| Pearl | Fairest of the young. |
| Clove | You are as slender as the clove. |
| You are an unblown rose. | |
| I have long loved you and you have not known it. | |
| Jonquil | Have pity on my passion. |
| Paper | I faint every hour. |
| Pear | Give me some hope. |
| Soap | I am sick with love. |
| Coal | May I die and all my years be yours. |
| A rose | May you be pleased and your sorrows mine. |
| A straw | Suffer me to be your slave. |
| Cloth | Your price is not to be found. |
| Cinnamon | But my fortune is yours. |
| A match | I burn, I burn! My flame consumes me. |
| Gold thread | Don’t turn away your face from me. |
| Hair | Crown of my head. |
| Grape | My two eyes. |
| Gold wire | I die; come quickly. |
And, by way of postscript:
| Pepper | Send me an answer. |
You see this letter is all in verse, and I can assure you there is as much fancy shown in the choice of them as in the most studied expressions of our letters, there being, I believe, a million of verses designed for this use. There is no color, no flower, no weed, no fruit, herb, pebble, or feather that has not a verse belonging to it; and you may quarrel, reproach, or send letters of passion, friendship, or civility, or even of news without ever inking your fingers.
The use by Turks and Persians of flower letters or communications, the significance of which is formed by the selection and arrangement of flowers, is well known. A missive thus composed of flowers is called sélam, but the details are too contradictory and confused to furnish materials for an accurate dictionary of the flower language, though dictionaries and treatises on it have been published. (See Magnat.) Individual fancy and local convention, it seems, fix the meanings.
A Japanese girl who decides to discourage the further attentions of a lover sends to him, instead of the proverbial “mitten” of New England, a sprig of maple, because the leaf changes its color more markedly than any other. In this connection it is told that the Japanese word for love also means color, which would accentuate the lesson of the changing leaf.
MESSAGE STICKS.
The following extracts are made from Curr’s (a) Australian Race:
I believe every tribe in Australia has its messenger, whose life, whilst he is in the performance of his duties, is held sacred in peace and war by the neighboring tribes. His duties are to convey the messages which the tribe desires to send to its neighbors, and to make arrangements about places of meeting on occasions of fights or corroborees. In many tribes it is the custom to supply the messenger when he sets out with a little carved stick, which he delivers with his message to the most influential man of the tribe to which he is sent. This carved stick he often carries whilst traveling stuck in the netted band which the blacks wear round the head. I have seen many of them, and been present when they were received and sent, and have some from Queensland in my possession at present. They are often flat, from 4 to 6 inches long, an inch wide, and a third of an inch thick; others are round, of the same length, and as thick as one’s middle finger. When flat their edges are often notched, and their surface always more or less carved with indentations, transverse lines, and squares; in fact, with the same sort of figures with which the blacks ornament their weapons throughout the continent; when round, fantastic lines are cut around them or lengthwise. I have one before me at this moment which is a miniature boomerang, carved on both sides, notched at the edges, and colored with red ocher. Any black could fashion sticks of this sort in an hour or two. Some of my correspondents have spoken of them as a sort of writing, but when pressed on the subject have admitted that their surmise, all the circumstances weighed, was not tenable. The flat sticks especially have that sort of regularity and repetition of pattern which wall papers exhibit. That they do not serve the purpose of writing or hieroglyphics I have no hesitation in asserting; and I may remark that in all cases which have come under my notice the messenger delivered his message before he presented the carved stick. That done the recipient would attempt to explain to those about him how the stick portrayed the message. Still this eminently childish proceeding leads one to consider whether the most savage mind does not contain the germ of writing. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, in his Discovery and Conquest of New Spain, relates that, when his country sent verbal messages by Mexican bearers to distant tribes, the messengers who had seen the Spaniards write always asked to be supplied with a letter, which, of course, neither they nor the people to whom they were sent could read.