“Les Rumbdés sont des établissemens qui font honneur à l’homme de l’humanité. Chaque village, ou plusieurs habitans d’un village, rassemblent leurs esclaves, en leur enjoignant de se bâtir des cases voisines les unes des autres; cette réunion s’appelle Rumbdé. On choisit un chef parmi les esclaves; ses enfans, s’ils en sont dignes, occupent sa place après sa mort. Ces esclaves, qui n’en portent que le nom, labourent le champ de leurs maîtres; et lorsqu’ils voyagent, les suivent pour porter leurs fardeaux. Jamais on ne les vend quand ils sont parvenus à un age un peu avancé, ou qu’ils sont nés dans le pays; agir autrement, ce serait causer la désertion de toute la Rumbdé; mais celui qui se conduit mal est livré au maître par ses camarades, pour qu’il le vende.”
14th.—It is only a fortnight since I first observed snow-drops pressing up through the snow. Now at every step I find the early spring-flowers displaying themselves; and myriads of gay crocuses, yellow, white, and purple, are bursting every day through the grass of the little lawn under the library windows. My aunt is going to paint a group of them, which I am to have the pleasure of gathering for her. Hepaticas, of all colours, are unfolding their little flowers which have been so long coiled up, waiting for the gentle influence of spring. Periwinkle, and even polyanthus, are beginning to blossom; and the sweet-scented mezereon bushes are thickly covered with the flowers which I saw quite formed in their little buds five months ago.
The weather has been for some days as soft and mild as it was cold and harsh a week since; and this has rapidly brought out both birds and plants. Even my little dormouse has been more lively.
I have been reading a description of winter, which gives a more melancholy idea of it than I think it deserves.
“Winter, season of death, is the time of the sleep, or the torpor of nature; insects without life, reptiles without motion, and vegetables without verdure. The inhabitants of the air destroyed; those of the water inclosed in prisons of ice; and even the terrestrial animals, in some countries, confined in caverns and holes.”
I do not think that, in the depth of winter, all the little living creatures were so torpid as they are thus described; but the author nicely says, afterwards, “The return of the birds in spring is the first signal of the awakening of nature.” I agree with him in that, as I have for some days observed, that several birds have been singing in an under voice, as if trying their powers; even a thrush, early as it is, warbled a few low notes, for Mary and me, this morning. But there is a little brown bird, with a bluish, ashy-coloured neck, that for two or three weeks I have constantly heard, as it sits on a fir tree near my window, loudly repeating its sweet, though unvaried song. It is the winter fauvette, or hedge-sparrow; which, however, does not belong to the sparrow tribe. The fauvette is described as a lively, amiable bird, very active, and to be found every where; in gardens, in thickets, and hedgerows.
Numbers of insects, too, may be discovered. In our walks last month, we found many under the bark of trees, or concealed in the moss; and Mary told me that some of these are scarce in the summer months. We have often brought home, in our pocket handkerchiefs, great tufts of moss from the roots of trees; and by shaking it over white paper, we have easily collected the insects.
I forgot to mention the golden saxifrage, or stonecrop, with which the shrubbery is bordered, and which is just beginning to flower; and in some of the hedges the sloe is coming into bloom. But, mamma, even in the depth of winter, there was no where that appearance of death described by that melancholy writer; for the bramble retained its leaves, and gave a thin scattering of green to the hedges; while the berries of the wild rose, the euonymus, and the hawthorn, along with the pretty red dog-wood, gave every thing a cheerful look.
I have often thought of the walk I had with my uncle in November, and of the quantity of things which he taught me might be found to observe, even in the worst seasons.
15th.—All this winter we have observed great numbers of the pretty little lady-bird, or coccinella, clustered together in a privet-hedge; they are generally collected at the joints of the branches, and at first I imagined they were red berries. Mary never observed so many before, and she therefore supposes that the aphis must have been uncommonly abundant last autumn. She tells me that the lady-bird is of great service—for in its larva state, it feeds entirely on aphides; and when these mischievous grubs are very numerous, the multitudes of their pretty little destroyers always seem to increase in proportion. In 1807, they covered the cliffs at Brighton in such swarms, that the inhabitants were almost alarmed, not being aware that they came from the neighbouring hop-grounds, where their larvæ had been usefully employed in preying on the aphis, which had committed such ravages among the hop plants, and which is there called the fly.—Their utility is so well known in France, that they are almost held sacred there; and, indeed, they are so pretty as to be favourites every where.