"When young Stanislaus, afterwards king of Poland, returned home from his travels, all the illustrious family of Leczinki assembled at Lissa to congratulate him on his arrival. Festivals, shows, and rejoicings of every kind took place: but the most ingenious compliment that graced the occasion, was the one paid by the College of Lissa. There appeared on the stage thirteen dancers, dressed as youthful warriors; each held in his hand a shield, on which was engraved in characters of gold, one of the thirteen letters which compose the two words 'Domus Lescinia.' They then commenced their dance, and so arranged it, that at each turn their row of bucklers formed different anagrams. At the first pause they presented them in the natural order:
| Domus Lescinia | ||
| At the second | Ades Incolumis | |
| At the third | Omnis es lucida | |
| At the fourth | Mane Sidus Loci | |
| At the fifth | Sis Columna Dei | |
| At the last | I, scande Solium." |
I fear I have already asked for too much of your space, yet must I beg the least bit more for an anagram which, unless the sacredness of the subject be accounted a drawback, may well claim a foremost place among the "six." It is found in Pilate's question to our Lord, Quid est veritas? which contains its own best answer: Est Vir qui adest.
PHILIP HEDGELAND.
DISCOVERING THE BODIES OF THE DROWNED.
(Vol. iv., p. 251.)
The mode of doing this, as shown by S. W. to be practised by the North American Indians, is very common amongst ourselves. About five-and-twenty years ago, an Eton boy, named Dean, who had lately come to the school, imprudently bathed in the river Thames where it flows with great rapidity under the "playing fields," and he was soon carried out of his depth, and disappeared. Efforts were made to save him or recover the body, but to no purpose; until Mr. Evans, who was then, as now, the accomplished drawing-master, threw a cricket bat into the stream, which floated to a spot where it turned round in an eddy, and from a deep hole underneath the body was quickly drawn. This statement is entirely from memory, but I believe it to be substantially correct.
I heard the following anecdote from the son of an eminent Irish judge. In a remote district of Ireland a poor man, whose occupation at certain seasons of the year was to pluck feathers from live geese for beds, arrived one night at a lonely farmhouse, where he expected to glean a good stock of these "live feathers," and he arose early next morning to look after the flock. The geese had crossed the river which flowed in front of the house, and were sitting comfortably in the sunshine on the opposite bank. Their pursuer immediately stripped off the few clothes he had, deposited them on the shore, and swam across the river. He then drove the birds into the water, and, boldly following them, he maintained a long contest to keep then together on their homeward voyage, until in the deep bed of the river his strength failed him, and he sank. The farmer and his family became aware of the accident, the cries of the drowning man, and the cackling of the geese, informed them, in the swimmer's extremity, of his fate, and his clothes lay on the shore in witness of his having last been in their company. They dragged the river for the body, but in vain; and in apprehension of serious consequences to themselves should they be unable to produce the corpse, they applied to the parish priests, who undertook to relieve them, and to "improve the occasion" by the performance of a miracle. He called together the few neighbours, and having tied a strip of parchment, inscribed with cabalistic characters, round a wisp of straw; he dropped this packet where the man's head was described to have sunk, and it glided into still water where the corpse was easily discovered.
ALFRED GATTY.
The discovery of drowned bodies by loading a loaf with mercury, and putting it afloat on a stream, or by casting into the river, as the Indians do, "a chip of cedar wood, which will stop and turn round over the exact spot," is referrible to natural and simple causes. As there are in all running streams deep pools formed by eddies, in which drowned bodies would be likely to be caught and retained, any light substance thrown into the current would consequently be drawn to that part of the surface over the centre of the eddy hole.
J. S. C.