In India, China, and the intermediate countries, the aggregate population of which includes one-half of mankind, kites are the favorite toy of both old and young boys, from three years to threescore and ten. Sometimes they really resemble the conventional dragon, from which, among Scotch children, they derive their name, sometimes they are of a diamond shape, and sometimes they are like a great spider with a narrow waist. Our Old Indian is eloquent on kites, and the glory of their colors, which, in the days of other years, made her girlish heart leap, and her girlish eyes dazzle. The kite-shop is like a tulip-bed, full of all sorts of gay and gorgeous hues. The kites are made of Chinese paper, thin and tough, and the ribs of finely-split bamboo. A wild species of silkworm is pressed into the service, and set to spin nuck for the strings—a kind of thread which, although fine, is surprisingly strong. Its strength, however, is wanted for aggression as well as endurance; and a mixture composed of pounded glass and rice gluten is rubbed over it. Having been dried in the sun, the prepared string is now wound upon a handsome reel of split bamboo inserted in a long handle. One of these reels, if of first-rate manufacture, costs a shilling, although coarser ones are very cheap; and of the nuck, about four annas, or sixpence worth, suffices for a kite.
In a Hindoo town the kite-flying usually takes place on some common ground in the vicinity, and there may be seen the young and old boys in eager groups, and all as much interested in the sport as if their lives depended upon their success. And sometimes, indeed, their fortunes do. Many a poor little fellow bets sweetmeats upon his kite to the extent of his only anna in the world; and many a rich baboo has more rupees at stake than he can conveniently spare. But the exhilarating sport makes every body courageous; and the glowing colors of the kites enable each to identify his own when in the air, and give him in it, as it were, a more absolute property. Matches are soon made. Up go the aerial combatants, and, with straining eyes and beating hearts, their fate is watched from below. But their masters are far from passive, for this is no game of chance, depending upon the wind. Kite-flying is in these countries an art and mystery; and some there be who would not disclose their recipe for the nuck-ointment, if their own grandfathers should go upon their knees to ask it.
Sometimes an event occurs on the common. It is the ascent of a pair of kites of a distingué air, and whose grand and determined manner [pg 478] shows that the combat is to be à l'outrance, and that a large stake of money depends upon the result. The fliers are invisible. They are probably on the flat roof of some neighboring house; but the kites are not the less interesting on account of their origin being unknown. What a host of anxious faces are turned up to the sky! Some take a liking to the red at first sight, while others feel attracted by a mysterious sympathy to the green. Bets are freely offered and accepted, either in sweetmeats or money; and the crowd, condensing, move to and fro in a huge wave, from which their eager voices arise like the continuous roaring of the sea. Higher and higher go the kites. Well done, Red! he has shot above his antagonist, and seems meditating a swoop; but the Green, serenely scornful, continues to soar, and is soon uppermost. And thus they go—now up, now down, relatively to each other, but always ascending higher and higher, till the spectators almost fear that they will vanish out of sight. But at length the Green, taking advantage of a loftier position he has gained, makes a sudden circuit, and by an adroit manœuvre gets his silken string over the silken string of the other. Here a shout of triumph and a yell of terror break simultaneously from the crowd; for this is the crisis of the fight. The victor gives a fierce cut upon his adversary's line. The backers of the latter fancy they hear it grate, and in an instant their forebodings are realized; for the unfortunate Red is seen to waver like a bird struck by a shot, and then, released from the severed string, he descends in forlorn gyrations to the earth.
Now rush in the smaller boys to play their part. Their object is that of the plunderers who traverse the field after a battle, to rob the dying and the slain. Off run the little Hindoos, like a company of imps from the nether regions, tearing and fighting as they fly; and on reaching the fallen kite, the object of their contention is torn to pieces in the scuffle. Presently the victorious Green is seen descending, and the gross excitement of the common pauses to watch his majestic flight. He is of the largest size of Indian kites called ching, and of the spider shape. Before being drawn in, he hangs for an instant high up over the crowd. It is not, however, to sing Io Pæans for his victory, but apparently rather to mourn over the ruin he has made; for a wailing music breathes from his wings as he passes. This is caused by the action of the wind upon some finely-split bamboo twigs arched over the kite without touching the paper, and which thus become a true Æolian harp. Sometimes a kite of this kind is sent up at night, bearing a small lighted lantern of talc; and the sleepers awakened, called to their balconies by the unearthly music, gaze after the familiar apparition not without a poetical thrill.
Upon the whole, it must be admitted, we think, that this is a somewhat interesting child's toy. But has the kite a future? Will its powers exhibit new developments, or has it already reached its pride of place? If a twelve-feet kite has the force of a man, would it take many more feet to lift a man into the air? And supposing the man to be in a strong cage of network, with bamboo ribs, and a seat of the same material, would he have greater difficulty in governing his aerial coursers by means of the Pocock cords, than if he were flashing along the road from Bristol to London? Mind, we do not say that this is possible: we merely ask for the sake of information; and if any little boy will favor us with his opinion, we shall take it very kind. Come, and let us fancy that it is possible. The traveler feels much more comfortable than in the car of a balloon, for he knows he can go pretty nearly in what direction he chooses, and that he can hasten or check the pace of his horses, and bring them to a stand-still at pleasure. See him, therefore, boldly careering through the air at the rate of any number of miles the wind pleases. At a single bound he spans yonder broad river, and then goes bowling over the plantation beyond, just stirring the leaves as he passes; trees, water, houses, men, and animals gliding away beneath his feet like a dream. Now he stoops toward the earth, just to make the people send up their voices that there may be some sound in the desert air. Now he swings up again; now he leaps over that little green hill; now he—Hold! hold, little boy! that will do: enough, for a time, of a Child's Toy.
“Rising Generation”-Ism.
“Grave and reverend seniors” aver, that among the innumerable isms and pathies which inundate this strange nineteenth century, not the least curious, dangerous, and comical, are those phases of character, opinion, and aspiration embodied in the title of our sketch. Each day, week, or month, we receive an accession to the list of those speculations and practices, which, embracing every department of philosophy and art, seek to overturn hitherto accepted axioms, and erect in their stead—what? Some “baseless fabric of a vision,” which came we know not whence, and tends we know not very well whither? Or has the microscopic eye and telescopic mind of modern European civilization discovered other distorting flaws in the mirror in which we view truth—other idols in the den of treasured belief—faults which it is urgently necessary to remedy—vices which it were well speedily to extirpate? The answer of most men will be sometimes the latter, oftener the former.
What, then, is that fraternity whose members are now denominated in a peculiar sense “the rising generation,” albeit no existing dictionary conveys it? How came they to assume or receive that cognomen? “What are their doings—what their ends?” And, finally (for this is par excellence the practical, if not the golden English era), how much are all these worth? In one shape or another, we suspect that the class embraces a great mass of our youth, we will almost say, of both sexes.
Various definitions may be given of a member [pg 479] of the “rising generation.” The lowest, commonest, and most readily apprehensible to the general reader, is that of a “fast young man,” such as “Punch” has for some time spitted weekly as a laughing-stock for half of the population. A little, lean, lathy, sickly-looking youth, delighting in rough short coats, monkey jackets, regatta shirts, big cigars, funny walking-canes, the smallest of boots, the most angular of hats, the most Brobdignagian of ties—rejoicing in a thinly-sown mustache or imperial, addicted to brandy-and-water and casinos, going out with the “afternoon delivery,” and coming in with the milk. This is true so far as it goes. Ascend a step, and there is the representative of the class which has run to seed in the mediæval direction—fond of, and learned in, all the symbols of ancient priestly power and rank—steeped in black-letter and illuminated missal philosophy and theology—erudite in all the variations which spiritual dominance has assumed—in short, the resuscitator of the “good old times” ecclesiastical.