The company now began to grow musical; several songs were sung; and when the evening got farther advanced, a neighbouring fiddler was sent for, and the little party had a dance in the barn, to which they adjourned lest the noise might disturb Mrs Keho, had they held it in the dwelling-house. Before this occurred, however, the “midwife’s glass” went the round of the gossips, each of whom drank her health, and dropped some silver, at the same time, into the bottom of it. It was then returned to her, and with a smiling face she gave the following toast:—“Health to the parent stock! So long as it thrives, there will always be branches! Corny Keho, long life an’ good health to you an’ yours! May your son live to see himself as happy as his father! Youngsters, here’s that you may follow a good example! The company’s health in general I wish; an’, Paddy Rafferty, that you may never have a blind child but you’ll have a lame one to lead it!—ha! ha! ha! What’s the world widout a joke? I must see the good woman an’ my little son afore I go; but as I won’t follow yez to the barn, I’ll bid yez good night, neighbours, an’ the blessin’ of Rose Moan be among yez!”
And so also do we take leave of our old friend Rose Moan, the Irish Midwife, who we understand took her last leave of the world only about a twelvemonth ago.
[1] A wan-grace is a kind of small gruel or meal tea sweetened with sugar.
THE BAROMETZ, OR TARTAN LAMB.
Before steam and all the other facilities for travel had made us so well acquainted with the productions of remote parts of the earth as we are at present, every traveller on his return astonished his auditors or the readers of his works with accounts of monsters which existed only as the creations of his ingenuity, and to give importance to his discoveries. One out of many which could be produced, and which, as they may afford innocent amusement, we purpose from time to time to bring under the notice of the readers of the Penny Journal, we lately met with in an account of Struy’s Travels through Russia, Tartary, &c., in the seventeenth century. The object of wonder was in this case the Scythian or Tartarian lamb, a creature which, it was stated, sprang from the ground like a plant, and, restrained to the spot on which it was produced, devoured every vegetable production within its reach, and was itself in turn eaten by the wolves of the country. This singular production has since been found to be nothing more than a plant of the fern tribe, the Aspedium barometz, found occasionally in arid plains, where scarcely any other vegetable production can exist; it rises like many others of the tree ferns with a rugged or shaggy stem; and the plant having decayed or been uprooted by any accident, it is not impossible that by means of a storm or otherwise it might be found supported on its feet, namely, the stumps of the leaves; but that it pastured on other plants, or was mistaken by the wolves for a lamb, although speculations which the wonder-seeking traveller might be tempted to indulge in, it need hardly be said are ornamental additions introduced to suit the taste of the narrator, and to pander to that love of the marvellous which prevailed in the age in which he lived. The following is his account of this wonderful plant-animal:—
“On the western side of the Volga there is an elevated salt plain of great extent, but wholly uncultivated and uninhabited. On this plain (which furnishes all the neighbouring countries with salt) grows the boranez, or bornitch. This wonderful plant has the shape and appearance of a lamb, with feet, head, and tail distinctly formed. Boranez, in the language of Muscovy, signifies a little lamb. Its skin is covered with very white down, as soft as silk. The Tartars and Muscovites esteem it highly, and preserve it with great care in their houses, where I have seen many such lambs. The sailor who gave me one of those precious plants found it in a wood, and had its skin made into an under-waistcoat. I learned at Astrican from those who were best acquainted with the subject, that the lamb grows upon a stalk about three feet high, that the part by which it is sustained is a kind of navel, and that it turns itself round, and bends down to reach the herbage which serves it for food. They also said that it dries up and pines away when the grass fails. To this I objected, that the languor and occasional withering might be natural to it, as plants are accustomed to fade at certain times. To this they replied, that they had also once thought so, but that numerous experiments had proved the contrary to be the fact, such as cutting away, or by other means corrupting or destroying the grass all around it; after which they assured me that it fell into a languishing state and decayed insensibly. These persons also added, that the wolves are very fond of these vegetable lambs, and devour them with avidity, because they resemble in taste the animals whose name they bear, and that in fact they have bones, blood, and flesh, and hence they are called zoophytes, or plant-animals. Many other things I was likewise told, which might, however, appear scarcely probable to such as have not seen them.”
M.
Method of making Tar at Archangel.—They dig a hole in the ground, of sufficient size, some two or three fathoms deep, and little more than half way down they make a platform of wood, and thereon heap earth about a foot deep, except in the middle, where a hole is left in the form of a tunnel. They then fill the pit with fir billets piled up from the platform, and rising about a fathom or more above ground, which part they wall about with turf and clay to keep in the fire. They command the fire by quenching: for which use they make a lixivium of the ashes of fir. When all is ready, they set fire a-top, and keep the wood burning, but very leisurely, till it has sunk within a foot or two of the partition; and then they heave out the fire as fast as it is possible; for if it once laid hold of the tar which is settled down into the lower pit, it blows all up forthwith. These tar-pits take up a great deal of trouble, and many men to tend them during the time of their burning, that the fire may descend even and leisurely, whereby the tar may have time to soak out of the wood, and settle down into the pit. As it comes from the wood it is pure tar, but in the pit it mixes with water, which issues from the wood also; therefore it is afterwards clarified.—Life of Sir Dudley North.
Aurora Borealis.—According to Crantz, the Greenlanders hold the northern lights for a game of tennis, or for a dance of departed souls; and this opinion is not a whit more irrational than the superstition of the oriental nations, the Greeks and Romans, and all the unenlightened people of the middle ages, who, in the aurora borealis, and other fiery meteors, saw fighting armies, flaming swords, chariots and spears, battles and blood, and even thought that they heard the clashing of arms and the sound of martial music. In the rainbow the ancient inhabitants of the north discovered a bridge from earth to heaven, and called it the bridge of the gods, which was watched by a dog, whom no art could elude, and whose auditory faculty was such, that he could hear the grass grow or the wool on the sheep’s back; the Kamschatkadales make of it a new garment for their aërial spirits, edged with fringes of red-coloured seal-skin, and leather thongs of various gaudy dyes.