the heat of a whole summer at Jakutsk, in 62° north latitude: he found
it soft to the depth of two feet and a half; there it became harder; and
at half a foot lower, it scarcely yielded to the spade. The inhabitants
of that place keep their provisions continually frozen in caves which
are only six feet below the surface.
_30th, Sunday._--I asked my uncle to-day to explain to me the nature of
those three feasts at which all the Israelites were enjoined to attend
in the course of the year; the feast of Unleavened Bread; the feast of
Weeks; and the feast of Tabernacles[3].
“Feasts,” he replied, “were appointed to commemorate those great events
with which the existence of the Israelites, as a separate people, was
identified; they also afforded opportunities of giving general
instruction, of expounding the law, and of keeping up a useful connexion
between the distant tribes, by meeting each other at stated times in the
holy city. The first and most ancient of feasts, you know, was the
Sabbath, a day of general rest, in memory of the creation; and there was
also a Sabbatical year of rest every seven years; and a jubilee year
every seven times seven years. The feast of Atonement took place in the
seventh month; the feast of Trumpets celebrated the first day of the
year; and in after times feasts were instituted on the restoration of
the Temple, and on the deliverance of the Jews from Haman’s plot.
“But of all the annual festivals, the three about which you inquire were
the most sacred and important. The feast of Unleavened Bread was only
another name for the feast of the Passover. It lasted seven days after
the Paschal lamb had been killed; sacrifices were offered on each of
the days; no bread but such as was unleavened was permitted to be eaten
during its continuance; and the first and the last days were observed
with peculiar and impressive ceremonies. The departure of the Israelites
from Egypt, and the wonderful acts of Divine power by which their
liberation had been accomplished, were the objects commemorated at this
great assemblage of the people;--but we have so often conversed on the
Passover, that I need not renew that subject now.
“The feast of Weeks,” my uncle continued, “was so called because it was
kept at the end of seven weeks, or a _week of weeks_, after the
Passover, that is, on the fiftieth day; and therefore it has been also
called the feast of Pentecost, from a Greek word signifying fiftieth. It
lasted seven days, and was held in remembrance of the law which was
given to the people at Mount Sinai on the fiftieth day after their
leaving Egypt. At this feast two loaves of bread and a certain quantity
of meal, to represent the first-fruits of the ground, were offered as a
solemn and grateful acknowledgment for the harvest which in that fine
climate and fertile country had already commenced. The modern Jews keep
this festival with great strictness; but they mix various traditional
rites with the ceremonies. In this country, I understand that they
decorate their houses with garlands of flowers, and strew roses in the
synagogues; and in Germany each Jewish family has a high rough cake, to
represent Mount Sinai, composed of seven layers of paste, to designate
the seven heavens through which they pretend that Jehovah descended to
declare the law to Moses. As the Passover was the type of the sacrament
of the Lord’s supper, so the feast of Weeks was the type of our
Christian Pentecost, which took place fifty days after the resurrection,
and on which the astonishing miracle was performed, of the gift of
tongues to the Apostles.
“The feast of Tabernacles was established in the middle of the seventh
month of the ecclesiastical year, or in the first month of the civil
year, which began in September. All Israel were obliged to assemble in
order to celebrate this feast, and to live in tents or booths made of
green boughs, during its continuance. The same word in Hebrew signifies
both tabernacles and tents, and this great religious festival was held
in memory of the journey through the wilderness, and of the mode in
which their forefathers had dwelt there in tents, during forty years. On
the first day, the people, with branches of palm trees, willows, and
myrtles in their right hands, and a citron bough bearing its fruit in
the left, joined in procession round the altar, waving the branches and
singing Hosannas. The six following days burnt offerings were made, and
the latest fruits of the year were presented at the temple; on the
eighth and last day the procession with branches was repeated with still
greater solemnity, and the whole feast concluded with what was called
the Hosanna Rabbah, or the great Hosanna. This word literally means
‘Save, I beseech thee;’ it was a common form of religious blessing or
salutation; and thus to that ancient mode of solemnizing the feast of
tabernacles you may trace the branches that were cut down, and the
acclamations of ‘Hosanna to the son of David,’ with which our Saviour
was received on his public entry into Jerusalem.”
_May 1st._--This has been a day of amusement; and the Miss Maudes and
their brother, who came here yesterday, have greatly added to our
gaiety. Very early this morning we all went out, not exactly to gather
May-dew, but to see the numbers of people that went out Maying. Several
May-poles and garlands had been erected; but we were most interested by
that which the little school children had dressed up opposite to their
house. They had also placed an arch of flowers and hawthorn branches
over the door; with a magnificent C in the middle of it, made of daisy
flowers strung on thread.
This was in compliment to Caroline, and when she passed under it, they
all joined in chorus, singing these lines of their own composition:--
We’ll welcome Miss Caroline with flowers so gay,
To the school where she teaches us goodness and truth;
Oh! may she be happy on ev’ry May-day,
And most graciously pardon the follies of youth.
My uncle says it has been always the custom to celebrate May-day in this
county,--and that to have a pretty May-bush is still considered quite
important.
In Huntingdonshire, Miss Maude told us that the children hang every
place with garlands, and sometimes they make very pretty triumphal
arches. To a horizontal hoop, two semi-hoops are fixed, so as to form a
sort of crown, which is ornamented with flowers, ribbons, necklaces,
spoons, and all kinds of finery. This is suspended across the road by a
flowery rope, extending from house to house, while the children sing,
dance, toss their balls over it, and ask money from the passengers: Miss
Maude repeated to us their usual song.
_The May-day Garland._
“To the lilac, laburnum, and iris, which cheer,
The hawthorn, the cowslip, and king-cob so gay,
Each beauty which gladdens the spring of the year,
And the kerchiefs and ribbons our friends have supplied
In bows and in streamers are tastefully tied,
And form our sweet garland, our garland of May.
“Beneath it we’ll dance, and we’ll throw up the ball,
And all shall be gladness, good humour, and play,
We’ll sing, and in chorus we’ll join one and all,
And glad as the season, we’ll lift up our voice,
And all, within measure and reason, rejoice
Beneath the gay garland, the garland of May.”
My uncle observed, that in Cornwall, where customs have been less
changed than in most parts of England, the May-day ceremonies are kept
up with great care. He learned from a friend, who lived in a remote town
in that county, that all the houses were thrown open; lively music was
everywhere heard, and the young maidens, decked with wreaths and
festoons of flowers, danced along the streets, or formed dancing parties
in every house they chose to select.
“The annual celebration of this day,” he continued, “may be traced up to
a very high antiquity. The Romans had their Floralia, or games in honour
of Flora, during the calends of May; and in Asia, when the sun entered
the constellation of Taurus, which corresponded to that period, the same
kind of festivities took place, accompanied by a similar display of
flowers. Some antiquaries have shown that May-day was celebrated in this
country long before the Roman invasion, and they ascribe the
introduction of the custom to an Asiatic colony that settled here, and
who of course brought with them their national habits. In the East,
customs have undergone but little change; and many of the sports which
are prevalent on May-day in some parts of England and Ireland, and
which, at first sight, appear to proceed from unmeaning caprice, may be
proved to be fragments of ancient Eastern ceremonies, by their
similarity to those still practised there on that day.”
My aunt said, that she had seen a May-bush very prettily hung with
flowers at Chamouni, in Switzerland; and she added, “in the
old-fashioned custom too of making fools on the first of April, there is
probably a vestige of the Eastern celebration of the season when the sun
enters Aries; that is, when the year commences. In Persia, medals of
gold were struck with the head of the Ram, on the festival of the Nauruz
or new year’s-day; and the frolic of making fools still distinguishes
the Nauruz festival, and is practised, I believe, from one end of India
to the other.”
I asked my uncle when that Eastern colony to which he had alluded came
to England, as I did not recollect seeing it mentioned in the History of
England.
“The ancient Britons,” said my uncle, “had a tradition of their being
descended from an Eastern tribe called Sacca; and undoubtedly there are
many points of resemblance between their modes of worship, and those
practised in some of the Indian provinces. It would probably be
tiresome to a young person like you, Bertha, to read all the arguments
on this disputed point; but hereafter you may find it a subject of
curious inquiry to examine the coincidences said to exist in the manners
of such remote nations of the East and the West.”
_3rd._--I have such a severe cold, that, fine as the weather is, I am
not allowed to go out; so I can write without interruption to my dear
mamma. I must confess my own foolish imprudence was the cause of this
cold: on the evening of May-day, my aunt allowed the school children to
have a dance on the green, and we all joined in it round their pretty
May-bush. I exerted myself so much, that I was soon over-heated; and,
then stood in the wind to cool myself. My aunt warned me of the
consequence, but I was too much diverted to attend immediately to her
advice, and the next morning I had a violent head-ache, and all the
symptoms of a heavy cold. However, as my uncle had arranged every thing
for showing a cloth manufactory, several miles from this, to the Maudes
and Miss Perceval, I could not bear to give up what I might not have
another opportunity of seeing. Besides, we were to cross the river at
the ferry, where horses had been ordered to meet us; and I hoped to see
a great deal of new country. My friends, indeed, advised me to remain
in bed, but I would not acknowledge how ill I was; and persisted in
accompanying them. Of course my head grew very painful, and my cold
oppressed and stupified me so much, as to prevent my remembering
distinctly the half of what I saw.
I recollect, however, being shewn how the wool was washed and beaten in
order to clean it. When well dried and picked, it was _carded_ on large
cylindrical brushes, made of wire instead of hair, which laid all the
fibres in one direction; the wool was then oiled, and again combed or
brushed with finer cards on the knee, and at last spun into yarn--that
intended for the _warp_ being always smaller and more twisted than that
of the _woof_. The yarn for the woof was then wound on little _bobbins_
or tubes; and in weaving, one of these is placed in the middle of the
_shuttle_, on a pin, round which it easily turns, so as to let the
thread run off through a hole called the _eye_ of the shuttle, as it
travels from side to side of the loom.
I will not tease you with the manner of warping the yarn from one _beam_
to the other; nor with a description of the _heddles_, or looped
strings, which raise and depress the alternate threads of the warp for
the shuttle to pass between them, and which the weaver works by his
feet; nor of the _batten_ and _reed_ for driving the woof home every
time the shuttle carries it across; all these appeared very simple,
while looking at the operation, but I am afraid that I should give but a
very lame account of them. Still less can I attempt to describe a
power-loom which has been just set up; it seems to do every thing
without the interference of the weaver--the heddles rise and fall, the
batten strikes in regular time and with equal force, and the shuttle
flies to and fro from selvage to selvage as if it was alive.
At another loom they were taking off the cloth from the beam on which it
had been rolled in the process of weaving, and many hands were
immediately employed with iron nippers in trimming and cutting off the
knots and threads. The obliging proprietor of the manufactory partly
described and partly shewed us the subsequent operations of scouring the
cloth with potter’s clay, steeping and _fulling_ it, and then stretching
it lengthwise to take out the wrinkles. This is repeated several times,
then it is washed in clear water, and given wet to other workmen to
raise the nap, by means of a flower called _teasel_, which somewhat
resembles a thistle. When the nap is well raised on the right side, it
is given to the shearers, and then to the dyer; and when dyed it is
again washed in plain water, and spread on a table, where the nap is
laid properly with a brush. It is then hung up to dry, and stretched in
every direction; after which it is folded and laid under a press.
It seemed very curious to see a homely wild plant like the teasel, fresh
from the field, used along with so much complex machinery: many
imitations of it have been tried, but nothing answers so well as the
beautiful little hooks contrived by nature. In the west of England,
therefore, wherever the soil is dry and gravelly, teasels are cultivated
on a large scale for the cloth manufactories.
I remember little more of what I saw or heard yesterday, except that my
uncle remarked as we passed a sheep-walk in our drive home, what an
astonishing number of people combine their labours to produce any one
manufacture, and how necessary the different trades are to each other.
From the grazier, for instance, who rears the sheep and sells the wool,
and the various artificers employed in preparing, spinning, weaving,
dyeing, and pressing it, up to the retail shopkeeper who keeps the cloth
ready for our use. “But in fact,” said he, “these are only a few links
of the chain; we must recollect the numerous hands employed in making
the machinery, the miner who raises the iron ore, the smelter who
converts it into metal, the smith who works it, and the collier who
supplies them with coals; the carpenter who constructs the frame-work,
and the engineer who contrives the whole. Then come the merchants, and
shipwrights, and sailors who bring home from distant countries the
articles requisite to colour the cloth, and the dyer, who, by the aid of
chemistry, compounds them; and lastly, the farmer who cultivates the
humble teasels. See, Bertha, what a prodigious number of heads and hands
are thus toiling for the accomplishment of a single object, and, though
all impelled by individual interest, yet all co-operating for the
general good.”
_4th._--As I am still paying for my imprudence, and confined to my room,
kind Mary has been entertaining me with the conversation she had heard
below stairs, and particularly with Mr. Maude’s account of Venice.
Nothing in Italy so much struck his imagination, as the view of that
city, with all her towers and pinnacles rising from the sea, where, the
poet said,
“Venice sits in state, throned on her hundred isles!”
But now it has a most melancholy appearance: the port, which in times of
prosperity was crowded with shipping, is now almost empty; and the muddy
canals which intersect the town in every direction, are no longer
enlivened by multitudes of gondolas gliding swiftly through the water.
The showy palaces which rise from the sides of these watery streets,
were once adorned with all that painting and sculpture could perform;
but they are now neglected, moss-grown, the habitations of owls and
bats, and fast sinking to decay: and many of the great families who had
inherited their wealth and honours in direct succession for a thousand
years, are now obliged to part with their splendid mansions, or to see
them gradually crumbling into ruins, from the want of means to repair
them.
Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Maude says that Venice is still a
magnificent looking place; and amongst its many beautiful buildings, he
describes the cathedral as being most venerable and interesting. It was
built so long ago as the ninth century, and enriched with the spoils of
Greece and of Constantinople. He once went through the city at night, to
see the effect of moonlight on its superb buildings; but the few of them
which were still dazzling with lamps, as if enjoying their former glory,
made such a contrast with the pale light and dark shade of the moon, and
with the general stillness, that the whole scene had even a more
deserted appearance than in the day-time. Now and then the gloomy
silence was interrupted by the sounds of the harp or guitar, or by the
wild and plaintive airs of a few gondoliers, as they kept time to the
gentle splashing of their oars.
Mr. Maude, she says, added a great deal about the present government,
the state of society, and the remaining commerce of Venice; and my
uncle, who was much pleased with his observations, remarked that few of
the changes recorded in history, offered a subject of deeper interest,
than the long-continued grandeur and present fall of Venice. “It rose,”
he said, “as it were, from the waves, when, on the invasion of Italy by
the Huns, numbers of people took refuge in that cluster of islands where
the city now stands. So early as the year 421, they formed a little
state, strong enough to oppose the invaders, or at least to secure
themselves from molestation. Commerce soon followed security; and from
this small beginning arose that wealth and power which continued for
many centuries, and which extended the influence of Venice over all the
states with which she was connected. Her foundations were laid in the
darkest ages of Italian misery; but she soon became the spectator of the
dissolution of the Roman Empire. She witnessed the ravages of many
continental wars, and the rise and fall of many nations; till at length
she fell in her turn also. Somebody has well remarked, that she was the
last surviving witness of antiquity, the common link between the two
periods of civilization.
“Her whole history,” continued my uncle, “has a paradoxical and peculiar
character. Her romantic achievements in the East; the noble lead she
took in the struggles of Christendom with the empire of the Turks; and
the heroic defence she made against the attacks of numerous enemies,
place her resources and power in singular contrast with the smallness of
her territory. On the other hand, her selfish policy; her imperious
conduct wherever her influence extended; and her deadly jealousy of the
neighbouring republic of Genoa, rendered her the object of universal
envy and hatred. While at home the rigorous despotism of her government,
which was ill concealed under the mask of republican freedom, and the
inquisitorial tyranny of the senate, which silently pervaded every
house, and controlled almost the thoughts of every individual, could
tend only to alienate her subjects. These are points of deep moral and
historical interest; but it may be safely said that her government
outlived the age to which it was suited; no timely reform adapted it to
the growing changes in the public mind--no concessions to the people
united them in common cause with their haughty masters--and the fall of
Venice may be ascribed more to her internal vices, than to the
overpowering armies of France.”
_5th._--I have been so much better all day that I was allowed to go down
to tea; and had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Maude describe the
_fruitiéres_ in Switzerland. I quite misunderstood that word at first;
for I find that it means a kind of dairy, something like that described
to us by our Savoyard friends last winter. The person by whom the
fruitiére is managed receives their milk daily from all the neighbouring
peasants; he sells the cream, and butter, and makes the cheese; and at
the end of the season pays the contributors either in cheeses or money.
He keeps an exact account, not only of the quantity of milk brought in,
but to prevent fraud, such as mixing it with water, he ascertains its
quality by a kind of hydrometer, or floating gauge. Persons detected in
cheating are struck out of the book, and lose what they had already
contributed. The fruitiére man who manages the business and keeps the
accounts, is paid by a small per centage on each cheese.
This plan is chiefly adopted in those parts of the country where the
cattle are taken in summer to pasture in the mountains; the farmers
confide their cows to a man who lives in a chalet, such as Madeleine
mentioned, and spends night and day in milking the cows, and in making
and turning the cheeses.
The same practice has been introduced into Piedmont and Lombardy. All
the dairies in which the Parmesan cheeses are made, are supplied in this
manner. The meadows of Lombardy, in the vicinity of the Po, are the most
fertile in the world: being constantly watered, they produce three or
four crops of hay in the season; but as they are occupied by a great
number of individuals, there are few who can support a dairy, because
the making cheeses requires a large quantity of milk, the produce of at
least fifty cows. To effect this the Lombards have formed societies in
order to make their cheese in common; and twice a-day the milk is sent
to the principal house, where the dairy-man keeps an account of each
person’s share.
This subject reminds me that my aunt has had a satisfactory letter from
Bertram and Madeleine. He is much improved in strength. She appears to
be very happy, and the little girl is going on well.
_7th, Sunday._--Wentworth has been so much interested by the character
of Moses, and by the explanations my uncle has occasionally given of his
prophecies, that during the last week he prepared a long string of
questions for this morning. His father was pleased by this eagerness to
obtain information, and answered them all most kindly and fully. I need
not repeat the questions, I shall only tell you the general substance of
the answers; and you, dear mamma, who are so well acquainted with the
subject will easily trace my omissions.
The prophecies of Moses may be considered in some measure as
supplemental to those of Jacob and Balaam. He enters into many details
of the perverseness and the corruptions of the Israelites, and the
consequent calamities of famine, pestilence, and war, which should
afflict them under the government of their kings. He states them almost
with the simplicity of an historical narrative; while all other
prophecies, except those of our Lord, are expressed in more poetical,
and in far more obscure language.