the letter, which, however, makes no mention of Bidasari, and at once
accompanies the messengers to Sultan Mengindra's court. He makes his
entry into the strange capital with becoming splendor, and is received
with great honor. The queen now makes herself known to her father, who
is moved to tears. Banquets and great tournaments follow, and
happiness pervades the court. The king returns after a time to his own
land, but continues as long as he lives to send gifts and goods to his
daughter and her royal lord.
THE COLORS OF FLOWERS.
BY HENRI COUPIN.
Much might be said, from an artistic and poetic point of view,
concerning the colors of flowers. It is in the corolla that they
reveal themselves in their most minute delicacy. The tints so widely
diffused among animals, even those of butterflies, are coarse as
compared with them, and the painter's palette is powerless to
reproduce them. They run through the whole gamut of the solar
spectrum, even to its most minute details. Some naturalists have
striven to establish a classification of them, and it will be
convenient to be acquainted with their efforts, though they are not
decisive and are somewhat artificial, like all classifications. We
give one of the most ingenious of them:
GREEN.
{ Greenish-blue. | Yellow-green. }
{ Blue. | Yellow. }
Cyanic series. { Blue-violet. | Yellow-orange. } Xanthic series.
{ Violet. | Orange. }
{ Violet-red. | Orange-red. }
RED.
The type of the cyanic series is blue, and that of the xanthic series
yellow. The first is sometimes denominated the deoxidized series, and
the second the oxidized, but these designations have hardly solid
enough foundations to be preserved. De Candolle, who publishes the
table in his Vegetable Physiology, appends some interesting remarks to
it.
It will be noticed by the inspection of the table that nearly all the
flowers susceptible of changes of color, as a rule, simply go up or
down the scale of shades of the series to which they belong. Thus, in
the xanthic series the flowers of the _Nyctago jalapa_ may be yellow,
yellow-orange, or red; those of _Rosa eglantina_ yellow-orange or
orange-red; those of nasturtium from yellow to orange; the flowers of
_Ranunculus asiaticus_ present all the colors of red up to green;
those of the _Hieracium staticefolium_, and of some other yellow
_Chicoraceæ_ and of some _Leguminosæ_ like the lotus, become
greenish-yellow when dried, etc. In the cyanic series the flowers of
many _Boraginaceæ_, especially of _Lithospermum purpureo-cæruleum_,
vary from blue to violet-red; those of hortensia from rose to blue;
the ligulate flowers of the asters from blue to red or violet; those
of the hyacinths from blue to red, etc.
There are, however, a few apparent exceptions to this rule. Thus,
although the hyacinths usually vary only in the blues, reds, or
white, yellowish varieties, indicating an approach to the xanthic
series, are sometimes found in gardens. The auricula, which is
originally yellow, passes to reddish-brown, to green, and to a sort of
violet, but never reaches pure blue; and single petals occasionally
give suggestions of both series in distinct parts of their surfaces.
Some surprise may be felt that white does not figure in De Candolle's
table. This is because an absolutely white color does not seem to
exist in any flower. The fact may be shown by placing some flowers
supposed to be of the purest white, like the lily, the white
campanula, or the wood anemone, on a leaf of clear white paper. It
will be found that the white of the corolla is really washed with
yellow, blue, or orange, according to what flower is taken. If the
tint does not appear distinct, infusions of the corollas in alcohol
will present tones unmistakably yellow or red, etc. White flowers are
therefore flowers with tints appertaining to one of De Candolle's
series, but albinized, as if they were etiolated. A small number of
flowers begin white, and are subsequently colored under the action of
light. The _Cheiranthus chameleo_ passes from white to citron-yellow
and a slightly violet-red; the _Ænothera tetraptera_, at first white,
becomes rose and then almost red; the petals of the Indian tamarind
are white the first day and yellow the second; and the corolla of the
_Cobea scandens_ comes out greenish-white and turns to violet the
second day. The most remarkable plant in this respect is _Hibiscus
mutabilis_, which Rumph calls the hourly flower, because it starts
white, turns flesh-color toward noon, and becomes red at sunset.
In his recent work on Plants and their Cosmic Media, M. Costantin has
some remarks concerning the precocity of various races and the tint of
their flowers. Hoffmann made observations on this point for several
years. He remarked, as the result of eight years' observation, that
the common lilac with white flowers blooms on an average six days
earlier than the normal form with purple flowers. This might be a
curious anomaly with no bearing, but the more we advance in the study
of Nature the more we perceive that all phenomena, even the most
insignificant, deserve to be examined. Similar results have been
observed in varieties of radish (_Raphanus raphanistrum_) and of
saffron (_Crocus vernus_); in the former the white flowers expand on
an average of sixteen days earlier than the yellow ones (twelve years
of observation), and in the latter plant the difference is four days.
These changes of tint sometimes appear to depend on the temperature.
Thus, the white lilac was obtained by horticulturists under the
influence of a temperature of between 30° and 35° C. We can not,
however, affirm that spontaneous races with white flowers originated
in the same way as the white lilac. It will be enough to point out a
few facts that may contribute to the guidance of persons who are
seeking to learn the origin of these colored varieties. The _Papava
alpinum_ has a very stable variety with yellow flowers, which,
according to Focke, has been observed in the polar regions, while the
white varieties have been seen in Switzerland. The cultivation of the
same species at Giessen, Germany, has made it possible to obtain
specimens with white flowers by metamorphosis from specimens with
yellow flowers, but it is impossible to say whether or not heat is the
agent that produces the changes in these cases. The experiments of MM.
Schübela and Bonnier have shown that flowers become darker without
changing their color in high regions and in those near the pole; but
this phenomenon is one of light and not of color. Be their origin what
it may, these white and colored forms have remarkable fixedness.
It will be observed that black does not figure in the table of the
classification of colors given above. Absolute black, in fact, does
not exist in any flower. If some parts appear black, it is only
because their tint is excessively dark. The black of the petals of
_Pelargonium triste_ and of the bean is yellow, and that of the
_Orchis nigra_ is a brown. Apparent blacks are, moreover, extremely
rare.
The gamut of the reds is much more varied than that of other colors.
The reds of the xanthic series are generally more lively-hued,
carnation or flame-colored; those of the cyanic series present tints
more nearly approaching violet. These two reds may furthermore give
rose-colors, but a little skill will divine their origin. The rose of
the hydrangea inclines to blue, while that of the rose tends rather
toward yellow. Blue colors are the most variable, and readily pass to
violet and red, but most frequently to white. The most tenacious hues
are those of yellow, and we might affirm that the bright and
glistening yellow of the buttercup may be said never to change. The
paler yellows change more easily, but rarely pass to anything but
white. Green flowers, not being readily distinguished from the foliage
around them, need not be specially mentioned. They are believed to be
much rarer than they really are.
Horticulturists are able, by cultivation, selection, and
hybridization, to cause the colors of flowers to vary in considerable
proportions. Not much is known of the laws of these variations,
chiefly because gardeners who might tell botanists of them if they
would have not the scientific spirit. We cite here what MM. Decaisne
and Naudin[7] say respecting the variations of the color of flowers:
[Footnote 7: Manuel de l'amateur des jardins.]
"Change in this respect is effected in two ways: sometimes there is a
simple discoloration, drawing the red, yellow, or blue tints of the
corolla toward a more or less pure white; sometimes there is a radical
substitution of one color for another. Flowers in which red or blue
are the dominant tints are most subject to turn white, but the change
may also be observed on some flowers that are naturally yellow, such
as the disk of the daisy, the dahlia, and the chrysanthemum when those
flowers suffer ligular transformation. Nothing, on the other hand, is
more common in our gardens than white varieties of pink or of red
roses, lilac, scarlet runners, larkspur, purple digitalis, Canterbury
bells, etc.--in fact, nearly all plants with lilac, rose, red, purple,
blue, or violet flowers. There are some flowers, however, in these
categories the coloration of which is very persistent, and rarely
fades perceptibly--as may be seen in the purple petunias, the hue of
which does not lose its vivacity even when it is crossed with the
white variety.
"The radical substitution of one color for another, whether over the
whole corolla or only on some of its parts, in the form of spots,
stripes, or variegations, is also of frequent occurrence, and is one
of the sorts of modifications which horticulturists have used with
great advantage. A considerable number of 'fancy' plants derive almost
all their importance from the facility with which the liveliest colors
replace one another, blend, and intermix in a thousand ways and in
relative proportions of which nothing is fixed, so that we can not
find in these collections, when they are well chosen, two plants out
of a hundred that are exactly alike in the tone and distribution of
their colors. These multicolored varieties, all the offspring of
cultivation, are generally perpetuated true by cuttings, while the
seedlings compensate for the uncertainty of what they will produce by
the certainty that they will give rise to new combinations of colors.
This is not the case with single-colored varieties, which, unless they
are crossed with others, tend to perpetuate themselves through their
seedlings. The yellow, white, and purple varieties of the
four-o'clock, for example, when they are pure, reproduce themselves
constantly; when crossed with one another they give rise to
intermediately colored flowers, and more frequently to variegated
ones."
Mr. Hughes Gibb observed, in the mild winter of 1897-'98, that flowers
blooming out of season were liable not to have the same color as
regularly blooming ones.
The cactus dahlia, usually red, has put out flowers almost orange and
with exterior florets sometimes nearly yellow. On the other hand,
these dahlias have often shown a marked tendency to return to the
simpler form.
A species of nasturtium, habitually of a bright scarlet-red, has given
in the cold frame late flowers of a bright yellow, a red band near the
center of the petals remaining the only vestige of the normal color.
In both cases the change of color began on the edges of the petals.
The flower of the myosotis, normally bright blue, has become almost
clear rose, without the slightest trace of blue; and a pure blue phlox
has shown a tendency toward greenish-yellow.--_Translated for the
Popular Science Monthly from La Nature._
FOLKLORE OF THE ALLEGHANIES.
BY FRANCES ALBERT DOUGHTY.
The West Virginia mountaineer lives very close to Nature, and viewed
from many standpoints the relation is characterized by pleasing
amenities: juicy berries refresh him along the road; nuts drop into
his path; "sang" (ginseng), which makes one of his sources of revenue,
reveals itself to his eye as he follows the cows to pasture; a cool
brook springs up to quench his thirst when weary of following the
plow; pine knots are always within reach to make light as well as
warmth; mud and stones easily combine in his hand to shape a daub
chimney; and a trough dug out of an old tree furnishes a receptacle
that is as good for dough at one end as for a baby at the other.
Often, however, this close relation to Nature assumes a war attitude,
fierce and uncompromising. If hungry wolves no longer howl furiously
at the back fence after nightfall, or gnaw at the log pens which
secure the stock, and if panthers are seldom bold enough to spring at
a horse's flanks as a man rides along in the daytime, bears are still
numerous enough to devour a large number of sheep every year in spite
of precautions, and they have a pronounced taste for sweet young corn.
The living wrested from the soil in the short and changeable summer
months must cover the winter's need as well; it is generally so scant
and uncertain that the mountaineer feels a chronic discouragement
toward agriculture as a pursuit and resource. He must depend on it,
and yet as far back as he or his father can remember there has always
been some reason why "a good crop" could not be made that year. The
West Virginian lives in a large and thinly settled game preserve, but
the fleet deer usually contrives to escape the hunter's chill wait in
the autumnal dawn, the coy wild turkey is overshy of his lure, and the
wary trout requires a very patient rod. In the long winter deep snows
cover the fences, groups or "bunches" of cows and sheep often perish
in the drifts, and the human prisoners in their cabins, huddling
around the wood fires, are nearly always, as they express it, "short
of" some article which would be considered a necessity in the average
city home.
The varying, defiant, and incalculable moods and phases of Nature
bring so many chances into the humble lot of the mountaineer that it
is not surprising he should interpret her phenomena as having a
distinctly personal import. Anciently, around Olympus the talk was of
"omens," "auguries," and "fate"; dwellers along the chain of the
Alleghanies to-day talk of "signs," "spells," and "luck," and these
words held their significance for hundreds of years in the ancestral
stock of the first settlers in the region, most of the folklore being
directly traceable to a Scotch-Irish strain of blood. The mountain
pattern taken far from cities probably differs little either mentally
or physically from that of the colonial mountaineers. Even with the
railroad traversing a limited area, and the influx of summer visitors
during three months of the year, the only perceptible change wrought
in the natives is a little sharpening of their wits from the barter of
fruit and furs at the hotels in the extensive mineral-spring section.
The Alleghany mountaineer, ignorant, narrow-minded, honest, brave, and
hospitable, remains what he was when the eagle soared from the
inaccessible eyrie above his head to be chosen as the tutelary genius
of the unconquerable young republic. The chief distinction in the
temperament of the sexes is that the men are frank and talkative, the
women shy and uncommunicative. Beings approaching the legendary fauns
and satyrs, clad in the skins of wild animals, are sometimes
discovered by the solitary horseman in the wild mountain fastnesses;
they gaze at him as an apparition from a strange world, never having
seen a village or heard a railroad whistle.
There is a curious and persistent survival of the belief in witchcraft
through this mineral-spring belt in West Virginia. To draw out the
natives on this mysterious subject they must be approached
sympathetically; if twitted with their credulity they will shut up
like clams, for with all the simplicity of the unlettered their
intuition often arrives at a correct understanding of the estimate
placed upon them by more fortunate persons. When satisfied that he is
not expected to pose as a "freak," but is met on the equal plane of
human intercourse, the mountain story-teller seems to enjoy recounting
the traditions and beliefs of his people and their forefathers.
Leaving himself a loophole of escape, he is very likely to finish his
yarn with--
"'Tain't that I believe them things myself. I know they ain't nawthin'
but superstition; but I kin qualify that right round here, not many
miles away, there's people that believes in witches."
In a little cottage on a much-traveled thoroughfare one woman admitted
to me with bated breath, as though not quite sure her tormentor was
dead, that she had been bewitched. Her account was given in these
words:
"I kep' seein' an old woman with a cow's hoof in her hand; sometimes
she was by my side an' sometimes she was there on the wall. At last
she come up close to me, an' she was goin' to clap the cow's hoof over
my mouth, but I slapped at her right hard an' she went away. She ain't
never come again. Yes, I _know_ I was bewitched."
A cow's hoof is a frequent accessory, and animals that are brought
into the magic circle are always of a domestic character, completely
subservient to the power of the witch.
It is noticeable that the exercise of witchcraft is generally ascribed
to women; and that of witch mastery, the superior attribute, to men.
The form of a judicial process found favor with the Puritan
temperament in old Salem, although by a grim mockery the verdict was
decided in advance. The independent mountaineer likes to take the law
in his own hands, as the following story illustrates:
"A farmer believed a woman was bewitching his stock. He drew a picture
of her and set it up as a target; then he sunk a piece of silver in
his bullet with an awl, _that being the charm for shooting a witch_.
He aimed to shoot the picture through the heart, but fired a little
too low. On that very day the woman herself fell flat on the ground,
and a deep, awful hole was found in her side. From that minute she
suffered extreme agony, and died in a week."
The narrator had heard this grewsome tale from his grandmother, who
said that she had seen the hole.
One of the oldest inhabitants of Monroe County is responsible for the
ensuing chronicle; he dates it in the "forties" of the present
century:
"'Tain't so very long ago there was a woman livin' near the Sweet
Springs who used to be always seen with a cap and bonnet on; nobody
ever saw her without the cap. She was a hard, grim-lookin' monster. If
anybody was watchin' to see her ontie her cap strings, somehow they
never could see any more until the clean cap was on--now that's _so_,
there ain't any mistake about that! When she come over here from
Botetourt County the report followed her that she lived pretty close
to a man whose chillun went to school, an' a calf had been in the
habit of attackin' 'em an' bitin' em. The father concealed himself one
day and was watchin' to catch the calf. On that occasion it come out
an' attacked the chillun on a bridge across a little stream o' water.
He ran and caught the calf and cut off his ears with a knife. They
always believed that _the old witch had turned herself into that
calf_, and so when she turned back into a woman she wore the cap to
hide that she didn't have any ears. There was three sisters of 'em; it
was reported they was all witches, possessed of some uncommon art.
John and Harriet had two little pet pullets they thought a good deal
of. The cap-woman wanted 'em; they just fluttered an' fluttered till
they died. Her name was Nancy L----. Well, she wanted the carpenter to
make her a piece of furniture out of an old dirty plank she had, an'
he wouldn't do it. He said it was gritty and it would ruin his tools.
Then she got mad and said, 'I'll make you suffer in the flesh for
that!' One day soon after that he was at his hog pen feedin' the hogs,
when suddenly he was struck down perfectly helpless, so he couldn't
speak. He thought it was paralytic or rheumatism. In those days there
was an old doctor in Staunton, Augusta County, who had a kind o'
process to steam people and boil 'em in a big kettle, for rheumatism.
He put sump'n fireproof, a paste or ointment, all over 'em, like the
fireproof you put on buildings, an' boiled 'em an hour or two hours,
as the case might be. The carpenter went to consult him, an' he put
him in a kettle that was big enough for him either to stand or sit
down in it; a collar was fitted tight round his neck so the hot water
couldn't get into his face and eyes. The boilin' didn't seem to do him
any good. When he got home he halted about for twelve months or more.
First he felt a pain in his hip, and then he felt a pain by the side
of his knee as if it was gradually workin' down; then one day there
was sump'n jaggin' in the calf of his leg. He put his leg up on a
bench and an old gentleman seen sump'n stickin' out. He took a pair of
nippers an' ketched holt an' pulled out a big shirtin' needle. Hugh
kept the needle as long as he lived, and he believed Nancy the old
witch shot him with it. He halted on that leg the balance of his days.
_I've seen the needle_; it's God's truth!"
A spice of profanity seems to have the virtue of embalming a witch
story in the mountain memory. A rustic maiden who lives with her
family on one of the loneliest hilltops in the Alleghanies, only to be
reached on foot or horseback, makes this contribution to the folklore
of the region:
"An old lady not far off had three daughters, and she was going to
learn 'em to be witches. They had to sit on the hearth by the fire and
take off their shoes and grease their heels so as to go up the
chimney, and they were not allowed to speak. The mother was to go
first and the girls were to follow. The old lady and the two foremost
ones had all got up safe, but the last girl, when she was in a narrow
place in the chimney, said, 'This is a d--d tight squeeze!' With that
she fell back and was burned up."
The value of silence and self-control appears to be the only touch of
morality in the witch logic. Manifestations of the black art
frequently take place by or over running water. These characteristics
are observed in another story from the same maid of the mountain:
"Two witches were going to rob a store in the night, and they took a
young man with them as a partner. They put the greased witch cap on
his head so he could go through the keyhole. They all started out, and
presently they came to a river. They saw some calves in a field, and
caught three of 'em; they mounted the two that were heifers and the
boy got on the steer calf. They charged him of all things not to speak
on the journey. The witches jumped the river on their calves without
makin' a sound, but just as he was jumping across he cried out, 'That
was a d--d good jump for a steer calf!' Well, they all went on, and
when they got to the store they passed through the keyhole one after
another, the young man too. They took all the money they wanted, but
when the time came to leave he couldn't get out of the keyhole,
because he had spoken, and the spell was broken. He was found in the
store the next morning, and had to take all the punishment."
It is interesting to note as an offset to all these diabolic
attributes and potencies that a firm faith exists in a beneficent
Power back of them which under given conditions will prevail over
evil. "God is always stronger than the devil" is the mountain way of
expressing this dependence, and there are charlatans who take
advantage of it by going about as "witch masters." One of these died a
few years ago, and another farther back, an Irishman named "Mosey," is
quoted yet for his successes as "master of all the witches and all the
devils."
When the cows had been eating mushrooms and their milk became too
bitter to make good butter, Mosey was sent for at once to "cure the
witchcraft" and "take off the spell." He took his regular beat through
his part of the mountain country once in a while. An old man who
oscillates between the "White" and the "Sweet," selling canes,
remembers him well. He tells of one woman's experience who "filed a
complaint" that her cow wouldn't give much milk, and that the milk
wouldn't "gether" for butter.
"'Woman,' says Mosey, 'your cow's bewitched, and badly bewitched!'
"'Can you do anything for her, Mosey, and what will you charge?'