious monarch Henry the Eighth took place in 1536. Bishop Fisher, when the abolition was first proposed in the convocation, strenuously opposed it, and told his brethren that this was fairly shewing the king how he might come at the great monasteries. "And so my lords," continued he, "if you grant the king these smaller monasteries, you do but make him a handle whereby he may cut down all the cedars within your Lebanon." Fisher's fears were borne out by the subsequent act of Henry, who, after quelling a civil commotion occasioned by the suppression of the lesser monasteries, immediately abolished the remainder, and in the whole suppressed six hundred and forty-five monasteries, of which twenty-eight had abbots who enjoyed seats in Parliament. Ninety colleges were demolished; two thousand three hundred and seventy-four charities and free chapels, and one hundred and ten hospitals. The havoc that was made among the libraries cannot be better described than in the words of Bayle, Bishop of Ossory, in the preface to Leland's "New Year's Gift to King Henry the Eighth."