It is as unsurpassable topers, as well as for their military qualities, which have always been acknowledged, that the Georgians have acquired notoriety. At their frequent drinking parties it is said they will pass several days and nights, almost without intermission, in quaffing the productions of the vineyards of Kakheti, a district in the mountains east of Tiflis. This wine is by no means of bad quality; it is of a deep red colour, so deep that one fancies it has been tinged with some dye to produce so intense a hue. They are said to consume incredible quantities of wine on these occasions, and in a fashion that would put to shame the drinking triumphs of Ireland, recorded by Sir Jonah Barrington, in days of old, when intoxication was the standard of spirit. The drinking vessel is a cow's horn, of considerable length, and the point of honour is to drain it at a draught. The brethren and convivial rivals of the Georgians in the neighbouring provinces of Imeretia and Mingrelia, instead of a horn, use a delicately-hollowed globe of walnut tree, with a long narrow tube at the orifice. It holds fully a pint, and like its companion, the horn, the contents are consumed at a single gulp. How these globes are hollowed is as great a marvel as the construction of the ingenious Chinese puzzle of ball within ball.
STAG-HUNT IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
The following vivid picture of a stag-hunt is taken from the page of an old author, and refers to the days of the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots:—"In the year 1567, the Earl of Athol, a prince of the blood royal, had, with much trouble and vast expense, a hunting-match for the entertainment of our most illustrious and gracious queen. Our people called this a royal hunting. I was then a young man, and present on that occasion. Two thousand Highlanders, or wild Scotch, as you call them, were employed to drive to the hunting-ground all the deer from the woods and hills of Athol, Badenoch, Marr, Murray, and the counties about. As these Highlanders use a light dress, and are very swift of foot, they went up and down so nimbly, that in less than two months' time, they brought together two thousand red deer, besides roes and fallow deer. The queen, the great men, and a number of others, were in a glen when these deer were brought before them. Believe me, the whole body moved forward in something like battle order. The sight delighted the queen very much; but she soon had cause for fear. Upon the earl—(who had been accustomed from his early days to such sights)—addressing her thus:—'Do you observe that stag who is foremost of the herd? There is danger from that stag; for if either fear or rage should force him from the ridge of that hill, let every one look to himself, for none of us will be out of the way of harm; for the rest will follow this one, and having thrown us under foot, they will open a passage to this hill behind us.' What happened a moment after confirmed this opinion; for the queen ordered one of the best dogs to be let loose on one of the deer: this the dog pursues; the leading stag was frighted; he flies by the same way he had come there; the rest rush after him, and break out where the thickest body of Highlanders are; they had nothing for it but to throw themselves flat on the heath, and allow the deer to pass over them. It was told the queen that several of the Highlanders had been wounded, and that two or three had been killed outright; and the whole body had got off, had not the Highlanders, by their skill in hunting, fallen upon a stratagem to cut off the rear from the main body. It was of those that had been separated that the queen's dogs and those of the nobility made slaughter. There were killed that day three hundred and sixty deer, besides some roes."
TIME WASTED IN TAKING SNUFF.
A vast quantity of valuable time is wasted by the votaries of tobacco, especially by the smokers; and that the devotees of snuff are not greatly behind in this respect, will be shown by the following singular calculation of Lord Stanhope:—
"Every professed, inveterate, and incurable snuff-taker," says his lordship, "at a moderate computation, takes one pinch in ten minutes. Every pinch, with the agreeable ceremony of blowing and wiping the nose and other incidental circumstances, consumes one minute and a half. One minute and a half out of every ten, allowing sixteen hours to a snuff-taking day, amounts to two hours and twenty-four minutes out of every natural day, or one day out of ten. One day out of every ten, amounts to thirty-six days and a half in a year. Hence, if we suppose the practice to be persisted in forty years, two entire years of the snuff-taker's life will be dedicated to tickling his nose, and two more to blowing it. The expense of snuff, snuff-boxes, and handkerchiefs, will be the subject of a second essay, in which it will appear that this luxury encroaches as much on the income of the snuff-taker as it does on his time; and that by proper application of the time and money thus lost to the public, a fund might be constituted for the discharge of the national debt."
VALUE OF A LONG PSALM.
Formerly a psalm was allowed to be sung at the gallows by the culprit, in case of a reprieve. It is reported of one of the chaplains to the famous Montrose, that being condemned in Scotland to die, for attending his master in some of his glorious exploits, and being upon the ladder, ordered to set out a psalm, he expecting a reprieve, named the 119th Psalm (with which the officer attending the execution complied, the Scotch Presbyterians being great psalm-singers): and it was well for him he did so, for they had sung it half through before the reprieve came: any other psalm would have hanged him.
ANCIENT INCENSE CHARIOT.