Part 61
"Let me declare to you the manner in general," says the loyal author, "of that stately cedar erected in the Strand, 134 feet high, commonly called the May-pole, upon the cost of the parishioners there adjacent, and the gracious consent of His Sacred Majesty, with the illustrious Prince the Duke of York. This tree was a most choice and remarkable piece, 'twas made below bridge, and brought in two parts up to Scotland Yard, near the King's Palace, and from thence it was conveyed, April 14th, to the Strand, to be erected. It was brought with a streamer flourishing before it, drums beating all the way, and other sort of music. It was supposed to be so long that landsmen, as carpenters, could not possibly raise it. Prince James, the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England, therefore commanded twelve seamen to come and officiate the business; whereupon they came, and brought their cables, pulleys, and other tackling, with six great anchors. After these were brought three crowns, borne by three men bareheaded, and a streamer displaying all the way before them, drums beating, and other music playing, numerous multitudes of people thronging the streets, with great shouts and acclamations all day long.
"The May-pole then being joined together, and hooped about with bands of iron, the crown and vane, with the King's arms, richly gilded, was placed on the head of it: a large top, like a balcony, was about the middle of it. This being done, the trumpets did sound, and in four hours' space it was advanced upright; after which being established fast in the ground, again great shouts and acclamations did the people give, that rang throughout all the Strand. After that came a morris-dance, finely decked with purple scarfs, in their half shirts, with a tabor and pipe, the ancient music, and danced round about the May-pole, and after that danced the rounds of their liberty. Upon the top of this famous standard is likewise set up a royal purple streamer, about the middle of it are placed four crowns more, with the King's arms likewise. There is also a garland set upon it, of various colours, of delicate rich favours, under which are to be placed three great lanthorns, to remain for three honours, that is, one for Prince James, Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England; the other for the Vice-Admiral; the third for the Rear-Admiral. These are to give light on dark nights, and to continue so as long as the pole stands, which will be a perpetual honour for seamen. It is placed as near hand as they could guess in the very same pit where the former stood, but far more glorious, higher, and bigger, than ever any one that stood before it; and the seamen themselves do confess that it could not be built higher, and there is not such an one in Europe besides, which doth highly please His Majesty and the illustrious Prince, Duke of York. Little children did much rejoice, and ancient people did clap their hands, saying that golden days began to appear. I question not but it will ring like melodious music throughout every county in England when they read this story exactly penned. Let this story satisfy for the glories of London, that other loyal subjects may read what we here do see."
COSTUME OF A GERMAN NOBLE.
The annexed cut represents the dress of a young noble of the year 1443, from the extremely interesting genealogical history of the baronial family of Haller von Halleostein. The figure is that of Franz Haller von Halleostein, who died unmarried in the above year. He wore an open jerkin of a greenish colour, and very finely plaited chemisette. The jerkin has a white silk trimming with a black border throughout, and is held together by fine white silk ribbons, beneath which appears the white shirt. The sword-couple and sheath, are black, hilt and mountings are of the colour of steel. The stockings are vermilion, and on the right leg is a white and yellow stripe. The shoes are black, turned with white. The hair is long, and over it is worn a neat cap with lappets and a golden agraffe and love-knot, to support the hair.
At the period of this costume very great attention was bestowed by the German nobility to their dress. The sums they expended on it were enormous, and in many instances families were reduced to ruin by the extravagant decorations of their person. Jewellery, furs, silks, and laces, all of which were far more expensive and difficult to be obtained than they are now, were used in reckless profusion, and one nobleman vied with another in the magnificence, novelty, and expensiveness of their attire. The illustrated books of that period abound in sketches of the most beautiful costumes, and are a fund of interest to those who are curious in such matters.
ABSURDITIES OF THE TOILET.
The ladies of Japan are said to gild their teeth, and those of the Indies to paint them red, while in Guzerat the test of beauty is to render them sable. In Greenland, the women used to colour their faces with blue and yellow. The Chinese must torture their feet into the smallest possible dimensions--a proof positive of their contracted understandings. The ancient Peruvians, and some other Indian tribes, used to flatten their heads: and among other nations, the mothers, in a similar way, maltreat the noses of their offspring.
AN EGYPTIAN DINNER.
The complicated, and, at first sight, somewhat incomprehensible sketch which we here lay before our readers, was taken from an interior wall of a palace in Egypt. It is, of course, by Egyptian artists, and the subject of it is no other than an Egyptian dinner-table set out and adorned for a banquet.
At a dinner in ancient Egypt, small and low circular tables were used, standing on a single pillar, with a dilated base; sometimes one of these was apportioned to every guest, the viands being brought round by the servants successively, from a larger pillar-table which had been brought in readily set out by two men. The accompanying engraving shows a table thus laid out, requiring, however, a little allowance for the lack of perspective. Round and oblong cakes of bread flattened and pricked in patterns, a goose, a leg of a kid or antelope, baskets of figs and other fruit, are crowned by a huge bunch of the lotus-lily. Under the table are bottles of wine placed on stands in a series, and crowned with a lotus-garland, upon which is thrown a long withe of what seems from the tendrils a vine, loaded with clusters of grapes, as well as thickly set with foliage.
ELEPHANT-GOD OF BURMAH.
A white elephant is a great rarity, and whenever one is caught, the Burmese treat it as a god and pay worship to it. Captain Yule thus describes the white elephant of 1855, and his palace at Amarapoora, the capital of Burmah:--
"In the area which stretches before the Hall of Audience are several detached buildings. A little to the north is the "Palace," or state apartment, of the Lord White Elephant, with his highness's humbler every-day residence in rear. To the south are sheds for the vulgar herd of the same species, and brick godowns in which the state carriages and golden litters (the latter massive and gorgeous in great variety of design) are stowed away. Temporary buildings, used as barracks and gunsheds, run along the wall. The present white elephant has occupied his post for at least fifty years. I have no doubt he is the same as Padre San-germano mentions as having been caught in 1806, to the great joy of the King, who had just lost the preceding incumbent, a female, which died after a year's captivity. He is a very large elephant, close upon ten feet high, with as noble a head and pair of tusks as I have ever seen. But he is long-bodied and lanky, and not otherwise well made as an elephant. He is sickly and out of condition, and is, in fact, distempered during five months of the year, from April to August. His eye, the iris of which is yellow with a reddish outer annulus, and a small clear black pupil, has an uneasy glare, and his keepers evidently mistrust his temper. We were always warned against going near his head. The annulus round the iris of the eye is pointed out as resembling a circle of the nine gems. His colour is almost uniform all over; nearly the ground-tint of the mottled or freckled part of the trunk and ears of common elephants, perhaps a little darker. He also has pale freckles in the same parts. On the whole, he is well entitled to his appellation of white. His royal paraphernalia, which are set out when visitors are expected, are sufficiently splendid. Among them was a driving-hook about three feet long, the stem of which was a mass of small pearls, girt at frequent intervals with bands of rubies, and the hook and handle of crystal tipped with gold. His headstall was of fine red cloth, plentifully studded with fine rubies, and near the extremity having some valuable diamonds. To fit over the two bumps of the forehead were circles of the nine gems, which are supposed to be charms against evil influences. When caparisoned he also wore on the forehead, like other Burmese dignitaries, including the King himself, a golden plate inscribed with his titles, and a gold crescent set with circles of large gems between the eyes. Large silver tassels hung in front of his ears, and he was harnessed with bands of gold and crimson set with large bosses of pure gold. He is a regular "estate of the realm," having a woon or minister of his own, four gold umbrellas, the white umbrellas which are peculiar to royalty, with a suite of attendants said to be thirty in number. The Burmese who attended us removed their shoes before entering his 'Palace.' The elephant has an appanage or territory assigned to him 'to eat,' like any other dignitary of the empire. I do not know where his estate is at present, but in Burney's time it was the rich cotton district of Taroup Myo."
SUPERSTITION IN 1856.
In April, 1856, a poor woman, residing in a village about three miles from Pershore, acting upon the advice of her neighbours, brought her child, who was suffering from whooping cough, to that town, for the purpose of finding out a married couple answering to the names of Joseph and Mary, and soliciting their interference on behalf of her afflicted child, as she had been informed that if two married persons having those names could but be induced to lay their hands on her child's head, the whooping cough would be immediately cured. After scouring the town for a considerable time in search of "Joseph and his fair lady," they were at length discovered in the persons of a respectable tradesman and his wife residing in Bridge Street, to whom the poor silly woman made known her foolish request, which at first excited a smile from the good woman of the house, but was quickly followed, not by "the laying on of hands," but by good advice, such as mothers only know how to give in these matters. The poor mother then thankfully departed a wiser woman.
PRAYING BY WHEEL AND AXLE.
The Japanese, like the inhabitants of Thibet, are not content with devout prayers, pilgrimages, prostrations, offerings to the gods in order to secure blessings here and hereafter; they also pray by machine, by _wheel and axle_. There is a square post, nearly eight feet in length, and near the centre, at a convenient height to be reached by the hand, is fixed vertically a wheel, which moves readily on an axle passed through the post. Two small rings are strung upon each of three spokes of the wheel. Every person who twists this instrument in passing is supposed to obtain credit in heaven for one or more prayers inscribed on the post, the number being graduated according to the vigour of the performer's devotion, and the number of revolutions effected. The jingle of the small iron rings is believed to secure the attention of the deity to the invocation of the devout, and the greater the noise, the more certain of its being listened to. Some of the inscriptions on this post are worth remembering:--"The great round mirror of knowledge says, 'wise men and fools are embarked in the same boat;' whether prospered or afflicted, both are rowing over the deep lake; the gay sails lightly hang to catch the autumnal breeze; then away they straight enter the lustrous clouds, and become partakers of heaven's knowledge."
"He whose prescience detects knowledge says:--'As the floating grass is blown by the gentle breeze, or the glancing ripples of autumn disappear when the sun goes down, or as the ship returns home to her old shore, so is life: it is a smoke, a morning tide.'"
"Others are more to the point--as to the machine--'Buddha himself earnestly desires to hear the name of this person (who is buried), and wishes he may go to life.'"
NOVEL WAY OF DESIGNATING A HOUSE.
In the "New View of London," published in 1708, it is mentioned as a remarkable circumstance attaching to the history of Prescott Street, near the Strand, that instead of signs, the houses were distinguished by numbers, as the stair-cases in the Inns of Court, and Chancery. The following advertisement, taken from newspapers a century and a half old, is interesting at this distance of time, as it shows the shifts to which advertisers were reduced, to point out their houses to their customers:--
"Doctor James Tilborgh, a German doctor, states that he liveth at present over against the New Exchange, in Bedford Street, at the sign of the 'Peacock,' where you shall see at night two candles burning within one of the chambers before the balcony; and a lanthorn with a candle in it upon the balcony: where he may be spoke with all alone, from 8 in the morning till 10 at night."
DYAK WAR-BOAT IN BORNEO.
The Malay war-boat, or _prahu_, is built of timber at the lower part; the upper is of bamboo, rattan, and kedgang (the dried leaf of the Nepa palm). Outside the bends, about a foot from the water line, runs a strong gallery, in which the rowers sit cross-legged. At the after-part of the boat is a cabin for the chief who commands, and the whole of the vessel is surmounted by a strong flat roof, upon which they fight, their principal weapons being the kris and spear, both of which, to be used with effect, require elbow-room.
The Dyak war-boat, as represented in the annexed sketch, is a long-built canoe, more substantially constructed than the prahu of the Malays, and sufficiently capacious to hold from seventy to eighty men. This also has a roof to fight from. They are generally painted, and the stern ornamented with feathers.
Both descriptions of war-boats are remarkably swift, notwithstanding such apparent top-weight.
WAR-DANCE OF THE DYAKS OF BORNEO.
Almost every savage nation has its peculiar war-dance, and the different steps, movements, and cries, in each depict different stages in the supposed fight. An account of the various kinds of dances would form an interesting work, and as a contribution to it we here call attention to the following description of a war-dance which was practised for the entertainment of the officers of the Semarang, on the occasion of their visiting a Dyak Chief. It is taken from Captain Marryat's "Borneo:"--
"A space was cleared in the centre, and two of the oldest warriors stepped into it. They were dressed in turbans, long loose jackets, sashes round their waists descending to their feet, and small bells were attached to their ankles. They commenced by first shaking hands with the rajah, and then with all the Europeans present, thereby giving us to understand, as was explained to us, that the dance was to be considered only as a spectacle, and not to be taken in its literal sense, as preparatory to an attack upon us, a view of the case in which we fully coincided with them.
"This ceremony being over, they rushed into the centre, and gave a most unearthly scream; then poising themselves on one foot, they described a circle with the other, at the same time extending their arms like the wings of a bird, and then meeting their hands, clapping them and keeping time with the music. After a little while the music became louder, and suddenly our ears were pierced with the whole of the natives present joining in the hideous war-cry. Then the motions and screams of the dancers became more violent, and every thing was worked up to a state of excitement, by which even we were influenced. Suddenly, a very unpleasant odour pervaded the room, already too warm, from the numbers it contained. Involuntarily we held our noses, wondering what might be the cause, when we perceived that one of the warriors had stepped into the centre, and suspended round the shoulders of each dancer a human head in a wide-meshed basket of rattan. These heads had been taken in the late Sakarron business, and were therefore but a fortnight old. They were encased in a wide network of rattan, and were ornamented with beads. Their stench was intolerable, although, as we discovered upon after examination, when they were suspended against the wall, they had been partially baked and were quite black. The teeth and hair were quite perfect, the features somewhat shrunk, and they were altogether very fair specimens of pickled heads; but our worthy friends required a lesson from the New Zealanders in the art of preserving. The appearance of the heads was the signal for the music to play louder, for the war-cry of the natives to be more energetic, and for the screams of the dancers to be more piercing. Their motions now became more rapid, and the excitement in proportion. Their eyes glistened with unwonted brightness. The perspiration dropped down their faces, and thus did yelling, dancing, gongs, and tom-toms become more rapid and more violent every minute, till the dancing warriors were ready to drop. A farewell yell, with emphasis, was given by the surrounding warriors; immediately the music ceased, the dancers disappeared, and the tumultuous excitement and noise was succeeded by a dead silence. Such was the excitement communicated, that when it was all over we ourselves for some time remained panting to recover our breath. Again we lighted our cheroots, and smoked for a while the pipe of peace."
WONDERFUL FISH.
The Greek Church of Baloukli contains an extraordinary instance of the credulity of superstition. Some wonderful fish are there preserved, which are thus described by Mr. Curzon in his admirable book on the "Monasteries of the Levant:"--
"The unfortunate Emperor Constantine Paleologus rode out of the city alone to reconnoitre the outposts of the Turkish army, which was encamped in the immediate vicinity. In passing through a wood he found an old man seated by the side of a spring, cooking some fish on a gridiron for his dinner; the emperor dismounted from his white horse, and entered into conversation with the other; the old man looked up at the stranger in silence, when the emperor inquired whether he had heard anything of the movement of the Turkish forces: 'Yes,' said he, 'they have this moment entered the city of Constantinople.' 'I would believe what you say,' replied the emperor, 'if the fish which you are broiling would jump off the gridiron into the spring.' This, to his amazement, the fish immediately did, and, on his turning round, the figure of the old man had disappeared. The emperor mounted his horse and rode towards the gate of Silivria, where he was encountered by a band of the enemy, and slain, after a brave resistance, by the hand of an Arab or a Negro.
"The broiled fishes still swim about in the water of the spring, the sides of which have been lined with white marble, in which are certain recesses in which they can retire when they do not wish to receive company. The only way of turning the attention of these holy fish to the respectful presence of their adorers is accomplished by throwing something glittering into the water, such as a handful of gold or silver coin: gold is the best; copper produces no effect; he that sees one fish is lucky, he that sees two or three goes home a happy man; but the custom of throwing coins into the spring has become, from its constant practice, very troublesome to the good monks, who kindly depute one of their community to rake out the money six or seven times a day with a scraper at the end of a long pole. The emperor of Russia has sent presents to the shrine of Baloukli, so called from the Turkish word Balouk, a fish. Some wicked heretics have said that these fishes are common perch: either they or the monks must be mistaken; but of whatever kind they are, they are looked upon with reverence by the Greeks, and have been continually held in the highest honour from the time of the siege of Constantinople to the present day."
CURIOUS MARRIAGE CUSTOM.
At Petze, in the department of Finisterre, in France, the following singular marriage custom still prevails:--"On an appointed day, the _paysannes_, or female pretenders to the holy state of matrimony, assemble on the bridge of the village, and, seating themselves upon the parapet, there patiently await the arrival of the intended bridegrooms. All the neighbouring cantons contribute their belles to ornament this renowned bridge. There may be seen the peasant of _Saint Poliare_, her ruddy countenance surrounded by her large muslin sleeves, which rise up and form a kind of framework to her full face; by her may be seated the heavy _Touloisienne_, in her cloth _caline_, or gown; the peasant of _la Leonarde_, in a Swiss boddice, bordered with different coloured worsted braid, and a scarlet petticoat, may next appear, presenting a gaudy contrast to her neighbour from _Saint Thegonnec_, in her nun-like costume. On one side extends _la coulie de Penhoat_, bordered with willows, honeysuckles, and the wild hop; on the other, the sea, confined here like a lake, between numerous jets of land covered with heath and sweet broom; and below the bridge, the thatched town, poor and joyous as the beggar of _Carnouailles_. The bay is here so calm, that the whole of this gay scene is reflected in its still waters; and a few scenes of rural festivity present a more animated or diverting picture.
"The arrival of the young men, with their parents, is the signal for silence among the candidates for a husband. The gentlemen advance, and gravely parade up and down the bridge, looking first on this side, and then on that, until the face of some one of the lasses strike their fancy. The fortunate lady receives intimation of her success by the advance of the cavalier, who, presenting his hand, assists her in descending from her seat, making at the same time a tender speech; compliments are exchanged, the young man offers fruit to his intended bride, who remains motionless before him, playing with her apron strings. In the mean while the parents of the parties approach each other, talk over the matter of their children's marriage, and if both parties are agreeable they shake hands, and this act of friendly gratulation is considered a ratification of the treaty between them, and the marriage is shortly afterwards celebrated."
FOREIGN COSTUME IN 1492.