Miscellanea

"Yes, and I and the brother-officers who were living with me made friends with him.We gave him food and spoke kindly to him, and he laid aside his prejudices against foreigners, and laid his tawny limbs on our threshold.We became really attached to each other.He received the very British name of Jack, and seemed quite contented with it.He took walks with us.It was then that again and again we tried to deceive him about the limits of his Quarter, and get him into another one unawares.He never was misled.But later on, as he grew tame, less fearful of things in general, and more unwilling to quit us when we were out together, he sometimes strayed beyond his bounds, not because he was deceived as to his limits, but he ventured on the risk for our sakes.Even then, however, he would not walk in the public thoroughfares, he 'dodged' through gardens, empty courtyards and quiet by-places where he was not likely to meet the outraged dogs of the Quarter he was invading.The moment we were safe back 'in bounds' he came freely and happily to our side once more.I have often wondered, since I left Constantinople, how long Jack lived, and how he died."

"Oh, didn't you take him away?"

"I couldn't, my dear.And you must not think, Maggie, that if Turks do not pet dogs they are cruel to them.It is not the case.A Turk would never dream of petting a dog, but if he saw one looking hot and thirsty in the street he would be more likely to take trouble to get it a dish of water than many English people who feed their own particular pets on mutton-chops.Jack was not likely to be ill-treated after our departure, but I sometimes have a heart-sore suspicion that we may have raised dreams in his doggish heart never again to be realized.If he were at all like other dogs (and the more we knew of him the more companionable he became), he must have waited many a long hour in patient faithfulness at our deserted threshold.He must have felt his own importance as a dog with a name, in that wild and nameless tribe to which he belonged.He must have dreamed of his foreign friends on many a blazing summer's afternoon.Perhaps he stole cautiously into other Quarters to look for us.I hope he did not venture too far—Maggie—my dear Maggie!You are not fretting about poor Jack?I assure you that really the most probable thing is that our successors made friends with him."

"Do you really and truly think so, Cousin Peregrine?"

"On my word of honour I do, Maggie.You must remember that Jack was not a Stamboul dog.He belonged to Pera, where Europeans live, so there is a strong probability that his unusual tameness and beauty won other friends for him when we had gone."

"I hope somebody very nice lived in your house when you went away."

"I hope so, Maggie."

"Cousin Peregrine, do you think we could teach Ponto to know his own quarter?"

"I think you could, Fred.I once lived next door to a man who was very fond of his garden.It was a mere strip in front of his hut—for we were quartered in camp at this time—and not even a paling separated it from a similar strip in front of my quarters.My bit, I regret to say, was not like his in any respect but shape.I had a rather ragged bit of turf, and he had a glowing mass of flowers.The monotony of my grass-plat was only broken by the marrow-bones and beef-ribs which my dog first picked and then played with under my windows.I was as fond of him as my brother-officer was of his flowers.I am sorry to say that Dash had a fancy for the gayer garden, and for some time my good-tempered neighbour bore patiently with his inroads, and with a sigh buried the beef-bone that Dash had picked among the mignonette at the roots of a magnificent rose which he often alluded to as 'John Hopper,' and seemed to treat as a friend.Mr. Hopper certainly throve on Dash's bones, but unfortunately Dash took to applying them himself to the roots of plants for which I believe that bone manure is not recommended.When he made a hole two foot deep in the Nemophila bed, and laid a sheep's head by in it against a rainy day, I felt that something must be done.After the humblest apologies to my neighbour, I begged for a few days' grace.He could not have spoken more feelingly of the form, scent, and colour of his friend John Hopper than I ventured to do in favour of the intelligence of my friend Dash.In short I begged for a week's patience on his part, that I might teach Dash to know his own garden.If I failed to do so, I promised to put him on the chain, much as I dislike tying up dogs."

"How did you manage, Cousin?"

"Whenever Dash strayed into the next garden, I began to scold him in the plainest English, and covered him with reproaches, till he slunk gradually back to his own untidy grass-plat.When he touched his own grounds, I changed my tone at once, to approbation.At first this change simply brought him flying to my feet again, if I was standing with my friend in his garden.But after a plentiful application of, 'How dare you, Sir?Go back' (pointing), 'go back to your garden.If this gentleman catches you here again, he'll grind your bones to make John Hopper's bread.That's a good dog.No!Down!Stay where you are!'—Dash began to understand.It took many a wistful gaze of his brown eyes before he fully comprehended what I meant, but he learned it at last.He never put paw into Major E——'s garden without looking thoroughly ashamed of himself.He would lie on his own ragged lawn and wistfully watch me sitting and smoking among the roses; but when I returned to our own quarters he welcomed me with an extravagant delight which seemed to congratulate me on my escape from the enemy's country."

"Oh, Cousin Peregrine!We must try and teach Ponto to know his own garden."

"I strongly advise you to do so.Ponto is a gentleman of honour and intelligence, I feel convinced.I think he will learn his neighbourly duties, and if he does do so as well as Dash did—whatever you may think of Mr. Mackinnon—I think Mr. Mackinnon will soon cease to regard Ponto as—a nasty next-door neighbour."

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THE PRINCES OF VEGETATION.

This fanciful and high-sounding title was given by the great Swedish botanist, Linnæus, to a race of plants which are in reality by no means distantly allied to a very humble family—the family of Rushes.

The great race of Palms puzzled the learned Swede.He did not know where to put them in his system; so he gave them an appendix all to themselves, and called them the Princes of Vegetation.

The appendix cannot have been a small one, for the Order of Palms is very large.About five hundred different species are known and named, but there are probably many more.

They are a very beautiful order of plants; indeed, the striking elegance of their forms has secured them a prominence in pictures, poetry, and proverbs, which makes them little less familiar to those who live in countries too cold for them to grow in, than to those whose home, like theirs, is in the tropics. The name Palm (Latin, Palma) is supposed to have been applied to them from a likeness in the growth of their branches to the outspread palm of the hand; and the fronds of some of the fan-palms are certainly not unlike the human hand, as commonly drawn by street-boys upon doors and walls.

So beautiful a tree, when it flourished in the symbol-loving East, was sure to be invested with poetical and emblematical significance.Conquerors were crowned with wreaths of palm, which is said to have been chosen as a symbol of victory, because of the elasticity with which it rises after the pressure of the heaviest weight—an explanation, perhaps, more appropriate to it as the emblem of spiritual triumphs—the Palm of Martyrdom and the Palms of the Blessed.

But as a religious symbol it is not confined to the Church triumphant.Not only is the "great multitude which no man can number" represented to us as "clothed in white robes, and palms in their hands"—the word "palmer" records the fact that he who returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land was known, not only by the cockle-shell on his gown, but by the staff of palm on which he leant.St.Gregory also alludes to the palm-tree as an accepted emblem of the life of the righteous, and adds that it may well be so, since it is rough and bare below, and expands above into greenness and beauty.

The palm here alluded to is evidently the date palm (Phœnix dactylifera).This is pre-eminently the palm-tree of the Bible, and was in ancient times abundant in the Holy Land, though, curiously enough, it is now comparatively rare.Jericho was known as "the city of palm-trees" in the time of Moses (Deut.xxxiv.3).It is alluded to again in the times of the Judges (Judges i.11; iii.13), and it bore the same title in the days of Ahaz (2 Chron.xxviii.15).Josephus speaks of it as still famous for its palm-groves in his day, but it is said that a few years ago only one tree remained, which is now gone.

It was under a palm that Deborah the prophetess sat when all Israel came up to her for judgment; and to an audience under the shadow of this tree, which bore her name, that she summoned Barak out of Kedesh-naphtali.Bethany means "the House of Dates," and the branches of palm which the crowd cut down to strew before our Lord as He rode into Jerusalem were no doubt of this particular species.

Women—as well as places—were often named after the Princes of Vegetation, whose graceful and stately forms approved them to lovers and poets as fit types of feminine beauty.

Usefulness, however, even more than ornament, is the marked characteristic of the tribe."From this order (Palmæ)," says one writer, "are obtained wine, oil, wax, flour, sugar, salt, thread, utensils, weapons, habitations, and food"—a goodly list of the necessaries of life, to which one may add many smaller uses, such as that of "vegetable ivory" for a variety of purposes, and the materials for walking-sticks, canework, marine soap, &c., &c.

The Princes of Vegetation are to be found in all parts of the world where the climate is adapted to the tropical tastes of their Royal Highnesses.

They have come into our art, our literature, and our familiar knowledge from the East; but they abound in the tropics of the West, and some species are now common in South America whose original home was in India.

The cocoa-nut palm (Cocos nucifera) is an Indian and South Sea Islands Prince; but his sway extends now over all tropical countries.The cocoa-nut palm begins to bear fruit in from seven to eight years after planting, and it bears on for no less than seventy to eighty years.

Length of days, you see, as well as beauty and beneficence, mark this royal race which Linnæus placed alone!

Cocoa-nuts are useful in many ways. The milk is pleasant, and in hot and thirsty countries is no doubt often a great boon. The white flesh—a familiar school-boy dainty—is eaten raw and cooked. It produces oil, and is used in the manufacture of stearine candles. It is also used to make marine soap, which will lather in salt water.The wood of the palm is used for ornamental joinery, the leaves for thatch and basket-work, the fibre for cordage and cocoa-nut matting, and the husk for fuel and brushes.

Cocoa and chocolate come from another palm (Theobroma cacao), which is cultivated largely in South America and the West Indies.

Sago and tapioca are made from the starch yielded by several species of palm.The little round balls of sago are formed from a white powder (sago flour, as it is called), just as homœopathic pillules are formed from sugar.It is possible to see chemists make pills from boluses to globules, but the Malay Indians are said jealously to keep the process of "pearling" sago a trade secret.Tapioca is only another form of sago starch.Sago flour is now imported into England in considerable quantities.It is used for "dressing" calicoes.

Among those products of the palm which we import most liberally is "vegetable ivory."

Vegetable ivory is the kernel of the fruit of one of the most beautiful of palms (Phytelephas macrocarpa).

This Prince of Vegetation is a native of South America."It is short-stemmed and procumbent, but has a magnificent crown of light green ostrich-feather-like leaves, which rise from thirty to forty feet high."The fruit is as big as a man's head.Two or three millions of the nuts are imported by us every year, and applied to all the purposes of use and ornament for which real ivory is available.

The Coquilla-nut palm (Attalea funifera), whose fruit is about the size of an ostrich-egg, also supplies a kind of vegetable ivory.

Our ideas of palm-trees are so much derived from the date palm of Judæa, that an erect and stately growth is probably inseparably connected in our minds with the Princes of Vegetation.But some of the most beautiful are short-stemmed and creeping; whilst others fling giant arms from tree to tree of the tropical forests, now drooping to the ground, and then climbing up again in very luxuriance of growth.Many of the rattan palms (Calamus) are of this character.They wind in and out, hanging in festoons from the branches, on which they lean in princely condescension, with stems upwards of a thousand feet in length.

There is something comical in having to add that these clinging rattan stems, which cannot support their own weight, have a proverbial fame, and are in great request for the manufacture of walking-sticks.They are also largely imported into Great Britain for canework.

Another very striking genus (Astrocaryum) is remarkable for being clothed in every part—stem, leaves, and spathe—with sharp spines, which are sometimes twelve inches long. Astrocaryum murumura is edible. The pulp of the fruit is said to be like that of a melon, and it has a musky odour. It is a native of tropical America, and abundant on the Amazon. Cattle wander about the forests in search of it, and pigs fatten on the nut, which they crunch with their teeth, though it is exceedingly hard.

The date palm yields a wine called toddy, or palm wine, and from the Princes of Vegetation is also distilled a strong spirit called arrack.

And speaking again of the Judæan palms, I must here say a word of those which we associate with Palm Sunday—the willow palms—for which we used to hunt when we were children.

It is hardly necessary to state that these willow branches, with their soft silvery catkins, the crown of the earliest spring nosegays which the hedges afford, are not even distantly related to the Princes of Vegetation, though we call them palms. They are called palms simply from having taken the place of real palm-branches in the ceremonies of the Sunday of our Lord's Entry into Jerusalem, where these do not grow.

A very old writer, speaking of the Jews strewing palm-branches before Christ, says: "And thus we take palm and flowers in procession as they did ...in the worship and mind of Him that was done on the cross, worshipping and welcoming Him with song into the Church, as the people did our Lord into the city of Jerusalem.It is called Palm Sunday for because the palm betokeneth victory; wherefore all Christian people should bear palm in procession, in token that He hath foughten with the fiend our enemy, and hath the victory of hym."

A curious old Scotch custom is recorded in Lanark, as "kept by the boys of the Grammar-school, beyond all memory in regard to date, on the Saturday before Palm Sunday.They then parade the streets with a palm, or its substitute, a large tree of the willow kind (Salix caprea), in blossom, ornamented with daffodils, mezereon, and box-tree.This day is called Palm Saturday, and the custom is certainly a popish relic of very ancient standing."

But to return to palms proper.Before taking leave of them, there is one more word to be said in their praise which may endear this noble race to eyes which will never be permitted to see the wonders of tropical forests.

As pot-plants they are not less remarkable for the picturesqueness of their forms, than for the patience with which they endure those vicissitudes of stuffiness and chill, dryness, dust, and gas, which prove fatal to so many inmates of the flower-stand or the window-sill. Pot-palms may be bought of any good nurseryman at prices varying from two or three shillings to two or three pounds. Latania borbonica and Phœnix reclinata are good and cheap. Sandy-peaty soil, with a little leaf-mould, is what they like, and this should be renewed (with a larger pot) every second year. Thus, with the most moderate care, and an occasional sponging, or a stand-out in a soft shower, the exiled Princes of Vegetation, whose shoots in their native forests would have been of giant luxuriance, will live for years, patiently adapting themselves by slow growth to the rooms which they adorn, easier of management than the next fern you dig up on your rambles, and, in the incomparable beauty of their forms, the perpetual delight of an artistic eye.

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LITTLE WOODS.

By little woods are here meant—not woods of small extent, but—woods in which the trees never grow big, woods that are to grown-up woods as children to grown-up people, woods that seem made on purpose for children, and dwarfs, and dolls, and fairies.

These little woods have many names, varying with the trees of which they are composed, or the districts in which they are found.One of the best-known names is that of copse or coppice, and it brings with it remembrances of the fresh beauty of spring days, on which—sheltered by the light copse-wood from winds that are still keen—we have revelled in sunshine warm enough to persuade us that summer was come "for good," as we picked violets and primroses to the tolling of the cuckoo.

Things "in miniature" have a natural charm for little people, and most of my young readers have probably been familiar with favourite copses, or miniature pine-forests.Perhaps some of them would like to know why these little woods never grow into big ones, and something also of the history and uses of those trees of which little woods are composed.

They are not made of dwarf trees.There are little woods, as well as big woods, of oak, elm, ash, pine, willow, birch, beech, and larch.In some cases the little woods are composed of the growth which shoots up when the principal trunk of the tree has been cut down, but they are generally little merely because they are young, and are cut down for use before they have time to grow into forest-trees.The object of this little paper is to give some account of their growth and uses.It will be convenient to take them alphabetically, by their English names.

The Ash (Fraxinus excelsior and other varieties) is a particularly graceful and fine tree at its full growth. It is a native of Great Britain, and of many other parts of the world. It is long lived. The most profitable age for felling it as a forest-tree is from eighty to a hundred years. The flower comes out before the leaves, which are late, like those of the oak. The bunches of seed-vessels, or "ash-keys," as they are fancifully called, were pickled in salt and water and eaten in old times. The Greeks and Romans made their spears of ash-wood. The wood is not so durable as that of some other trees, but it is tough, and is thus employed for work subject to sudden strains.It is good for kitchen-tables, as it scours well and does not easily splinter.

In little woods, or ash-holts, or ash-coppices, the ash is very valuable.They are either cut over entirely at certain intervals, or divided into portions which are cut yearly in succession.At four or five years old the ash makes good walking-sticks, crates to pack glass and china in, hoops, basket handles, fences, and hurdles.Croquet-mallets are also made of ash.At twelve or fourteen it is strong enough for hop-poles.There are many old superstitions in connection with the ash, and there is a midland counties saying that if there are no keys on the ash, within a twelvemonth there will be no king.

There are several fine American varieties, and both in the States and in Canada the wood is used for purposes similar to ours.

The Alder (Alnus glutinosa, &c.)is never a very large tree.It is supposed to be in maturity when it is sixty years old.It will grow in wetter places than any other tree in Europe—even than the willow.Though the wood is soft, it is very durable in water.Virgil speaks of it as being used for boats.It is highly valued in Holland for piles, and it is said that the famous bridge of the Rialto at Venice is built on piles of alder-wood. Though invaluable for water-pipes, pump-barrels, foundations for bridges, &c. , alder-wood is of little use on dry land unless it can be kept perfectly dry. Wooden vessels and sabots, however, are made of it.

Alders are chiefly grown in little woods.Planted by the side of rivers, too, their tough and creeping roots bind and support the banks.Alder-coppices are very valuable to the makers of—gunpowder!Every five or six years the little alders are cut down and burned to charcoal, and the charcoal of alder-wood is reckoned particularly good by gunpowder manufacturers.

The Aspen, or Trembling Poplar (Populus tremula), like the alder, is fond of damp situations.It has also a white soft wood, used by the turner and engraver, and for such small articles as clogs, butchers' trays, &c., &c.

The quivering of its leaves is a favourite topic with poets, and there is a curious old Highland superstition that the Cross of Christ was made of aspen-wood, and that thenceforward the tree could never rest.

In "little woods" it may be cut every seven or eight years for faggots, and at fifteen or twenty years old for poles.

The Beech (Fagus sylvatica).With this beautiful tree all our young readers must be familiar.There may be those whose minds are not quite clear about wych-elms and sycamores, but the appearance of the beech-tree is too strongly marked to allow of any confusion on the subject.

The beech is spoken of by Greek and Roman writers, and old writers on British agriculture count it among the four timber trees indigenous to England: the beech, the oak, the ash, and the elm.

It is said, however, not to be a native of Scotland or Ireland.It attains its full growth in from sixty to eighty years, but is believed to live to be as old as two hundred.The timber is not so valuable as that of the other three British trees, but it is used for a great variety of purposes.Like the alder, it will bear the action of water well, and has thus been used for piles, flood-gates, mill-wheels, &c.It is largely used by cabinet-makers for house furniture.It is employed also by carriage-makers and turners, and for various small articles, from rolling-pins to croquet-balls.The dried leaves are used in Switzerland to fill beds with, and very nice such beds must be!Long ago they were used for this purpose in England.Evelyn says that they remain sweet and elastic for seven or eight years, by which time a straw mattress would have become hard and musty.They have a pleasant restorative scent, something like that of green tea. When we think how many poor people lie on musty mattresses, or have none at all, whilst the beech-leaves lie in the woods and go very slowly to decay, we see one more of the many instances of people remaining uncomfortable when they need not be so, because of their ignorance. The fact that beech-leaves are very slow to rot makes them useful in the garden for mulching and protecting plants from frost.

In Scotland the beech-chips and branches are burned to smoke herrings, and pyroligneous acid (a form of which is probably known to any of our young readers who suffer from toothache as creosote!) is distilled from them. Mr. Loudon tells us that the word "book" comes from the German word buch, which, in the first instance, means a beech, and was applied to books because the old German bookbinders used beech-wood instead of paste-board for the sides of thick volumes.Beech-wood is especially good for fuel.Only the sycamore, the Scotch pine, and the ash give out more heat and light when they burn.Beech-nuts—or beech-mast, as it is called—are eaten by many animals.Pigs, deer, poultry, &c., are turned into beech-woods to fatten on the mast.Squirrels and dormice delight in it.In France it is used to make beech-oil.This oil is used both for cooking and burning, and for the latter purpose has the valuable property of having no nasty smell.

Of the beauty of the beech as a forest-tree—let artists rave! Its smooth and shapely bole does not tempt the sketcher's eye alone. To the lover and the school-boy (and, alas! to that inartistic animal the British holiday-maker) it offers an irresistible surface for cutting names and dates. Upon its branches and beneath its shadow grow many fungi, several of which are eatable.Truffles are found there; those underground dainties which dogs (and sometimes pigs!)are trained to grub up for our benefit.They discover the whereabouts of the truffle by scent, for there is no sign of it above ground.Nothing else will grow under beech-trees, except holly.

Scarcely less charming than the beech-forests are beech-hedges.They cut and thrive with cutting like yew-hedges.

"Little woods" of beech are common in Buckinghamshire.They are chiefly grown for the charcoal, which is valuable for gunpowder.

"Copper-Beeches"—red-leaved beech-trees, very beautiful for ornamental purposes—all come from one red-leaved beech, a sort of freak of nature, which was found about a century ago in a wood in Germany.

The Birch (Betula alba, &c.)is also a tree of very distinctive appearance.The silver-white bark, which peels so delightfully under childish fingers, is not less charming to the sketcher's eye, whether as a near study or as gleaming points of high light against the grey greens and misty purples of a Highland hillside. It is emphatically the tree of the Highlands of the North. It bends and breaks not under the wildest winds, it thrives on poor soil, and defies mist and cold. So varied are its uses that it has been said that the Scotch Highlander makes everything of birch, from houses to candles, and beds to ropes! The North American Indians and the Laplanders apply it almost as universally as the Chinese use paper. The wigwams or huts of the North American Indians are made of birch-bark laid over a framework of birch-poles or trunks, and their canoes or boats are cased in it. The Laplander makes his great-coat of it,—a circular poncho with a hole for his head,—as well as his houses and his boots and shoes. It will be easily believed that birch-bark was used in ancient times for writing on before the invention of paper.

Birch-wood makes good fuel. It is also used by cabinet-makers. Its uses in "little woods" are many. The charcoal is good for gunpowder, and it is that of which crayons are made. Birch-coppices are cut for brooms, hoops, &c. , at five to six years old, and at ten to twelve for faggot-wood, poles, fencing, and bark for the tanners. Birch-spray (that is, the twigs and leaves) is used for smoking hams and herrings, and for brooms to sweep grass. It is also used to make birch-rods; but as we think very ill of the discipline of any household in which the children and the pets cannot be kept in order without being beaten, we hope our own young readers are only familiar with birch-rods in picture-books.

The (Sweet or Spanish) Chestnut (Castanca vesca) is grown in "little woods" for hop-poles, fence-wood, and hoops.The wood of the full-grown tree is also valuable.

Evelyn says, "A decoction of the rind of the tree tinctures hair of a golden colour, esteemed a beauty in some countries."It would be entertaining to know if this is the foundation of the "auricomous fluids" advertised by hair-dressers!

Amongst "little woods" the dearest of all to the school-boy must surely be the hazel-copse!The Hazel (Corylus avellana) is never a large tree.It is, however, long lived, and of luxuriant growth.When cut it "stoles" or throws up shoots very freely, and when treated so will live a hundred years.With a single stem, Mr. Loudon assures us, it would live much longer.Filbert-hazels are a variety with longer nuts.Hazels are cultivated not only for the nuts, but for corf-rods,[1] hoops, fencing, &c. , and hazel-charcoal, like beech-charcoal, is used for crayons. Like many other plants, the hazel has two kinds of flowers, which come out before the leaves.The long pale catkins appear first, and a little later tiny crimson flowers come where the nuts are afterwards to be.

Many old superstitions are connected with the hazel.Hazel-rods were used to "divine" for water and minerals by professors of an art which received the crack-jaw title of Rhabdomancy.Having tried our own hand at Rhabdomancy, we are able to say that the freaks of the divining-rod in sensitive fingers are sometimes as curious as those of a table among table-turners; and are probably susceptible of similar explanations.

The Larch (Larix Europæa, &c.) . Though traceable in England for two hundred years, it is within this century that the larch has been extensively cultivated for profit. The exact date of its introduction from the mountain ranges of some other part of Europe is not known, but there is a popular tradition that it was first brought to Scotland with some orange-trees from Italy, and having begun to wither under hot-house treatment, was thrown outside, where it took root and throve thereafter. The wood of full-grown larch-trees is very valuable. To John, Duke of Athol, Scotland is indebted for the introduction of larch plantations on an enormous scale. He is said to have planted 6500 acres of mountain-ground with these valuable trees, which not only bring in heavy returns as timber, but so enrich the ground on which they grow, by the decayed spicula or spines which fall from them, as to increase its value in the course of some years eight or tenfold. The Duke was buried in a coffin made of larch-wood! This sounds as if the merits of the larch-tree had been indeed a hobby with him, but when one comes to enumerate them one does not wonder that a man should feel his life very usefully devoted to establishing so valuable a tree in his native country, and that the pains and pride it brought him should have awakened sentiment enough to make him desire to make his last cradle from his favourite tree.

Larch-wood is light, strong, and durable.It is used for beams and for ship-building, for railroad-sleepers and mill-axles, for water-pipes, and for panels for pictures.Evelyn says that Raphael, the great painter, painted many of his pictures on larch-wood.It will stand in heat and wet, under water and above ground.It yields good turpentine, but trees that have been tapped to procure this are of no use afterwards for building purposes.The larch is said not to make good masts for ships, but its durability in all varieties of temperature and changes of weather make it valuable for vine-props.When made of larch-poles these are never taken up as hop-poles are.Year after year the vines climb them and fade at their feet, and they are said to have outlasted at least one generation of vine-growers.

In "little woods" the larches are planted very close, so that they may "spindle up" and become tall before they grow thick.They are then used for hop-poles and props of various kinds.

The Oak (Quercus robur, &c.)is pre-eminently a British tree.Of its beauty, size, the venerable age it will attain, and its historical associations, we have no space to speak here, and our young readers are probably not ignorant on the subject.

The durability of its wood is proverbial.The bark is also of great value, and though the slow growth of the oak in its earlier years postpones profit to the planter, it does so little harm to other wood grown with it (being in this respect very different from the beech), that profitable coppice-wood and other trees may be grown in the same plantation.

The age at which the oak should be felled for ship-timber, &c., depends on many circumstances, and is fixed by different authorities at from eighty to a hundred and fifty years.

Oaks are said to be more liable than other trees to be struck by lightning.

Oak-coppices or "little woods" are cut over at from twelve to thirty years old.The bark is valuable as well as the wood.

The Pine (Pinus sylvestris, &c.), like the larch, will flourish on poor soils.It is valuable as a protection for other trees.The varieties and variations of this tree are very numerous.

It is a very valuable timber-tree, the wood being loosely known as "deal"; but "deals" are, properly speaking, planks of pine-wood of a certain thickness, "boards" being the technical name for a thicker kind.Pine trunks are used for the masts of ships."In the north of Russia and in Lapland the outer bark is used, like that of the birch, for covering huts, for lining them inside, and as a substitute for cork for floating the nets of fishermen; and the inner bark is woven into mats like those made from the lime-tree.Ropes are also made from the bark, which are said to be very strong and elastic, and are generally used by the fishermen."

In the north of Europe great quantities of tar are procured from the Scotch pine.Torches are made from the roots and trunk.

Varieties of the pine are grown in "little woods" for hop-poles.

Pinus sylvestris (the "Scotch Pine"), though a native of Scotland, has only been planted and cultivated in Great Britain for about a century.

On the subject of "thinning and pruning" in plantations planters—like doctors—differ.An amusing story was sent to Mr. Loudon by the Duke of Bedford, in reference to his grandfather, who was an advocate for vigorous thinning in the pine plantations.

"The Duke perceived that the plantation required thinning, in order to admit a free circulation of air, and give health and vigour to the young trees.He accordingly gave instructions to his gardener, and directed him as to the mode and extent of the thinning required.The gardener paused and hesitated, and at length said: 'Your Grace must pardon me if I humbly remonstrate against your orders, but I cannot possibly do what you desire; it would at once destroy the young plantation; and, moreover, it would be seriously injurious to my reputation as a planter.'My grandfather, who was of an impetuous and decided character, but always just, instantly replied, 'Do as I desire you, and I will take care of your reputation.'The plantation was accordingly thinned according to the instructions of the Duke, who caused a board to be fixed in the plantation, facing the wood, on which was inscribed, 'This plantation has been thinned by John, Duke of Bedford, contrary to the advice and opinion of his gardener.'"

The Willow (Salix caprea, &c.)The species of willow are so numerous that we shall not attempt to give a list of them.

Willow-wood wears well in water, and has been used in shipbuilding and carpentery, and especially for small ware, cricket-bats and toys.Full-grown willows of all kinds are picturesque and very graceful trees.The growth of the tree kinds when young is very rapid.

Willows are largely cultivated in "little woods" for basket-making, hoops, &c. Shoots of the Salix caprea of only a year's growth are large enough to be valuable for wicker-work. It appears to be held by cultivators that the poorer the soil in which they are grown the oftener these willows should be cut over. "In a good soil a coppice of this species will produce the greatest return in poles, hoops, and rods every five, six, seven, or eight years; and in middling soil, where it is grown chiefly for faggot-wood, it will produce the greatest return every three, four, or five years."

Horses and cattle are fed on the leaves of the willow in some parts of France.

Willows are often "pollarded."That is, their tops are cut off, which makes a large crop of young shoots spring out, giving a shock-headed effect which in gnarled old pollards by river-banks is picturesque enough.

The "little woods" of willow on the river Thames and the Cam are well known.They are small islands planted entirely with willows, and are called osier-holts.

Osier-beds of all kinds are very attractive "little woods."One always fancies one ought to be able to make something of the long pliable "sally-withys"—as the Wiltshire folk call willow switches.Indeed, as a matter of fact, the making of rough garden-baskets is a very simple art, especially on the Scotch and German system.Let any ingenious little prowler in an osier-bed get two thickish willow-rods and fasten them at the ends with a bit of wire, so as to make two hoops.These hoops are then to intersect each other half-way up, one being perpendicular, to form the handle and the bottom of the basket, the other being placed horizontally, to form the rim.More wire will be needed to fix them in their positions.Much finer willow-wands are used to wattle, or weave, the basket-work; ribs of split osiers are added, and the wattling goes in and out among them, and at once secures them and rests upon them.

This account is not likely to be enough to teach the most intelligent of our readers!But one fancies that a rough sort of basket-making might almost be devised out of one's own head, especially if he had been taught (as we were, by a favourite nursemaid) to plait rushes.

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MAY-DAY,

OLD STYLE AND NEW STYLE.

On the whole, perhaps, May is the most beautiful of the English months, especially the latter half of it; and yet I suppose very few May-days come round on which we are not disposed to wonder why our ancestors did not choose a warmer, and indeed a more flowery season for Maypoles and garlands and out-door festivities.

Children who live in the north of England especially must have a painfully large proportion of disappointments out of the few May-days of childhood.

Books and pictures, old stories told by Papa or Mamma of clattering chimney-sweeps and dancing May Queens, such as they saw in their young days, or heard of from their elders, have perhaps roused in us two of the strongest passions of childhood—the love of imitation and the love of flowers.We are determined to have a May-bush round the nursery-window, duly gathered before sunrise."Pretty Bessy," our nursemaid, can do anything with flowers, from a cowslip ball to a growing forget-me-not garland.The girls are apt pupils, and pride themselves on their birthday wreaths.The boys are admirably adapted for May sweeps.Clatter is melodious in their ears.They would rather be black than white.Burnt cork will disguise them effectually; but they would prefer soot.A pole is forthcoming; ribbons are not wanting; the poodle will dance with the best of us.We have a whole holiday on Saints' Days, and the 1st of May is SS.Philip and James'.

What then hinders our enjoyment, and makes it impossible to keep May-day according to our hopes?

Too often this.It is "too cold to dawdle about."Flowers are by no means plentiful; they are pinched by the east wind.The May Queen would have to dance in her winter clothes, and would probably catch cold even then.It is not improbable that it will rain, and it is possible that it may snow.Worse than all, the hawthorn-trees are behind time, and are as obstinate as the head-nurse in not thinking the weather fit for coming out.The May is not in blossom on May-day.

And yet May-day used to be kept in the north of England as well as in warmer nooks and corners.The truth is that one reason why we find the weather less pleasant, and the flowers fewer than our forefathers did, is that we keep May-day eleven days earlier in the year than they used to do.

To explain how this is, I must try and explain what Old Style and New Style—in reckoning the days of the year—mean.

First let me ask you how you can count the days.Supposing you wish to remain just one day and night in a certain place, how will you know when you have stayed the proper time?In one of two ways.Either you will count twenty-four hours on the clock, or you will stay through all the light of one day, and all the darkness of one night.That is, you will count time either by the Clock or by the Sun.

Now we say that there are 365 days in the year.But there are really a few odd hours and minutes and seconds into the bargain.The reason of this is that the Sun does not go by the Clock in making the days and nights.Sometimes he spends rather more than twenty-four hours by the Clock over a day and night; sometimes he takes less.On the whole, during the year, he uses up more time than the Clock does.

The Clock makes exactly 365 days of 24 hours each.The Sun makes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 49 seconds, and a tiny bit besides.

Now in time these odd hours added together would come to days, and the days to years.About fifteen hundred years of this little difference between the Sun and the Clock would bring it up to a year.So that if you went by the Clock you would say, "It is fifteen hundred years since such a thing happened."And if you went by the Sun you would say, "It is fifteen hundred and one years since it happened."

Men who could think and calculate saw how inconvenient this would be, and what mistakes it would lead to.If the difference did not come to much in their lifetime, they could see that it would come to a serious error for other people some day.So Julius Cæsar thought he would pull the Clock and the Sun together by adding one day every four years to the Clock's year to make up for the odd hours the Sun had been spinning out during the three years before.The odd day was added to the month of February, and that year (in which there are three hundred and sixty-six days) is called Leap Year.

You remember the old saw—

This is called the Old Style of reckoning.

Now I dare say you think the matter was quite settled; but it was not, unfortunately—the odd day every four years was just a tiny little bit too much, and now the Clock was spending more time over her years than the Sun.After more than sixteen hundred years the small mistake was becoming serious, and Pope Gregory XIII decided that we must not have so many leap years.For the future, in every four hundred years, three of the Clock's extra days must be given up, and ten days were to be left out of count at once to make up for the mistakes of years past.

This change is what is called the New Style of Reckoning. Pope Gregory began it in the year 1582, but we did not adopt it in England till 1752, and as we had then nearly two hundred years more of the little mistake to correct, we had to leave eleven days out of count. In Russia, where our new Princess comes from, they have not got it yet. The New Style was begun in England on September the 2nd. The next day, instead of being called September the 3rd, was called September the 14th. Since then we have gone on quite steadily, and played no more tricks with either the Sun's year or the Clock's year.

I wonder what happened in the year 1752 to all the children whose birthdays came between September the 2nd and September the 14th!I hope their birthday presents did not drop through because his Majesty George the Second had let eleven birthdays slip out of that year's calendar, to get the Clock and the Sun to work comfortably together.

Now I think you will be able to see that in the next year after this change, May-day was kept eleven days earlier in the Sun's year than the year before; and it has been at an earlier season ever since, and therefore in colder weather.May-day in the Old Style would have come this year about the middle of the month; and as years rolled on it would have been kept later and later in the summer, and thus in warmer and warmer weather, because of that little mistake of Julius Cæsar.At last, instead of complaining that the May is not out by May-day, people would have had to complain that it was over.

Now in the New Style we keep May-day almost in Spring, and, thanks to Pope Gregory's clever arrangement, we shall always keep it at the same season.

It is not always cold on a May-day even in the north of England.I have a vivid remembrance of at least one which was most balmy; and, when they are warm enough for out-door enjoyment, the early days of the year seem, like the early hours of the day, to have an exquisite freshness peculiarly their own.Then the month of May, as a whole, is certainly the month of flowers in the woods and fields.Autumn is the gayest season of the garden, but Spring and early Summer give us the prettiest of the wild-flowers.

That fine weather is not quite to be relied upon for May-day, even in the Old Style, some of the old May-day customs seem to suggest.In the Isle of Man it was the custom not only to have a "Queen of May," but also a "Queen of Winter."The May Queen was, as elsewhere, some pretty and popular damsel, gaily dressed, and with a retinue of maids of honour.The Winter Queen was a man or boy dressed in woman's clothes of the warmest kind—"woollen hood, fur tippet," &c.Fiddles and flutes were played before the May Queen and her followers, whilst the Queen of Winter and her troop marched to the sound of the tongs and cleaver.The rival companies met on a common and had a mock battle, symbolizing the struggle of Winter and Summer for supremacy.If the Queen of Winter's forces contrived to capture the Queen of May, her floral majesty had to be ransomed by payment of the expenses of the day's festivity.

Whether the Queen of Winter conquered in bad weather, and her fairer rival when the season was warm and the flowers abundant, we are not told.

This ceremony was probably learnt from the Danes and Norwegians, who were long masters of the Isle of Man. Olaus Magnus, speaking of the May-day customs of the Goths and Southern Swedes, says, "The captain of one band hath the name and appearance of Winter, is clothed in skins of beasts, and he and his band armed with fire-forks.They fling about ashes, by way of prolonging the reign of Winter; while another band, whose captain is called Florro, represents Spring, with green boughs such as the season affords.These parties skirmish in sport, and the mimic contest concludes with a general feast."

A few years ago in the Isle of Man the hillsides blazed with bonfires and resounded to horns on the 11th of May (May-eve, Old Style)."May flowers" were put at the doors of houses and cattle-sheds, and these were not hawthorn blossoms, but the flowers of the kingcup, or marsh marigold.Crosses made of sprays of mountain ash were worn the same night, and they, the bonfires and May flowers, were reckoned charms against "wizards, witches, enchanters, and mountain hags."

At Helston, in Cornwall, May-day seems to have been known by the name of Furry Day.Perhaps a corruption of "Flora's Day."People wore hawthorn in their hats, and danced hand-in-hand through the town to the sound of a fiddle.This particular performance was known as a "faddy."

It is probable that some of our May-day customs came from the Romans, who kept the festival of Flora, the goddess of flowers, at this season.Others, perhaps, have a different, if not an older source.One custom was certainly common to both nations.When the feast of Flora was celebrated, the young Romans went into the woods and brought back green boughs with which they decked the houses.

To "go a-Maying" is in fact the principal ceremony of the day wherever kept, and for whatever reason. In the north of England children and young folk "were wont to rise a little after midnight on the morning of May-day, and walk to some neighbouring wood accompanied with music and the blowing of horns, where they broke down branches from the trees, and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. This done, they returned homewards with their booty about the time of sunrise, and made their doors and windows triumph in the flowery spoil." Stubbs, in the Anatomie of Abuses (A.D. 1585), speaks of this custom as common to "every parish, town, and village." The churches, as well as the houses, seem in some places to have been dressed with flowers and greenery.

In an old MS. of the sixteenth century it is said that on the feast of SS.Philip and James, the Eton boys were allowed to go out at four o'clock in the morning to gather May to dress their rooms, and sweet herbs to perfume them, "if they can do it without wetting their feet!"

Thirty or forty years ago May-day decorations, in some country places, consisted of strewing the cottage doorsteps with daisies, or other flowers.

In Hertfordshire a curious custom obtained of decking the neighbours' doors with May if they were popular, and with nettles if they were the reverse.

In Lancashire rustic wags put boughs of various trees at the doors of the girls of the neighbourhood.Each tree had a meaning (well known in the district), sometimes complimentary, and sometimes the reverse.

In France it was customary for lovers to deck over-night the houses of the ladies they wished to please, and school-boys paid a like compliment to their masters.They do not seem, however, to have been satisfied with nosegays or even with green branches; they transplanted young trees from the woods to the side of the door they wished to honour, and then decked them with ribbons, &c.There is a curious record that "Henry II., wishing to recompense the clerks of Bazoche for their good services in quelling an insurrection in Guienne, offered them money; but they would only accept the permission granted them by the king, of cutting in the royal woods such trees as they might choose for the planting of the May—a privilege which existed at the commencement of the French Revolution."In Cornwall, too, it seems to have been the custom to plant "stumps of trees" before the houses, as well as to decorate them with boughs and blossoms. And Mr. Aubrey (1686) says, "At Woodstock in Oxon they every May-eve goe into the parke, and fetch away a number of haw-thorne-trees, which they set before their dores; 'tis a pity that they make such a destruction of so fine a tree."

One certainly agrees with Mr. Aubrey.Thorns are slow to grow, hard to transplant, and very lovely when they are old.It is not to be regretted that such ruthless destruction of them has gone out of fashion.

In Ireland "tall slender trees" seem to have been set up before the doors, as well as "a green bush, strewed over with yellow flowers, which the meadows yield plentifully."A writer, speaking of this in 1682, adds, "A stranger would go nigh to imagine that they were all signs of ale-sellers, and that all houses were ale-houses," referring to the old custom of a bunch of green as the sign of an inn, which is illustrated by the proverb, "Good wine needs no bush."I have an old etching of a river-side inn, in which the sign is a garland hanging on a pole.

I fancy the yellow flowers must have been cowslips, which the green fields of Erin do indeed "yield plentifully."

Besides these private May-trees, every village had its common Maypole, gaily adorned with wreaths and flags and ribbons, and sometimes painted in spiral lines of colour.The Welsh Maypoles seem to have been made from birch-trees, elms were used in Cornwall, and young oaks in other parts of England.Round these Maypoles the young villagers danced, and green booths were often set up on the grass near them.

In many villages the Maypole was as much a fixture as the parish stocks, but when a new one was required, it was brought home on May-eve in grand procession with songs and instrumental music.I am afraid there is a good deal of evidence to show that the Maypoles were not always honestly come by!However, the Puritan writers (from whose bitter and detailed complaints we learn most of what we know about the early English May-day customs) are certainly prejudiced, and perhaps not quite trustworthy witnesses.One good man groans lamentably: "What adoe make our young men at the time of May? Do they not use night watchings to rob and steale young trees out of other men's grounde, and bring them into their parishe, with minstrels playing before?"

But as the theft must have been committed with all the publicity that a fixed day, a large crowd, and a full band could ensure, and as we seem to have no record of interference at the time, or prosecutions afterwards, I hope we may infer that the owners of the woods did not grudge one tree for the village Maypole.A quainter vengeance seems to have sometimes followed the trespass.Honesty was at a discount.What had been once stolen was liable to be re-stolen.There seems to have been great rivalry among the villages as to which had the best Maypole.The happy parish which could boast the finest was not left at ease in its supremacy, for the lads of the other villages were always on the watch to steal it.A record of this custom amongst the Welsh reminds one that Wales was at once the land of bards and the home of Taffy the Thief."If successful," says Owen, speaking of these Maypole robbers, they "had their feats recorded in songs."

In old times oxen were commonly used for farmwork, and it seems that they had their share in the May fun.Another Puritan writer says, "They have twentie or fortie yoke of oxen, every oxe having a sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen draw home this Maie poole."

How well one can imagine their slow swinging pace, unmoved by the shouts and music which would stir a horse's more delicate nerves!Their broad moist noses; their large, liquid eyes, and, doubtless, a certain sense of pride in their "sweet nosegaies," like the pride of the Beast of a Regiment in his badge.

Horses, too, came in for their share of May decorations.It was an old custom to give the waggoner a ribbon for his team at every inn he passed on May-day.

In the last century there was a fixed Maypole near Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, to which the boys made a pilgrimage in procession every May-day with May-gads in their hands.May-gads are white willow wands, peeled, and dressed with cowslips.

There was a fixed Maypole in the Strand for many years—or rather a succession of Maypoles.One, when only four years old, was given to Sir Isaac Newton to make a stand for his telescope, and another seems to have had a narrow escape from being handed over to a less celebrated astronomer, some years later.

The wandering Maypole, with its Queen of the May and her chimney-sweeps, is a modern compound of the village Maypole and May Queen with the May games in which (as in the Christmas festivities) morris-dancers played a part.The May-day morris-dancers, like the Christmas mummers, performed sword-dances and sang appropriate doggerels in costume.The characters represented at one time or another were Maid Marian or the May Queen, Robin Hood or Lord of the May, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, Little John Stokesley, Tom the Piper, Mad Moll and her Husband, Mutch, the Fool and the Hobby Horse.Archery was amongst the May-day sports, especially in the company of Robin Hood.The Summer King and Queen were perhaps the oldest characters.They seem to be identical with the Lord and Lady, and sometimes to have been merged in Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

The King and Queen of May are spoken of in the thirteenth century, but morris-dancing at May-time does not seem to date earlier than Henry VII., and is not so old a custom as the immemorial one of going a-Maying

This was not confined to young people or to country-folk. Chaucer says that on May-day early "fourth goth al the court, both most and lest, to fetche the flowrès fresh, and braunch, and blome," and Henry VIII.kept May-day very orthodoxly in the early years of his reign.

Milkmaids have been connected with May-day customs from an early period.Perhaps because syllabub and cream were the recognized dainties of the festival.In Northumberland a ring used to be dropped into the syllabub and fished for with a ladle.Whoever got it was to be the first married of the party.An odd old custom in Suffolk suggests that the hawthorn was not always ready even for the Old Style May-day.Any farm-servant who could find a branch in full blossom might claim a dish of cream for breakfast.The milkmaids who supplied London and other places used to dress themselves gaily on May-day and go round from house to house performing a dance, and receiving gratuities from their customers.On their heads—instead of a milk-pail—they carried a curious trophy, called the "Milkmaids' Garland," made of silver or pewter jugs, cups, and other pieces of plate, which they borrowed for the occasion, and which shone out of a mass of greenery and flowers.Possibly these were at first the pewter measures with which they served out the milk.The music to which the milkmaids' dance was performed, was the jangling of bells of different tones depending from a round plate of brass mounted upon a Maydecked pole; but a bag-pipe or fiddle was sometimes substituted.

Cream, syllabub, and dainties compounded with milk, belong in England to the May festival.In Germany there is a "May drink" (said to be very nice) made by putting woodruff into white Rhine wine, in the proportion of a handful to a quart.Black currant, balm, or peppermint leaves are sometimes added, and water and sugar.

The milkmaids' place has been completely usurped by the sweeps, who clatter a shovel and broom instead of the old plate and bells, and who seem to have added the popular Jack-in-the-green to the entertainment.Jack-in-the-green's costume is very simple.A wicker-work frame of an extinguisher shape, thickly covered with green, is supported by the man who carries it, and who peeps through a hole left for the purpose.May-day has become the Sweeps' Carnival.Mrs. Montague (whose son is said to have been stolen for a sweep in his childhood, and afterwards found) used to give the sweeps of London a good dinner every May-day, on the lawn before her house in Portman Square.

Another May-day custom is that of the choristers assembling at five o'clock in the morning on the top of the beautiful tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, and ushering in the day with singing.At the same time boys of the city armed with tin trumpets, called "May-horns," assemble beneath the tower, and contribute more sound than harmony to the celebration.Let us hope that it is not strictly a part of the old ceremony, but rather a minor manifestation of "Town and Gown" feeling, that the town boys jeer the choristers, and in return are pelted with rotten eggs.The origin of this special Oxford custom is said to be a requiem which was sung on the tower for the soul of Henry VII., founder of the College.In the villages girls used to carry round May-garlands.The party consisted of four children.Two girls in white dresses and gay ribbons carried the garland, and were followed by a boy and girl called "Lord and Lady," linked together by a white handkerchief, of which each held an end.The Lady carried the purse, and when she received a donation the Lord doffed his cap and kissed her.They sang a doggerel rhyme, and the form in which money was asked was, "Please to handsel the Lord and Lady's purse."

One cannot help thinking that some of our flowers, such as Milkmaids, Lords and Ladies, and Jack-in-the-green Primrose, bear traces of having got their common names at the great flower festival of the year.

In Cornwall boys carried the May-garland, which was adorned with painted birds' eggs. Old custom gave these young rogues the privilege of drenching with water from a bucket any one whom they caught abroad on May-morning without a sprig of May.

Mr. Aubrey says (1686): "At Oxford, the boyes do blow cows' horns all night; and on May-day the young maids of every parish carry about their parish garlands of flowers, which afterwards they hang up in their churches."

A generation or more ago the little boys of Oxford used to blow horns early on May-day—as they said—"to call up the old maids."There was once a custom in Lynn for the workhouse children to be allowed to go out with horns and garlands every May-day, after which a certain worthy gentleman gave them a good dinner.

In Cambridgeshire, within the present century, the children had a doll dressed as the "May Lady," before which they set a table with wine and food on it; they also begged money and garlands for "the poor May Lady."

There are some quaint superstitions connected with May-day and May-blossom. To bathe the face in the dew of a May morning was reckoned an infallible recipe for a good complexion. A bath of May dew was also supposed to strengthen weakly children. Girls divined for dreams of their future husbands with a sprig of hawthorn gathered before dusk on May-eve, and carried home in the mouth without speaking.Hawthorn rods were used at all seasons of the year to divine for water and minerals.Bunches of May fastened against houses were supposed to keep away witches and venomous reptiles, and to bring prosperity in various shapes.

The Irish of the neighbourhood of Killarney have a pretty superstition that on May-day the O'Donoghue, a popular prince of by-gone days, returns from the land of Immortal Youth beneath the water to bless the country over which he once ruled.

Some curious customs among the Scotch Highlanders (who call May 1st Beltan Day) have nothing in common with our Green Festival except as celebrating the Spring. They seem to be the remains of very ancient heathen sacrifices to Baal. They were performed by the herdsmen of the district, and included an open-air feast of cakes and custard, to which every one contributed, and which was cooked upon a fire on a turf left in the centre of a square trench which had been dug for the purpose. Some custard was poured out by way of libation. Every one then took a cake of oatmeal, on which nine knobs had been pinched up before baking, and turning his face to the fire threw the knobs over his shoulder, some as offerings to the supposed guardians of the flock, and the rest in propitiation of beasts and birds of prey, with the form "This to thee, O Fox! spare my lambs! This to thee, O hooded Crow!" &c. In some places the boys of the hamlet met on the moors for a similar feast, but the turf table was round, and the oatcake divided into bits, one of which was blackened with charcoal. These being drawn from a bonnet, the holder of the black bit was held devoted to Baal, and had to leap three times over the bonfire.

I do not know of any children's games that were peculiar to May-day. In France they had a May-day game called Sans-vertThose who played had to wear leaves of the hornbeam-tree, and these were to be kept fresh, under penalty of a fine.The chief object of the players was to surprise each other without the proper leaves, or with faded specimens.

A stupid old English custom of making fools of your friends on the 1st of May as well as on the 1st of April hardly deserves the title of a game.The victims were called "May goslings."

One certainly would not expect to meet with anything like "Aunt Sally" among May-day games, especially with the "May Lady" for butt! But not the least curious part of a very curious account of May-day in Huntingdonshire, which was sent to Notes and Queries some years ago, is the pelting of the May Lady as a final ceremony of the festival.The May-garlands carried round in Huntingdonshire villages appear to have been more like the "milkmaids' garland" than genuine wreaths.They were four to five feet high, extinguisher-shaped, with every kind of spring flower in the apex, and with ribbons and gay kerchiefs hanging down from the base, by the round rim of which the garland was carried; the flower-peak towering above, and the gay streamers depending below.Against this erection (not unlike the "mistletoe boughs" of the North of England) was fastened a gaily-dressed doll.The bearers were two little girls, who acted as maids of honour to the May Queen.Mr. Cuthbert Bede describes her Majesty as he saw her twenty years ago.She wore a white frock, and a bonnet with a white veil.A wreath of real flowers lay on the bonnet.She carried a pocket-handkerchief bag and a parasol (the latter being regarded as a special mark of dignity).An "Odd Fellows'" ribbon and badge completed her costume.The maids of honour bore the garland after her, whose peak was crowned with "tulips, anemones, cowslips, kingcups, meadow-orchis, wall-flower, primrose, crown-imperial, lilac, laburnum," and "other bright flowers."Votive offerings were dropped into the pocket-handkerchief bag, and with these a feast was provided for the children.If the gifts had been liberal, "goodies" were proportionately plentiful.Finally, the May-garland was suspended from a rope hung across the village street, and the children pelted the May-doll with balls provided for the occasion.Their chief aim was to hit her nose.

Another correspondent of Notes and Queries speaks of ropes with dolls suspended from them as being stretched across every village street in Huntingdonshire on May-day, and adds, that not only ribbons and flowers were attached to these swinging May Ladies, but articles of every description, including "candlesticks, snuffers, spoons, and forks."

There are no May carols rivalling those of Christmas, and the verses which children sing with their garlands are very bald as a rule.

A Maypole song of the Gloucestershire children would do very well to dance to—

I have read of a pretty old Italian custom for the friends of prisoners to assemble outside the prison walls on May-day and join with them in songs.They are also said to have permission to have a May-day feast with them.

Under all its various shapes, and however adapted to the service of particular heathen deities, or to very rude social festivity, the root of the May-day festival lies in the expression of feelings both natural and right.Thankfulness for the return of Spring, anxiety for the coming harvests of the fruits of the earth, and that sense of exhilaration and hopefulness which the most exquisite of seasons naturally brings—brings more strongly perhaps in the youth of a nation, in those earlier stages of civilization when men are very dependent upon the weather, and upon the produce of their own particular neighbourhood—brings most strongly of all to one's own youth, to the light heart, the industrious fancy, the uncorrupted taste of childhood.

May-day seems to me so essentially a children's festival, that I think it is a great pity that English children should allow it to fall into disuse. One certainly does not love flowers less as one grows up, but they are more like persons, and their ways are more mysterious to one in childhood. The cares of grown-up life, too, are not of the kind from which we can easily get a whole holiday. We should do well to try oftener than we do. Wreaths do not become us, and we have allowed our joints to grow too stiff for Maypole dancing. But we who used to sigh for whole holidays can give them! We can prepare the cakes and cream, and provide ribbons for the Maypole, and show how garlands were made in our young days.We are very grateful for wild-flowers for the drawing-room.To say the truth, they last longer with us than with the children, and perhaps we combine the delicate hues of spring, and lighten our nosegays by grass and sword-flags and rushes with more cunning fingers than those of the little ones who gathered them.

For these is reserved the real bloom of May-day!And the orthodox customs are so various, that families of any size or age may pick and choose.One brother and sister can be Lord and Lady of the May.One sister among many brothers must be May Queen without opposition.Those of the party most apt to catch cold in the treacherous sunshine and damp winds of spring should certainly represent the Winter Queen and her attendants, in the warmest possible clothing and the thickest of boots.The morning air will then probably only do them a great deal of good.It is not desirable to dig up the hawthorn-trees, or to try to do so, even with wooden spades.The votive offering of flowers for her drawing-room should undoubtedly await Mamma when she comes down to breakfast, and I heartily wish her as abundant a variety as Mr. Cuthbert Bede saw on the Huntingdonshire garland.That Nurse should have a bunch of May is only her due; and of course the nursery must be decorated. Long strips of coloured calico form good ribbons for the Maypole. Bows and arrows are easily made. It is also easy to cut one's fingers in notching the arrows. When you are tired of dancing, you can be Robin Hood's merry men, and shoot. When all the arrows are lost, and you have begun to quarrel about the target, it will be well to hang up an old doll and throw balls at her nose. Dressing-up is, at any time, a delightful amusement, and there is a large choice among May-day characters. No wardrobe can fail to provide the perfectly optional costumes of Mad Moll and her husband. There are generally some children who never will learn their parts, and who go astray from every pre-arranged plan. By any two such the last-named characters should be represented. In these, as in all children's games, "the more the merrier"; and as there is no limit to the number of sweeps, the largest of families may revel in burnt cork, even if dust-pans in proportion fail. If a bonfire is more appropriate to the weather than a Maypole, we have the comfort of feeling that it is equally correct.

It is hardly needful to impress upon the boys what vigour the blowing of horns and penny trumpets will impart to the ceremonies; but they may require to be reminded that Eton men in old days were only allowed to go a-Maying on condition that they did not wet their feet!

Above all, out-door May Fun is no fun unless the weather is fine; and I hope this little paper will show that if the 1st of May is chilly, and the flowers are backward, nothing can be more proper than to keep our feast on the 12th of May—May-day, Old Style. If the Clerk of the Weather Office is unkind on both these days, give up out-door fun at once, and prepare for a fancy-ball in the nursery; all the guests to be dressed as May-day characters. Garland-making and country expeditions can then be deferred till Midsummer-day. It is not very long to wait, and penny trumpets do not spoil with keeping.

But do not be defrauded of at least one early ramble in the woods and fields.It is well, in the impressionable season of life, to realize, if only occasionally, how much of the sweetest air, the brightest and best hours of the day, people spend in bed.Any one who goes out every day before breakfast knows how very seldom he is kept in by bad weather.For one day when it rains very early there are three or four when it rains later.But we wait till the world has got dirty, and the air full of the smoke of thousands of breakfasts, and clouds are beginning to gather, and then we say England has a horrible climate.I do not believe in many quack medical prescriptions, but I have the firmest faith in May dew as a wash for the complexion. Any morning dew is nearly as efficacious if it is gathered in warm clothes, thick boots, and at a sufficient distance from home.

There are some households in which there are no children, and there are some in which the good things of this life are very abundant.To these it may not be very impertinent to suggest a remembrance of the old alderman of Lynn's kindly benefaction.To beg leave for the children of the workhouse to gather May-day nosegays for you, and to give them a May feast afterwards, would be to give pleasure of a kind in which such unhomely lives are most deficient.A country ramble "with an object," and the grace-in-memory of a traditionary holiday and feast, shared in common with many homes and with other children.

To go a-Maying "to fetche the flowrès fresh" is indeed the best part of the whole affair.

But, when the sunny bank under the hedge is pale with primroses, when dog-violets spread a mauve carpet over clearings in the little wood, if cowslips be plentiful though oxslips are few, and rare orchids bless the bogs of our locality, pushing strange insect heads, through beds of Drosera bathed in perpetual dew—then, dear children, restrain the natural impulse to grub everything up and take the whole flora of the neighbourhood home in your pinafores. In the first place, you can't. In the second place, it would be very hard on other people if you could.Cull skilfully, tenderly, unselfishly, and remember what my mother used to say to me and my brothers and sisters when we were "collecting" anything, from fresh-water algæ to violet roots for our very own gardens, "Leave some for the Naiads and Dryads."

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IN MEMORIUM, MARGARET GATTY

My mother became editor of Aunt Judy's Magazine in May 1866. It was named after one of her most popular books—Aunt Judy's Tales; and Aunt Judy became a name for herself with her numerous child-correspondents.

The ordinary work of editorship was heavily increased by her kindness to tyro authors, and to children in want of everything, from advice on a life-vocation to old foreign postage stamps. No consideration of the value of her own time could induce her to deal summarily with what one may call her magazine children, and her correspondents were of all ages and acquirements, from nursery aspirants barely beyond pothooks to such writers as the author of A Family Man for Six Days, and other charming Australian reminiscences, who still calls her his "literary godmother."

The peculiar relation in which she stood to so many of the readers of Aunt Judy has been urged upon me as a reason for telling them something more about her than that she is dead and gone, especially as by her peremptory wish no larger record of her life will ever be made public. I need hardly disclaim any thought of expressing an opinion on her natural powers, or the value of those labours from which she rests; but whatever of good there was in them she devoted with real affectionate interest to the service of a much larger circle of children than of those who now stand desolate before her empty chair. And those whom she has so long taught have, perhaps, some claim upon the lessons of her good example.

Most well-loved pursuits, perhaps most good habits of our lives, owe their origin to our being stirred at one time or another to the imitation of some one better, or better gifted than ourselves.We can remember dates at which we began to copy what our present friends may fancy to be innate peculiarities of our own character.The conviction of this truth, and of the strong influence which little details of lives we admire have in forming our characters in childhood, persuade me to the hard task of writing at all of my dear mother, and guide me in choosing those of the things that we remember about her which may help her magazine children on matters about which they have oftenest asked her counsel.

Many of her own innumerable hobbies had such origins, I know. The influence of German literature on some of her writings is very obvious, and this most favourite study sprang chiefly from a very early fit of hero-worship for Elizabeth Smith, whose precocious and unusual acquirements she was stirred to emulate, and whose enthusiasm for Klopstock she caught. The fly-leaf of her copy of the Smith Remains bears (in her handwriting) the date 1820, with her name as Meta Scott; a form of her own Christian name which she probably adopted in honour of Margaretta—or Meta—Klopstock, and by which she was well known to friends of her youth.

She often told us, too, of the origin of another of her accomplishments.She was an exquisite caligraphist.Not only did she write the most beautiful and legible of handwritings, but, long before illuminating was "fashionable," she illuminated on vellum; not by filling up printed texts or copying ornamental letters from handbooks of the art, but in valiant emulation of ancient MSS. ; designing her own initial letters, with all varieties of characters, with "strawberry" borders, and gold raised and burnished as in the old models. I do not know when she first saw specimens of the old illuminations, for which she had always the deepest admiration, but it was in a Dante fever that she had resolved to write beautifully, because fine penmanship had been among the accomplishments of the great Italian poet. How well she succeeded her friends and her printers knew to their comfort! To Dante she dedicated some of her best efforts in this art. In 1826, when she was seventeen, she began to translate the Inferno into English verse. She made fair copies of each canto in exquisite writing, and dedicated them to various friends on covers which she illuminated. The most highly-finished was that dedicated to an old friend, Lord Tyrconnel, and the only plain one was the one dedicated to another friend, Sir Thomas Lawrence. The dedication was written in fine long characters, but there was no painting on the cover of the canto dedicated to the painter.

I do not know at what date my mother began to etch on copper.It was a very favourite pursuit through many years of her life, both before and after her marriage.She never sketched much in colour, but her pencil-drawings are amongst the most valuable legacies she has left us.Trees were her favourite subjects.One of her most beautiful drawings in my possession is of a tree, marked to fall, beneath which she wrote:

Of another talent nothing now remains to us but her old music-books and memories of long evenings when she played Weber and Mozart.

But to a large circle of friends, most of whom have gone before her, she was best known as a naturalist in the special department of phycology. She has left a fine collection of British and foreign sea-weeds and zoophytes. Never permitted the privilege of foreign travel—for which she so often longed—her sea-spoils have been gathered from all shores by those who loved her; and there are sea-weeds yet in press sent by Aunt Judy friends from Tasmania, which gave pleasure to the last days of her life. She did so keenly enjoy everything at which she worked that it is difficult to say in which of her hobbies she found most happiness; but I am disposed to give her natural history pursuits the palm.

Natural history brought her some of her dearest friends. Dr. Johnston, of Berwick-on-Tweed, to whom she dedicated the first volume of the Parables from Nature, was one of these; and with Dr. Harvey (author of the Phycologia Britannica, &c.) she corresponded for ten years before they met. Like herself, he combined a playful and poetical fancy with the scientific faculty, and they had sympathy together in the distinctive character of their religious belief, and in the worship of God in His works. But these, and many others, have "gone before."

One of her "collections" was an unusual one.Through nearly forty years she collected the mottoes on old sun-dials, and made sketches of the dials themselves.In this also she had many helpers, and the collection, which had swelled to about four hundred, was published last year.Amateur bookbinding and mowing were among the more eccentric of her hobbies.With the latter she infected Mr. Tennyson, and sent him a light Scotch scythe like her own.

The secret of her success and of her happiness in her labours was her thoroughness.It was a family joke that in the garden she was never satisfied to dabble in her flower-beds like other people, but would always clear out what she called "the Irish corners," and attack bits of waste or neglected ground from which everybody else shrank.And amongst our neighbours in the village, those with whom, day after day, time after time, she would plead "the Lord's controversy," were those with whom every one else had failed.Some old village would-be sceptic, half shame-faced, half conceited, who had not prayed for half a lifetime, or been inside a church except at funerals; careworn mothers fossilized in the long neglect, of religious duties; sinners whom every one else thought hopeless, and who most-of all counted themselves so—if God indeed permits us hereafter to bless those who led us to Him here, how many of these will rise up and call her blessed!

Her strong powers of sympathy were not confined to human beings alone.A more devoted lover of "beasts" can hardly exist.The household pets were about her to the end; and she only laughed when the dogs stole the bread and butter from her helpless hands.

Her long illness, perhaps, did less to teach us to do without her, than long illnesses commonly do; because her sick-room was so little like a sick-room, and her interests never narrowed to the fretful circle of mere invalid fears and fancies.The strong sense of humour, which never left her, helped her through many a petty annoyance; and to the last she kept one of her most striking qualities, so well described by Trench—

Whatever interest this little record of some of my mother's tastes and acquirements may have for her young readers, its value must be in her example.

Whatever genius she may have had, her industry was far more remarkable. The pen of a ready writer is not grasped by all fingers, and gifts are gifts, not earnings. But to cultivate the faculties God has given us to His glory, to lose petty cares, ignoble pleasures, and small grievances, in the joy of studying His great works, to be good to His creatures, to be truthful beyond fear or flattery, to be pure of heart and tongue far beyond the common, to keep up an honest, zealous war with wickedness, and never to lose heart or hope for wicked men—these things are within the power as well as the ambition of us all.

I must point out to some of the young aspirants after her literary fame, that though the date in Elizabeth Smith's Remains shows my mother to have been only eleven years old when she got it, and though she worked and studied indefatigably all her girlhood, her first original work was not published till she was forty-two years old.

Of the lessons of her long years of suffering I cannot speak. A form of paralysis which left her brain as vigorous as ever, stole the cunning from her hand, and the use of her limbs and voice, through ten years of pain and privation, in which she made a willing sacrifice of her powers to the will of God

If some of her magazine children who enjoy "advantages" she never had, who visit places and see sights for which she longed in vain, and who are spared the cross she bore so patiently, are helped by this short record of their old friend, it may somewhat repay the pain it has cost in writing.

Trench's fine sonnet was a great favourite of my mother's—

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TALES OF THE KHOJA.[3]

(Adapted from the Turkish.)

INTRODUCTION.

"O my children!"said the story-teller, "do you indeed desire amusement by the words of my lips?Then shut your mouths, that the noise you make may be abated, and I may hear myself speak; and open your ears, that you may be entertained by the tales that I shall tell you.Shut your mouths and open your ears, I say, and you will, without doubt, receive pleasure from what I shall have to relate of Khoja Nasr-ed-Deen-Effendi.

"This Khoja was not altogether a wise man, nor precisely a fool, nor entirely a knave.

"It is true, O children, that his wisdom was flecked with folly, but what saith the proverb?'No one so wise but he has some folly to spare.'Moreover, in his foolishness there was often a hidden meaning, as a letter is hid in a basket of dates—not for every eye.

"As to his knaveries, they were few, and more humorous than injurious.Though be it far from me, O children, as a man of years and probity, to defend the conduct of the Khoja to the Jew money-lender.

"What about the Jew money-lender, do you ask?

"This is the tale."

Tale 1. —The Khoja and the Nine Hundred and Ninety-nine Pieces of Gold.

This Khoja was very poor.

One day, wishing for a piece of gold, he corrected himself, saying: "It costs no more to wish for a thousand pieces than for one.I wish for a thousand gold pieces."

And he repeated aloud—"I wish for a thousand pieces of gold. I would not accept one less."

Now it so happened that he was overheard by a certain covetous Jew money-lender. This man was of a malicious disposition; and the poverty of the Khoja was a satisfaction to him. When he heard what the Khoja said he chuckled to himself, saying, "Truly this Khoja is a funny fellow, and it would be a droll thing to see him refuse nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces of gold.For without doubt he would keep his word."

And as he spoke, the Jew put nine hundred and ninety-nine gold pieces into a purse, and dropped the purse down the Khoja's chimney, with the intention of giving him annoyance.

The Khoja picked up the purse and opened it.

"Allah be praised!"he cried, "for the fulfilment of my desires.Here are the thousand pieces."

Meanwhile the Jew was listening at the chimney-top, and he heard the Khoja begin to count the coins.When he got to the nine hundred and ninety-ninth, and had satisfied himself that there was not another, he paused, and the Jew merchant held his breath.

At last the Khoja spoke.

"O my soul!"said he, "is it decent to spit in the face of good fortune for the sake of one gold piece in a thousand?Without doubt it is an oversight, and he who sent these will send the missing one also."Saying which, the Khoja put the money into his sash and sat down to smoke.

The Jew now became fidgety, and he hastened down to the Khoja's door, at which he knocked, and entering, said, "Good-day, Khoja Effendi.May I ask you to be good enough to restore to me my nine hundred and ninety-nine gold pieces?"

"Are you mad, O Jew money-lender?"replied the Khoja."Is it likely that you would throw gold down my chimney?These pieces fell from heaven in fulfilment of my lawful desires."

"O my soul, Khoja!"cried the Jew, "I did it, indeed!It was a jest, O Khoja!You said, 'I will not take one less than a thousand,' wherefore I put nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces in the purse, and it was for a joke."

"I do not see the joke," said the Khoja, "but I have accepted the gold pieces."And he went on smoking.

The Jew money-lender now became desperate.

"Let us go to the magistrate," he cried."The Cadi Effendi shall decide between us."

"It is well said," replied the Khoja."But it would not beseem a Khoja like myself to go through the public streets to the court on foot; and I am poor, and have no mule."

"O my soul!"said the Jew, "let not that trouble you.I will send and fetch one of my mules."

But when the mule was at the door, the Khoja said: "Is it fitting, O money-lender, that a Khoja like myself should appear in these rags before a Cadi Effendi?But I am poor, and have no suitable dress."

"Let not that be a hindrance, O Khoja!"said the Jew."For I have a pelisse made of the most beautiful fur, which I will send for without delay."

In due time this arrived, and, richly clothed, the Khoja rode through the streets with a serene countenance, the Jew money-lender running after him in the greatest anxiety.

When they came before the Cadi, the Jew prostrated himself, and cried in piteous tones, "Help, O most noble Dispenser of Justice!This Khoja has stolen from me nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces of gold—and now he denies it."

Then the Cadi turned to the Khoja, who said: "O Cadi Effendi, I did indeed earnestly desire a thousand pieces of gold, and this purse came to me in fulfilment of my wishes.But when I counted the pieces I found one short.Then I said, 'The bountiful giver of these will certainly send the other also.'So I accepted what was given to me.But in this Jew money-lender is the spirit of covetousness.For half a farthing, O Cadi, he would, without doubt, lay claim to the beast I ride, or to the coat on my back."

"O my soul!"screamed the Jew."It is indeed true that they are mine.The mule and the fur pelisse belong to me, O Cadi!"

"O you covetous rascal!" said the Cadi, "you will lay claim to my turban next, or to the Sultan's horses."And he commanded the Jew to be driven from his presence.

But the Khoja rode home again, and—he accepted the mule and the fur pelisse, as well as the nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces of gold.

Tale 2. —The Khoja at the Marriage Feast.

On the following day Khoja Effendi went to a marriage feast, dressed in his old clothes.

His appearance was indeed very shabby, and the attendants were almost disposed to refuse him admission, but he slipped in whilst honours and compliments were being paid on the arrival of some grander guests.Even those who knew him well were so much ashamed of his dress as to be glad to look another way to avoid saluting him.

All this was quickly observed by the Khoja, and after a few moments (during which no one asked him to be seated) he slipped out and ran home, where he put on the splendid fur pelisse which he had accepted from the Jew money-lender, and so returned to the door of the house of feasting.

Seeing a guest so richly apparelled draw near, the servants ran out to meet him with all signs of respect, and the master of the feast came out also to meet him with other guests, saluting him and saying, "Welcome, O most learned Khoja!"And all who knew him saluted him in like manner, and secretly blessed themselves that his acquaintance did them credit.

But the Khoja looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, and he made no reply.

Then they led him to the upper end of the table, crying, "Please to be seated, Khoja Effendi!"

Whereupon the Khoja seated himself, but he did not speak, and the guests stood round him, waiting to hear what should fall from his lips.

And when the Khoja had been served with food, he took hold of the sleeve of his pelisse and pulled it towards the dish, saying, in a tone of respect, "O most worthy and honourable pelisse!be good enough to partake of this dish.In the name of the Prophet I beseech you do not refuse to taste what has been hospitably provided."

"What is this, Khoja?"cried the people, "and what do you mean by offering food to a fur pelisse that can neither hear nor eat?"

"O most courteous entertainers!"replied the Khoja, "since the pelisse has commanded such respect at your hands, is it not proper that it should also partake of the food?"

Tale 3. —The Khoja's Slippers.

One day, when the idle boys of the neighbourhood were gathered together and ready for mischief, they perceived the Khoja approaching.

"Here comes this mad Khoja!"they said."Let us now persuade him to climb the largest of these mulberry-trees, and whilst he is climbing we will steal his slippers."

And when the Khoja drew near, they cried, "O Khoja, here is indeed a tree which it is not possible to climb."

The Khoja looked at the mulberry-tree and said, "You are in error, my children, any one of you could climb that tree."

But they said, "We cannot."

Then said the Khoja, "I, who am an old man, could climb that mulberry-tree."

Then the boys cried, "O most illustrious Khoja!we beseech of you to climb the tree before our eyes, that we may believe what you say, and also be encouraged to try ourselves."

"I will climb it," said the Khoja.Thereupon he kicked off his slippers as the children had anticipated; and tucking his skirts into his girdle, he prepared to climb.

But whilst they were waiting to steal his slippers, the Khoja put them into his pocket.

"Effendi Khoja," said the children, "wherefore do you not leave your slippers on the ground?What will you do with slippers up in the mulberry-tree?"

"O my children!"said the Khoja dryly, "it is good to be provided against everything.I may come upon a road further up."

Tale 4. —The Khoja and the Three Wise Men.

In the days of Effendi Nasr-ed-Deen Khoja there appeared in the world three Sages, who excelled in every science and in all wisdom.

Now it came to pass that in their journeys these wise men passed through the country of the Sultan Ala-ed-Deen, who desired to see them, and to make them partake of his hospitality.

And when the Sultan had seen and heard them, he said: "O Sages, there is indeed nothing wanting to you but that you should embrace the faith and become Turks, and remain in my kingdom.Wherefore I beseech of you to do this without further delay."

Then the wise men replied to the Padisha: "We will, if it please you, ask three questions of your learned men.One question shall be asked by each of us, and if they are able to answer these questions, we will embrace your faith, and remain with you as you desire.And if not, we will depart in peace, and prolong our journeys as heretofore."

Then the Padisha replied: "So be it."And he assembled the learned men and counsellors of his kingdom, and the Sages put questions to them, which they could not answer.

Then the Sultan Ala-ed-Deen was full of wrath, and he said, "Is this my kingdom, and am I the ruler of it; and is there not indeed one man of my subjects wise enough to answer the questions of these unbelieving Sages?"

And his servants replied: "There is indeed no one who could answer these questions, except it be Khoja Nasr-ed-Deen Effendi."

Then the Sultan commanded, and they despatched a Tatar in all haste to summon Nasr-ed-Deen Effendi to the presence of the Padisha.

When the messenger arrived, he told his errand to the Khoja, who at once rose up, saddled his donkey, took a stick in his hand, and mounted, saying to the Tatar, "Go before me!"

Thus they came to the palace, and the Khoja entered the presence of the Sultan, and gave the salaam and received it in return.Then he was shown where to sit, and being seated, and having made a prayer for the Padisha, "O most noble Sultan," said he, "wherefore have you brought me hither, and what is your will with me?"

Then the Sultan explained the circumstances of the case, and the Khoja cried, "What are the questions?Let me hear them."

Then the first wise man came forward and said: "My question, most worshipful Effendi, is this: Where is the middle of the world?"

The Khoja, without an instant's hesitation, pointed with his stick to a fore-hoof of his donkey.

"There," said he, "exactly where my donkey's foot is placed—there is the centre of the earth."

"How do you know that?"asked the Sage.

"If you do not believe me," replied the Khoja, "measure for yourself.If you find it wrong one way or the other, I will acknowledge my error."

The second Sage now came forward and said: "O Khoja Effendi, how many stars are there on the face of this sky?"

"The same number," replied the Khoja, "as there are hairs on my donkey."

"How do you know that?"asked the wise man.

"If you do not believe me," replied the Khoja, "count for yourself.If there is a hair too few or too many, I will acknowledge my error."

"O most learned Khoja!"said the wise man, "have you indeed counted the hairs on your donkey?"

"O most venerable Sage!"replied the Khoja, "have you indeed numbered the stars of the sky?"

But as the Khoja spoke the third wise man came forward and said: "Most worshipful Effendi!Be pleased now to hear my question, and if you can answer it, we will conform to the wishes of the Sultan.How many hairs are there in my beard?"

"As many," replied the Khoja, "as there are hairs in my donkey's tail."

"How do you know that?"asked the wise man.

"If you do not believe me, count for yourself," said the Khoja.

But the wise man replied: "It is for you to count, and to prove to me the truth of what you say."

"With all my heart," replied the Khoja."And I will do it in a way that cannot possibly fail.I shall first pull out a hair from your beard, and then one from my donkey's tail, and then another from your beard, and so on.Thus at the end it will be seen whether the number of the hairs of each kind exactly correspond."

But the wise man did not wait for this method of proof to be enforced by the Sultan.He hastily announced himself as a convert to the Padisha's wishes.The other two Sages followed his example, and their wisdom was for many years the light of the court of the Sultan Ala-ed-Deen.

Moreover, they became disciples of the Khoja.

Tale 5. —The Khoja's Donkey.

One day there came a man to the house of the Khoja to ask him for the loan of his donkey.

"The donkey is not at home," replied the Khoja, who was unwilling to lend his beast.

At this moment the donkey brayed loudly from within.

"O Khoja Effendi!"cried the man, "what you say cannot be true, for I can hear your donkey quite distinctly as I stand here."

"What a strange man you must be," said the Effendi."Is it possible that you believe a donkey rather than me, who am grey-haired and a Khoja?"

Tale 6. —The Khoja's Gown.

One day the Khoja's wife, having washed her husband's gown, hung it out in the garden to dry.

Now in the dusk of the evening the Khoja repaired to his garden, where he saw, as he believed, a thief standing with outstretched arms.

"O you rascal!"he cried, "is it you who steal my fruit?But you shall do so no more."

And having called to his wife for his bow and arrows, the Khoja took aim and pierced his gown through the middle.Then without waiting to see the result he hastened into his house, secured the door with much care, and retired to rest.

When morning dawned, the Khoja went out into the garden, where perceiving that what he had hit was his own gown, he seated himself and returned thanks to the All-merciful Disposer of Events.

"Truly," said he, "I have had a narrow escape.If I had been inside it, I should have been dead long before this!"

Tale 7. —The Khoja and the Fast of Ramadan.

In a certain year, when the holy month of the fast of Ramadan was approaching, Khoja Nasr-ed-Deen took counsel with himself and resolved not to observe it.

"Truly," said he, "there is no necessity that I should fast like the common people.I will rather provide myself with a vase into which I will drop a stone every day.When there are thirty pebbles in the vase, I shall know that Ramadan is over, and I shall then be able to keep the feast of Bairam at the proper season."

Accordingly, on the first day of the month the Khoja dropped a stone into the vase, and so he continued to do day by day.

Now the Khoja had a little daughter, and it came to pass that one day the child, having observed the pebbles in the vase, went out and gathered a handful and added them to the rest.But her father was not aware of it.

On the twenty-fifth day of Ramadan the Khoja met at the Bazaar with certain of his neighbours, who said to him, "Be good enough, most learned Khoja, to tell us what day of the month it is."

"Wait a bit, and I will see," replied the Khoja.Saying this, he ran to his house, emptied the vase, and began to count the stones.To his amazement he found that there were a hundred and twenty!

"If I say as much as this," thought the Khoja, "they will call me a fool.Even half would be more than could be believed."

So he went back to the Bazaar and said, "It is the full forty-fifth of the month, quite that."

"O Khoja!"the neighbours replied, "there are only thirty days in a complete month, and do you tell us to-day is the forty-fifth?"

"O neighbours!"answered the Khoja, "believe me, I speak with moderation.If you look into the vase, you will find that according to its account to-day is the one hundred and twentieth."

Tale 8. —The Khoja and the Thief.

One day a thief got into the Khoja's house, and the Khoja watched him.

The thief poked here, there, and everywhere, and after collecting all that he could carry, he put the load on his back and went off.

The Khoja then came out, and hastily gathering up the few things which were left of his property, he put them on his own back, and hurried after the thief.

At last he arrived before the door of the thief's house, at which he knocked.

"What do you want?"said the thief.

"Why, we are moving into this house, aren't we?"said the Khoja."I've brought the rest of the things."

Tale 9. —The Bird of Prey and the Piece of Soap.

One day the Khoja went with his wife to wash clothes at the head of a spring.

They had placed the soap beside them on the ground, and were just about to begin, when a black bird of prey swooped suddenly down, and snatching up the soap, flew away with it, believing it to be some kind of food.

"Run, Khoja, run!"cried the distracted wife."Make haste, I beseech you, and catch that thief of a bird.He has carried off my soap."

"O wife!"replied the Khoja, "let him alone.He wants it more than we do, poor fellow!Our clothes are not half so black as what he has got on."

Tale 10. —The Khoja and the Wolves.

"Wife!"said the Khoja one day, "how do you know when a man is dead?"

"When his hands and feet have become cold, Khoja," replied the good woman, "I know that it is all over then.The man is dead."

Some time afterwards the Khoja went to the mountain to cut wood.It was in the winter, and after he had worked for an hour or two his hands and feet became very cold.

"It is really a melancholy thing," said he; "but I fear that there can be no doubt that I am dead.If this is the case, however, I have no business to be on my feet, much less to be chopping firewood which I have not lived to require."So he went and lay down under a tree.

By and by came the wolves, and they fell upon the Khoja's donkey, and devoured it.

The Khoja watched them from the place where he was lying.

"Ah, you brutes!"said he, "it is lucky for you that you have found a donkey whose master is dead, and cannot interfere."

Tale 11. —A Penny a Head.

The Turks shave their heads and allow their beards to grow.Thus the Khoja went every week to the barber to have his head shaved, and when it was done, the barber held out the mirror to him, that, having looked at himself, he might place a penny fee on the mirror as the custom is.

Now as he grew old the Khoja became very bald.

One day when he was about to be shaved, passing his hand over his head, he perceived that the crown was completely bald.But he said nothing, and having paid his penny, took his departure as usual.

Next week Khoja Effendi went again to the barber's.

When his head had been shaved he looked in the mirror as before; but he put nothing on it.

As he rose to depart, the barber stopped him, saying, "Most worshipful Effendi, you have forgotten to pay."

"My head is now half bald," said the Khoja; "will not one penny do for two shavings?"

Tale 12. —The Khoja a Cadi.

The late Khoja Effendi when he filled the office of Cadi had some puzzling cases to decide.

One day two men came before him, and one of them said, "This fellow has bitten my ear, O Cadi!"

"No, no, most learned Cadi!"said the other; "that is not true.He bit his own ear, and now tries to lay the blame upon me."

"One cannot bite his own ear," said the first man; "wherefore the lies of this scoundrel are obvious."

"Begone, both of you," said the Khoja; "but come back to-morrow, when I will give judgment."

When the men had gone, the Khoja withdrew to a quiet place, where he would be undisturbed, that he might try if he could bite his own ear.Taking the ear in his fingers, he made many efforts to seize it with his teeth, crying, "Can I bite it?"

But in the vehemence of his efforts the Khoja lost his balance and fell backwards, wounding his head.

The following day he took his seat with his head bound up in a linen cloth, and the men coming before him related their dispute as before, and cried, "Now, is it possible, O Cadi?"

"O, you fellows!"said the Khoja, "biting is easy enough, and you can fall and break your own head into the bargain."

Tale 13. —The Khoja's Quilt.

One night after Khoja Nasr-ed-Deen had retired to rest he was disturbed by a man making a great noise before his door in the street outside.

"O wife!"said he, "get up, I pray you, and light a candle, that I may discover what this noise in the street is about."

"Lie still, man," said his wife."What have we to do with street brawlers?Keep quiet and go to sleep."

But the Khoja would not listen to her advice, and taking the bed-quilt, he threw it round his shoulders, and went out to see what was the matter.

Then the rascal who was making the disturbance, seeing a fine quilt floating from the Khoja's shoulders, came behind him and snatched it away, and ran off with it.

After a while the Khoja felt thoroughly chilled, and he went back to bed.

"Well, Effendi," said his wife: "what have you discovered?"

"We were more concerned in the noise than you thought," said the Khoja.

"What was it about, O Khoja?"asked his wife.

"It must have been about our quilt," he replied; "for when the man got that he went off quietly enough."

Tale 14. —The Khoja and the Beggar.

One day whilst Nasr-ed-Deen Effendi was in his house, a man knocked at the door.

The Khoja looked out from an upper window.

"What dost thou want?"said he.But the man was a beggar by trade, and fearing that the Khoja might refuse to give alms when he was so well beyond reach of the mendicant's importunities, he would not state his business, but continued to cry, "Come down, come down!"as if he had something of importance to relate.

So the Khoja went down, and on his again saying "What dost thou want?"the beggar began to beg, crying, "The Inciter of Compassion move thee to enable me to purchase food for my supper!I am the guest of the Prophet!"with other exclamations of a like nature.

"Come up-stairs," replied the Khoja, turning back into his house.

Well pleased, the beggar followed him, but when they reached the upper room the Khoja turned round and dismissed him, saying, "Heaven supply your necessities.I have nothing for you."

"O Effendi!"said the beggar, "why did you not tell me this whilst I was below?"

"O Beggar!"replied the Khoja, "why did you call me down when I was up-stairs?"

Tale 15. —The Khoja Turned Nightingale.

One day the Khoja went into a garden which did not belong to him, and seeing an apricot-tree laden with delicious fruit, he climbed up among the branches and began to help himself.

Whilst he was eating the apricots the owner of the garden came in and discovered him.

"What are you doing up there, Khoja?"said he.

"O my soul!"said the Khoja, "I am not the person you imagine me to be.Do you not see that I am a nightingale?I am singing in the apricot-tree."

"Let me hear you sing," said the gardener.

The Khoja began to trill like a bird; but the noise he made was so uncouth that the man burst out laughing.

"What kind of a song is this?"said he."I never heard a nightingale's note like that before."

"It is not the voice of a native songster," said the Khoja demurely, "but the foreign nightingale sings so."

Tale 16. —The Khoja's Donkey and The Woollen Pelisse.

One day the Khoja mounted his donkey to ride to the garden, but on the way there he had business which obliged him to dismount and leave the donkey for a short time.

When he got down he took off his woollen pelisse, and throwing it over the saddle, went about his affairs.But he had hardly turned his back when a thief came by who stole the woollen pelisse, and made off with it.

When the Khoja returned and found that the pelisse was gone, he became greatly enraged, and beat the donkey with his stick.Then, dragging the saddle from the poor beast's back, he put it on his own shoulders, crying, "Find my pelisse, you careless rascal, and then you shall have your saddle again!"

Tale 17. —A Ladder To Sell.

There was a certain garden into which the Khoja was desirous to enter, but the gate was fastened, and he could not.

One day, therefore, he took a ladder upon his shoulder, and repaired to the place, where he put the ladder against the garden-wall, and having climbed to the top, drew the ladder over, and by this means descended into the garden.

As he was prying about in came the gardener.

"Who are you?"said he to the Khoja."And what do you want?"

"I sell ladders," replied the Khoja, running hastily back to the wall, and throwing the ladder once more upon his shoulders.

"Come, come!"said the gardener, "that answer will not do.This is not a place for selling ladders."

"You must be very ignorant," replied the Khoja gravely, "if you do not know that ladders are salable anywhere."

Tale 18. —The Cat and the Khoja's Supper.

The Khoja, like many another man, was fond of something nice for his supper.

But no matter how often he bought a piece of liver to make a tasty dish, his wife always gave it away to a certain friend of hers, and when the Khoja came home in the evening he got nothing to eat but cakes.

"Wife," said he at last, "I bring home some liver every day that we may have a good supper, and you put nothing but pastry before me.What becomes of the meat?"

"The cat steals it, O Khoja!"replied his wife.

On this the Khoja rose from his seat, and taking the axe proceeded to lock it up in a box.

"What are you doing with the axe, Khoja?"said his wife.

"I am hiding it from the cat," replied the Khoja."The sort of cat who steals two pennyworth of liver is not likely to spare an axe worth forty pence."

Tale 19. —The Cadi's Ferejeh.

One day a certain Cadi of Sur-Hissar, being very drunk, lay down in a garden and fell asleep.The Khoja, having gone out for a walk, passed by the spot and saw the Cadi lying dead drunk and senseless, with his ferejeh—or overcoat—half off his back.

It was a very valuable ferejeh, of rich material, and the Khoja took it and went home remarkably well dressed.

When the Cadi recovered his senses he found that his ferejeh was gone.Thereupon he called his officers and commanded them, saying: "On whomsoever ye shall see my ferejeh, bring the fellow before me."

Meanwhile the Khoja wore it openly, and at last the officers took him and brought him before the Cadi.

"O Khoja!"said the Cadi, "how came you by what belongs to me?Where did you find that ferejeh?"

"Most exemplary Cadi," replied the Khoja, "I went out yesterday for a short time before sunset, and as I walked I perceived a disreputable-looking fellow lying shamefully drunk, and exposed to the derision of passers-by in the public gardens.His ferejeh was half off his back, and I said within myself, 'This valuable ferejeh will certainly be stolen, whilst he to whom it belongs is sleeping the sleep of drunkenness.I will therefore take it and wear it, and when the owner has his senses restored to him, he will be able to see and reclaim it.'So I took the ferejeh, and if it be thine, O Cadi, take it!"

"It cannot be my ferejeh, of course," said the Cadi hastily; "though there is a similarity which at first deceived me."

"Then I will keep it till the man claims it," said the Khoja.

And he did so.

Tale 20. —The Two Pans.

One day the Khoja borrowed a big pan of his next-door neighbour.

When he had done with it he put a smaller pan inside it, and carried it back.

"What is this?"said the neighbour.

"It is a young pan," replied the Khoja."It is the child of your big pan, and therefore belongs to you."

The neighbour laughed in his sleeve.

"If this Khoja is mad," said he, "a sensible man like myself need not refuse to profit by his whims."

So he replied, "It is well, O Khoja!The pan is a very good pan.May its posterity be increased!"

And he took the Khoja's pan as well as his own, and the Khoja departed.

After a few days the Khoja came again to borrow the big pan, which his neighbour lent him willingly, saying to himself, "Doubtless something else will come back in it."But after he had waited two—three—four—and five days, and the Khoja did not return it, the neighbour betook himself to the Khoja's house and asked for his pan.

The Khoja came to the door with a sad countenance.

"Allah preserve you, neighbour!"said he."May your health be better than that of our departed friend, who will return to you no more.The big pan is dead."

"Nonsense, Khoja Effendi!"said the neighbour, "You know well enough that a pan cannot die."

"You were quite willing to believe that it had had a child," said the Khoja; "it seems odd you cannot believe that it is dead."

Tale 21. —The Day of the Month.

One day Khoja Effendi walked into the bazaar.As he went about among the buyers and sellers, a man came up to him and said, "Is it the third or fourth day of the month to-day?"

"How should I know?"replied the Khoja."I don't deal in the moon."

Tale 22. —The Khoja's Dream.

One night when he was asleep the Khoja dreamed that he found nine pieces of money.

"Bountiful heaven!"said he, "let me have been mistaken.I will count them afresh.Let there be ten!"And when he counted them there were ten.Then he said, "Let there be nineteen!"And vehemently contending for nineteen he awoke.But when he was awake and found that there was nothing in his hands, he shut his eyes again, and stretching his hands out said, "Make it nine pieces, I'll not say another word."