Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 529, January 14, 1832», страница 5
THE NATURALIST
THE SUGAR CANE
At the island of Tahiti (Otaheite) South Pacific Ocean, there are several varieties of the sugar cane, differing, however, in their qualities. The number of varieties are eight, and are as follow:—
1. Rutu—of good quality.
2. Avae—of indifferent quality.
3. Irimotu—a rich cane, but does not grow to a large size.
4. Patu—a good cane, of a red colour.
5. To-ura—a dark-striped cane, hard and good.
6. Toute—a bad cane, of a red colour.
7. Veu—a good cane.
8. Vaihi—this attains a large size, and is considered of the best quality. It is said by the natives to have been introduced from the Sandwich Islands.
At Manilla (Island of Luconia) the planters mention three cultivated varieties of the sugar cane:—
1. Cana negra—black sugar cane.
2. Cana morada—brown sugar cane.
3. Cana blancha—white sugar cane.
of which the black or cana negra is considered the best, from its strength and the quantity of syrup contained in it.
Mr. G.B.'s MS. Journal, 1829-30.
THE BARN OWL;
and the Benefits it confers on Man. By Charles Waterton, Esq
This pretty aerial wanderer of the night often comes into my room; and after flitting to and fro, on wing so soft and silent that he is scarcely heard, he takes his departure from the same window at which he had entered.
I own I have a great liking for this bird; and I have offered it hospitality and protection on account of its persecutions, and for its many services to me,—I say services, as you will see in the sequel. I wish that any little thing I could write or say might cause it to stand better with the world at large than it has hitherto done: but I have slender hopes on this score; because old and deep-rooted prejudices are seldom overcome; and when I look back into the annals of remote antiquity, I see too clearly that defamation has done its worst to ruin the whole family, in all its branches, of this poor, harmless, useful friend of mine.
Ovid, nearly two thousand years ago, was extremely severe against the owl. In his Metamorphoses he says:—
In his Fasti he openly accuses it of felony:—
Lucan, too, has hit it hard:—
and the Englishman who continued the Pharsalia, says—
Horace tells us that the old witch Canidia used part of the plumage of the owl in her dealings with the devil:—
Virgil, in fine, joined in the hue and cry against this injured family:—
In our own times we find that the village maid cannot return home from seeing her dying swain, without a doleful salutation from the owl:—
"Thus homeward as she hopeless went,
The churchyard path along,
The blast grew cold, the dark owl scream'd
Her lover's funeral song."
Amongst the numberless verses which might be quoted against the family of the owl, I think I only know of one little ode which expresses any pity for it. Our nursery maid used to sing it to the tune of the Storm, "Cease rude Boreas, blust'ring railer." I remember the first two stanzas of it:—
"Once I was a monarch's daughter,
And sat on a lady's knee;
But am now a nightly rover,
Banish'd to the ivy tree—
Crying, hoo hoo, hoo hoo, hoo hoo,
Hoo hoo hoo, my feet are cold!
Pity me, for here you see me,
Persecuted, poor, and old."
I beg the reader's pardon for this exordium. I have introduced it, in order to show how little chance there has been, from days long passed and gone to the present time, of studying the haunts and economy of the owl, because its unmerited bad name has created it a host of foes, and doomed it to destruction from all quarters. Some few, certainly, from time to time, have been kept in cages and in aviaries. But nature rarely thrives in captivity, and very seldom appears in her true character when she is encumbered with chains, or is to be looked at by the passing crowd through bars of iron. However, the scene is now going to change; and I trust that the reader will contemplate the owl with more friendly feelings, and quite under different circumstances. Here, no rude schoolboy ever approaches its retreat; and those who once dreaded its diabolical doings are now fully satisfied that it no longer meddles with their destinies, or has any thing to do with the repose of their departed friends. Indeed, human wretches in the shape of body-snatchers seem here in England to have usurped the office of the owl in our churchyards; "et vendunt tumulis corpora rapta suis."11
Up to the year 1813, the barn owl had a sad time of it at Walton Hall. Its supposed mournful notes alarmed the aged housekeeper. She knew full well what sorrow it had brought into other houses when she was a young woman; and there was enough of mischief in the midnight wintry blast, without having it increased by the dismal screams of something which people knew very little about, and which every body said was far too busy in the churchyard at nighttime. Nay, it was a well-known fact, that if any person were sick in the neighbourhood, it would be for ever looking in at the window, and holding a conversation outside with somebody, they did not know whom. The gamekeeper agreed with her in every thing she said on this important subject; and he always stood better in her books when he had managed to shoot a bird of this bad and mischievous family. However, in 1813, on my return from the wilds of Guiana, having suffered myself, and learned mercy, I broke in pieces the code of penal laws which the knavery of the gamekeeper and the lamentable ignorance of the other servants had hitherto put in force, far too successfully, to thin the numbers of this poor, harmless, unsuspecting tribe. On the ruin of the old gateway, against which, tradition says, the waves of the lake have dashed for the better part of a thousand years, I made a place with stone and mortar, about 4 ft. square, and fixed a thick oaken stick firmly into it. Huge masses of ivy now quite cover it. In about a month or so after it was finished, a pair of barn owls came and took up their abode in it. I threatened to strangle the keeper if ever, after this, he molested either the old birds or their young ones; and I assured the housekeeper that I would take upon myself the whole responsibility of all the sickness, woe, and sorrow that the new tenants might bring into the Hall. She made a low courtesy; as much as to say, "Sir, I fall into your will and pleasure:" but I saw in her eye that she had made up her mind to have to do with things of fearful and portentous shape, and to hear many a midnight wailing in the surrounding woods. I do not think that up to the day of this old lady's death, which took place in her eighty-fourth year, she ever looked with pleasure or contentment on the barn owl, as it flew round the large sycamore trees which grow near the old ruined gateway.
(To be concluded in our next.)
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS
BLONDEL DE NESLE
"Blondel de Nesle the favourite minstrel of Richard Coeur de Lion, and an attendant upon his person, devoted himself to discover the place of his confinement during the crusade against Saladin, emperor of the Saracens. He wandered in vain from castle to palace, till he learned that a strong and almost inaccessible fortress upon the Danube was watched with peculiar strictness, as containing some state-prisoner of distinction. The minstrel took his harp, and approaching as near the castle as he durst, came so nigh the walls as to hear the melancholy captive soothing his imprisonment with music. Blondel touched his harp; the prisoner heard and was silent: upon this the minstrel played the first part of a tune, or lay, known to the captive; who instantly played the second part; and thus, the faithful servant obtained the certainty that the inmate of the castle was no other than his royal master."—Tales of a Grandfather, p 69.
The Danube's wide-flowing water lave
The captive's dungeon cell,
And the voice of its hoarse and sullen wave
Breaks forth in a louder swell,
And the night-breeze sighs in a deeper gust,
For the flower of chivalry droops in dust!
A yoke is hung over the victor's neck,
And fetters enthral the strong,
And manhood's pride like a fearful wreck,
Lies the breakers of care among;
And the gleams of hope, overshadow'd, seem
The phantoms of some distemper'd dream.
But the heart—the heart is unconquer'd still—
A host in its solitude!
Quenchless the spirit, though fetter'd the will,
Of that warrior unsubdued;
His soul, like an arrow from rocky ground,
Shall fiercely and proudly in air rebound.
But the hour of darkness girds him now
With a pall of deepest night,
Anguish sits throned on his moody brow,
And the curse of thy withering blight,
Despair, thou dreariest deathliest foe!
His senses hath steep'd in a torpid woe.
From the dazzling splendour of gloriest past
The warrior sickening turns.
To list to the sound of the wailing blast,
As the wan lamp dimly burns:
For the daring might of the lion-hearted
With Freedom's soul-thrilling notes hath parted.
O'er his harp-string droops his palsied hand,
And the fitful strain alone
Murmurs the notes of his native land—
Does echo repeat that moan
From the dungeon wall so grim and so drear?—
No!—an answering minstrel lingers there.
Up starts the listening king—a flash
Of memory's gifted lore
Bursts on his soul—a deed so rash,
What captive would e'er deplore?
Since bonds no longer unnerve the free,
And valour hath won fidelity.
Dark child of sorrow, sweet comfort take,
In thy lone heart's widowhood,
Some charmed measure may yet awake
Arresting affliction's flood,
And thy prison'd soul unfetter'd be
By the answering spirit of sympathy!
Metropolitan.
"Ill-omen'd in his form, the unlucky fowl,Abhorr'd by men, and call'd a screeching owl."—Garth's Trans.
[Закрыть]
——"And, on her palace top,The lonely owl with oft repeated screamComplains, and spins into a dismal lengthHer baleful shrieks."—Trapp's Trans.
[Закрыть]
