hands, for some violet sherbet; because Mus- tance, hundreds did as I was very well as sulman tradition distinctly tells us that that sured- - without any reluctance at all, under great Arab epicure and sensualist, Mohamed, the protection and shelter of a European's called this his favorite beverage. And now roof. They feel the prohibition is absurd; do I greatly desire to tell my readers all they know the Sultan has bartered his very about the flavor and fragrance of that well throne for a champagne flask, as his father and euphoniously named drink; only one did before him; so secretly they drink and thing prevents me, and that is, that my Turk are drunken. Indeed, I was told that the did not sell it, and no one else that I could more philosophical Turks consider champagne find out ever did, so I did not taste it, and merely a sort of heavenly bottled beer: in cannot compare it to all sorts of things as I the first place, because its froths, which Eastshould otherwise decidedly have done. ern wine does not; secondly, because it is of a dull yellow color, when their wine is red. Besides, as long as nations choose the wisest, and bravest, and best of their nation for monarch, must they not follow his example, and (saving the Prophet) get wisely, bravely, and in the best and most secret way possible, drunk from pure loyalty? Wine and spirits would not be sold at all in Stamboul- at least openly-but that British subjects claim that privilege of sale. Raki, a sort of fiery oily anisette, peculiarly deleterious, is drunk with great relish by the Greeks, and by those Turks who are lax in their religious observance, whenever they can get it unobserved. I am afraid that tying down poor human nature with unnecessary restraints makes sad hypocrites of man, who find it difficult enough to keep even the great laws, and are always inventing some excuse to slip off Nature's handcuffs. I remember particularly one fresh bright morning that I was on the deck of a Turkish steamer that was ploughing through the Sea of Marmora, and just sighting the Seven Towers, beyond which the cypresses and minarets were rising in a great watchful army, guarding the crescented domes of the still sleeping city. The deck was strewn with Albanians in their hairy capotes, with slavish-looking thievish Greeks, and with Turks grave and crosslegged on their prayer carpets. Here and there, seated on the benches, were two or three half Europeanized Turks, attempting cumbrously to imitate the ribald ease of their Greek friends. Threading the still halfsleeping groups, stepped the cafegee of the boat with thimble cups of smoking black coffee (half grounds as the Turks drink it) on his dirty trays. A Greek, in crimson jacket and black worsted lace broidery all over it, suddenly produces an old medicine-bottle full of raki, and passes it round. His Greek friends drink and look religiously thankful, for the autumn morning is raw. Three times-nay, four times-he smiles, and of fers it to the Turk, who looks away over the boat-side coquettishly. There is a curious constraint in the way he pushes the bottle from him so Cæsar pushed the crown, according to the envious Cassius; so Cromwell did not push aside the bottle, if Cavalier squibs be true. There is a thoughtful, spurious look about his eye, changing, with the rapidity of a juggler's trick, to a quiet look of content and triumph, as he suddenly accepts the bottle, and slipping behind a fat Greek, takes an exhaustive slope of its contents. What this man did with hypocritic reluc People have often laughed at Chataubriand's French dancing-master giving soirées to the Dog-rib Indians, and a better subject for a farce could scarcely be conceived; but all incongruous things are ridiculous, when they are not on the one hand, also hateful, or on the other, when they do not exite our pity. So, apropos of raki, and the Turkish rakes who drink it, I must describe the small English tavern that I stumbled into just outside the Arsenal walls. It was kept by a Greek, and was in the Greek manner; but I found it was specially patronized by the English mechanics whom the Sultan keeps to superintend the government manufactories. These intensely English men, of course despising sherbert, which they profanely and almost insultingly called "pig's-wash," and detesting raki because it was the secret beverage of "them precious villains of Turks," resorted to this grimy hostelrie, dirtier than the meanest village inn in "dear old England," to wash the steel filings from their throats and the sawdust from their lips, with real expensive, oily, bilious, “old Jamaikey ?" so old that the red and green labels on the bottles were brown and fly blown-and with "Hollands," in square, black-green, high-shouldered Ostade bottles. It was delightful to see the brave, cross-grained, grumbling fellows lamenting English climate and English taxes, cursing the Turks, and wishing they were in Wessex and Double Gloucester again, "with all their hearts;" to see them turning up their sleeves, and hammerings on the table for more grapes, and more rum, and to hear them shouting out, “It's my delight, on a shiny night," and "Don't rob a poor man of his beer," and discussing, with absurd eagerness, six-months-old English news- reforms long since become law, and treaties long since broken. I have heard, indeed, that in the days of Mahmoud (the stern father of Abdul Medjid, "the fainéant)," that despotic Turk who destroyed the Janissaries, and introduced European reforms into Turkey, these bibulous friends of mine had rather a risky and troublesome time of it, for they stood upon their dignity as Britons, got feverish British beer into their brave, wrong-headed brains, and were once or twice "pulled up" and nearly decapitated in a row for not salaaming," and all that rubbish." And, now, while I am in this tavern den, trying to eat some horseflesh stew, there stands before me a ragged Greek vagabond, crafty as Ulysses, voluble as the wingedworded Pericles, who, in hopes of a stray piastre, harangues me and the engineers on a certain English pasha to whom he was once right-hand man. His gestures alone would be eloquence, for he beats his chest, and rends his dirty merino waistcoat. "He (English pasha) keep white horse, black horse, red horse, blue horse, every sort horse; and I drive him, whip him, saddle him, break him, 'cos he (English pasha) Sultan great friend-every day at palace. I too at palace. I eat lamb, pistachio-nut. I eat kibob (very nice kibob); I drink shirab and champagne wine. I wear scarlet jacket and fustanella -white fustanella-servant under me- horse under me- - money-drink-all right-all good. All at once come wicked man to English sultan, whisper ear-say, Take care, Anastase bad man, rogue-man.' English sultan call me, tell me, flog me-drive out faithful Anastase - take away horsesevery ting. Now, Anastase dirty man, poor man, thief man (laughs ironically), no raki, no kibob, no drink, no eat. Go 'bout ask good rich Englishman for little money. Thank, sir (smiles), drink health!” Do we I CHOSE next to wander by Bethlehem Hos- | tributes this farce to Townley, with the following pital; partly because it lay on my road round remarks:to Westminster; partly because I had a nightfancy in my head which could be best pursued Garrick; but, as we now know, without founda"This piece has been often ascribed to Mr. within sight of its walls and dome. And the tion. Mr. Dibdin, who professes some particu fancy was this: Are not the sane and insane lar knowledge as to this subject, says that Dr. equal at night as the sane lie a dreaming? Are not all of us outside this hospital, who dream, Hoadly had a hand in it; and there were other more or less in the condition of those inside it, persons who were in the secret, but who con ceived the subject to be rather ticklish. every night of our lives? Are we not nightly "We believe that we have now, however, duly persuaded as they daily are, that we associate pre-assigned the authorship of this piece absolutely posterously with kings and queens, emperors and to Mr. Townley; of which fact the late Mr. empresses, and notabilities of all sorts? not nightly jumble events and personages and Murphy became satisfied before his death, from the testimonials of James Townley, Esq., of times and places, as these do daily? Are we not sometimes troubied by our own sleeping incon- Ramsgate and Doctors' Commons, the author's son; and it was Mr. M.'s intention to have corsistencies, and do we not vexedly try to account rected the fact, in a second edition of his Life for them or excuse them, just as these do someof Garrick." times in respect of their waking delusions? Said an afflicted man to me, when I was last in a hospital like this, "Sir I can frequently fly." I was half ashamed to reflect that so could I by night. Said a woman to me on the same occasion, Queen Victoria frequently comes to dine with me, and her majesty and I dine off peaches and maccaroni in our night-gowns, and his Royal Highness the Prince Consort does us the honor to make a third on horseback in a field-marshal's uniform." Could I refrain from reddenning with consciousness when I remembered the amazing royal parties I myself had given (at night), the unaccountable viands I had put on table, and my extraordinary manner of conducting myself on those distinguished occasions? I wonder that the great master who knew every thing, when he called sleep the death of each day's life, did not call dreams the insanity of each day's sanity.-All the Year Round. "HIGH LIFE BELOW STAIRS."-The last edition of the Biographia Dramatica (1812), which Mr. Wylie does not seem to have consulted, at Possibly some of your correspondents may be able to afford information as to the nature of the testimony given by Mr. Townley, Jun., in support of his father's claim. W. H. HUSK. -Notes and Queries. THE FRUIT OF THE FORBIDDEN TREE POIsoNOUS.-Could any of your readers inform me as to the originator of this opinion? In a work, recently published, on Metaphysics (by the Rev. John II. Mac Mahon), the author, whose note (p. 2.) on the above point displays considerable research, tells us that he has been unable to discover the name of any particular theologian espousing it, though the opinion itself is mentioned by Josephus, Theophilus, and several of the Fathers, Eugubinus Steuchus, Le Clerc, and others. Even Ludovicus Vives-a man well versed in such questions-acknowledges his ignorance in this matter, as appears from a quotation, given in the note referred to, taken from his Commentary on St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei.-Notes and Queries. ALCIPHRON. PANAMA HATS. BEHIND the principal chain of the Andes extends, on the banks of the Ucayale and the Maranon, an immense plain inclined to the east, traversed by mountain ranges, and which is called in Peru the Montana Real. Under a rainy sky, which is often disturbed by thunder-storms, the eternal verdure of the primordial forests charms the eye of the traveller, whilst the inundations, the marshes, the enormous serpents, the innumerable insects, arrest his hesitating march. This region, through which the communications are difficult, is called Lower Peru. There grow in all the luxuriance of a limited vegetation the most beautiful and gigantic plants, the loveliest and most odorous flowers, the most useful shrubs, the herbs the richest, both as to production and value many of which are unknown in Europe, though eminently appreciated in the country itself. In Lower Peru grows the bombonaxa, or hat straw, resembling as to form a tuft of marsh reeds. The color is a delicate green. The hats called Panama hats, and made from the bombonaxa, have received the name they bear from having first been imported from Panama into the United States. In truth, however, the bombonaxa hats are exported from nearly the whole South American coast. Certain classes of Indians devote themselves exclusively to the making of these hats. The process is a very long one, and this is one reason why the price of these hats is so high. The minute, delicate labor is longer or shorter according to the quality; for whilst common articles demand scarcely more than two or three days, those of the best description require entire months of care and attention. The plaiting of these hats occupies the whole of the Indian colony of Moyobamba, on the banks of the Amazon, to the north of Lower Peru. In this village men and women, children and old men, are equally busy. The inhabitants are all seen seated before their cottages plaiting hats and smoking cigarettes. The straw is plaited on a thick piece of wood, which the workman holds between his knees. The centre is begun first, and the work continued outward to the rim. The time the most favorable for this kind of work is the morning or rainy days, when the atmosphere is saturated with moisture. At noon, or when the weather is clear and dry, the straw is apt to break, and these breakings appear in the form of knots when the work is ended. The leaves of the bombonaxa, to be fit to be used, are gathered before their complete development. They are steeped in hot water till they become white. When this operation is terminated, each plant is separately dried in a chamber where a high temperature is kept up. The bombonaxa is then bleached for two or three days. The straw thus prepared is dispatched to all the places where the inhabitants occupy themselves with plaiting hats; and the Indians of Peru employ the straw not only for hats, but also in making those delicious little cigar cases, which are often sold for $5 or $10 each. The Indians of Moyamba, evidently sprung from the Mongolian race, have large flat faces. Their eyes are placed obliquely, so that the grand angle descends towards the nose. The cheek bones are prominent; the brow is low and flattened; the hair is black, smooth, and glossy; their skin is of a brownish red color; their figure is tolerably good and regular. They live in groups and in little tribes, hidden in the virgin forests, or disseminated over the vast pampas of Lower Peru. It is to this race, which is in the highest degree indolent, lazy, and selfish, that the world owes the bombonaxa hats. When an Indian has made a dozen or so of these hats, he sets out for the residence of a dealer in the article, and generally arrives in the evening. Nothing is more curious than to see the cunning Indian, his merchandise hid under the folds of his poncho, advancing toward the house of the supposed purchaser, waiting without stirring, and looking at the door in silence. When the dealer examines a hat which the Indian has shown him, the latter asks an enormous price, which is in general three times the value of the article; and when, after long discussion, he at last decides on concluding a bargain, one sees him examining with distrust the money which he has received, and rubbing it in order to try whether it is good. If the sellers of the hats are to the number of two or three, he who has concluded the bargain passes to the others the sum paid, in order that they also may see whether it is honest money. If the money pleases them the first man draws from his inexhaustible poncho a second, a third, a twentieth hat, as a conjuror draws every va riety of article from a hat, and to each of the "Panamas" the same scene of distrust is renewed for the verifications of the money. It is We can easily understand the slowness which results from this mode of sale. difficult to buy more than twenty hats a day, even in giving the best price. Thus, in order to collect two thousand hats representing a value of £1,000, a sojourn of three or four months in the country is required; and as transactions with savages such as those in Lower Peru are difficult, dealers are obliged to carry about with them both the money and the merchandise. Notwithstanding these difficulties, the trade in hats is one of the surest and most lucrative in the land. Moyobamba exports every year ten or eleven thousand hats. The province of Pannamy produces much more than Peru. It is supposed that not less than sixty or eighty thousand hats are annually exported from the province of Pannamy. If the average price of a hat is reckoned at two piastres, their exportation will represent a value of about £40,000. The greater part of the hats are exported from Lima, but of late years the exportation has likewise taken place by way of the Amazon. Hitherto, the high price of the Panama hats has hindered their importation into Europe, but as the average price of a hat has fallen to about £1, they are now within the reach of nearly every one. The Panamas are distinguished from all other hats in being in a single piece, marvellously light, and of incomparable elasticity. They can be rolled and put in the pocket without any danger of being broken. In rainy weather they be come black, but they recover their natural color when steeped in soapy water. What constitutes and maintains the reputation of the Panama hats is, that neither heat nor insects which devour every thing under the torrid sun of the equator, can effect the bombonaxa straw. In the long run, nothing but humidity can destroy them. They last eight times as long as a Leghorn hat. They are easily carried about. They can be folded and rolled by the dozen, like the commonest merchandise. In short, the trade in Panama hats is the very best in South America, and it would be easy to establish it in Algeria, in the West Indies, and in Guiana. There has been an importation into France of Panama hats not more than two years. The importation into England has just_begun; but it is sure greatly to extend.-London Illustrated News. the skin, WHEN a church clock strikes, on houseless ears in the dead of the night, it may be at first mistaken for company and hailed as such. But, as the spreading circles of vibration, which you may perceive at such a time with great clearness, go opening out, forever and ever afterwards widening perhaps (as the philosopher has suggested) in eternal space, the mistake is rectified and the sense of loneliness is profounder. Once-it was after leaving the Abbey and turning my face north-I came to the great steps of Saint Martin's church as the clock was striking three. Suddenly, a thing that in a moment more I should have trodden upon without seeing, rose up at my feet with a cry of loneliness and houselessness, struck out of it by the bell, the like of which I never heard. We then stood face to face looking at one another, frightened by one another. The creature was like a beetlebrowed, hair-lipped youth of twenty, and it had a loose bundle of rags on, which it held together with one of its hands. It shivered from head to foot, and its teeth chattered, and as it stared thought me-it made with its whining mouth as at me persecutor, devil, ghost, whatever it if it were snapping at me, like a worried dog. out my hand to stay it-for it recoiled as it Intending to give this ugly object, money, I put whined and snapped-and laid my hand upon its shoulder. Instantly, it twisted out of its garment, like the young man in the New Testa He got leave to die here, out of Babylon's din. sin, ginn. SHAKSPEARE'S WOMEN. BEYOND me and above me, far away From colder poets lies a land ElysianThe haunted land where Shakspeare's ladies stray Through shadowy groves and golden glades of vision; And there I wander oft, as poets may, Cooling the fever of a hot ambition, 'Mong ghostly shades of palaces divine, And pray at Shakspeare's soul as at a shrine? Fair are those ladies all, some pure as foam, And sadder some than earthly ladies are; From Juliet, calm and beautiful as home, Whose love was whiter than the morning star, To Egypt, when the rebel lord of Rome Lolled at her knee and watched the world from far I dream in this delicious land, where Song And Fancy weeps beside them, and above Oh, let me, dreaming on in this sweet place, Draw near to Shakspeare's soul with reverent eyes, Let me dream on, forgetting time and space, Where smiles are conjured on the stately face, Where each immortal lady still prolongs Hard-visaged Labor recommending leisure, Let me thus climb to fairy heights and steal Soft commune with the shapes all poets treas ure; Wrapt up in luscious life from head to heel, Swimming from trance to trance of speechless pleasure, And now and then, not erring, dream of bliss Whose brimful soul runs over in a kiss! -All the Year Round. THE GOLDEN YEAR. CoME, sunny looks, that in my memory throng; bay, Come once more, or wild grasses will intrude, And clasp their hands across the narrow way; Come, for the place is fair as land of dream, And through the rushes, winds hum mournfully, As if just moved in slumber, and the stream Still struggles through its cresses to the sea. 'Tis vain to call; I once the strain have heard, That lacked no note to make the tune complete, Once, wakened by the touch of some kind word, I found a garden fair, with flowers sweet; There, plucking fruits from many a drooping bough, I stayed, untroubled by foreboding doubt; Once have I passed the golden year, and now I see it far back, like a star going out. The daisies of the golden year are dead, Its sunsets will not touch the west again, Are gone, with waters of the golden year |