St. Lucia.
"_A Feather in your Cap._"--My good friend Dr. Wolff mentioned in
conversation a circumstance (also stated, I fancy, in his _Journey to
Bokhara_) which seemed to afford a solution of the common expression,
"That's a feather in your cap." I begged he would give it me in writing,
and he has done so. "The Kaffr Seeyah Poosh (meaning the infidels in black
clothing) living around Cabul upon the height of the mountains of the
Himalaya, who worship a god called Dagon and Imra, are great enemies of the
Muhamedans; and for each Muhamedan they kill, they wear a feather in their
heads. The same is done among the Abyssinians and Turcomans."
Has the feather head-dress of the American Indian, and the eagle's feather
in the bonnet of the Highlander, any connexion with keeping a score of the
deaths of the enemies or game they have killed?