Warm showery Summer, disagreeable for the Tourist, but pastorally
and agriculturally favourable--Xiphias Gladius, or Sword-Fish,
cast ashore during a Midsummer Gale--Garibaldi dining on Potatoes
and Sword-Fish steaks at Caprera--The General's Drink--Medicinal
virtues of an Onion--Nettle Broth--Translation of a New Zealand
Maori Song.
"Rather showery, sir," exclaims the pleasure-seeking butterfly tourist
as he stands at his hotel window, or settles himself as comfortably
as may be on the box-seat of the coach in the morning. "Not a bit of
it, sir," responds the sturdy agriculturist or well-to-do drover;
"not a bit of it, sir, the finest growing weather we could have:
cattle and sheep getting into condition famously!" [July 1873]. In
such a case it is best to avoid declaring positively for either
party. In medio tutissimus ibis. Both are right from their individual
standpoint; that of the agriculturist and drover being the utilitarian
and anti-poetic, while the sentimental tourist, bent on sight-seeing
and recreation, very pardonably grumbles that instead of clear skies
and refreshing breezes he is as often as not enveloped in mist and
small rain. In any case the country is at present most beautiful,
and despite the grumblings of a few, who foolishly expect to have "a'
the comforts of the Sautmarket" about them whithersoever they wander,
such batches of tourists as we forgather with from time to time are
in raptures with our glens, and bens, and lochs, and richly wooded
shores, as well they may. And never before in the West Highlands
were all the conveniences for "touristing" with ease and comfort,
and all reasonable despatch, so perfect and so varied.
A tolerably perfect, though not very large specimen of the sword-fish,
the Xiphias gladius of ichthyologists, was cast ashore in our
neighbourhood during an unusually heavy midsummer gale from the
south-west last week. The length of the elongated snout, commonly
called the sword or dagger, was two feet seven inches, a really
formidable weapon, with which it has been known, whether willingly
or unwillingly it would be difficult to say, to perforate the bottom
timbers of the stoutest ships, the sword in such cases luckily breaking
off as a rule, and thus becoming an immediate as well as an efficient
plug or stop-gap to the perforation. It is a more frequent visitor to
our shores than our natural history books would lead one to believe,
hardly a summer passing but you hear of one or more being caught
or cast ashore somewhere. This is the fourth specimen that within
twenty years has come under our personal inspection here on the west
coast. The largest and finest we ever saw was captured by a well-known
Fort-William fisherman, Iack Crùbach, or Lame Jack. If we well
remember, we think he told us that somebody gave him a sovereign for
it. Its flesh is said to be excellent eating, while its liver affords
an oil equal to eel oil in transparency, and of marvellous virtue,
it is said, as a medicament. The favourite habitats of the sword-fish
are the Sicilian and the Italian shores of the Mediterranean, where,
at certain seasons of the year, it is caught in great numbers,
the average weight being quite a hundred, and sometimes two hundred
pounds or more. We have it in our Common-Place Book that Major Healy,
of the yacht "Wildbird," informed us in Fort-William (August 1869)
that he had just returned from the Mediterranean; had called on
Garibaldi at Caprera, and dined with him on potatoes and sword-fish
steaks, which the gallant Major pronounced excellent. We may state, as
something curious, that while the Major at said dinner had his choice
of very good wines, with lots of capital bottled "Bass" from England,
the General himself drank a funny decoction composed of Marsala and
water--half-and-half--in which a large onion, sliced lemon-wise,
had been steeping for the whole previous night--a drink which the
Major tasted, and in very emphatic phrase declared to be "beastly,"
but which he shrewdly guessed had something to do with the General's
rheumatism and gout. Any of our readers having a tendency thitherwards
might do worse than take the hint. There may be something in it,
for we recollect, when a little boy in Morven, that an onion was
somehow considered a panpharmacon, a perfect panacea--good for any
and every ailment. That the mediæval herbalist, like the mediæval
alchemist, was often a quack is very likely. In many instances he
could hardly be otherwise when his profession was in such repute; but
it is a question if our revulsion has not gone too far; if our modern
medicinists do not rather much overlook, too contemptuously ignore,
the inherent virtues, as to human ailments, of roots and herbs and
"flowers of the field." An old lady in our neighbourhood, shrewd
and intelligent beyond most of her class, told us not long ago as
she was cutting nettles by the roadside, as an evening bonne bouche
for her cow, that Stewart of Invernahyle, Sir Walter Scott's friend,
made it a point every spring to have nettle broth or soup on three
consecutive days about the season of the vernal equinox, which he
religiously believed acted as a safe and efficient diuretic for the
remainder of the year. From Mairi Bhàn, Invernahyle's sister, the
"Mhairi Bhàn gur barrail thu"
of Macintyre's well-known song, are descended at least two
Presbyterian clergymen, though the Invernahyles themselves were
strongly Episcopalian--ourselves, namely, and the Rev. Mr. Cameron,
Free Church minister of Ardersier. And the writing of the word
"Episcopalian" above reminds us of the fact that the titular dignity
of the Bishopric of Argyll and the Isles is at present vacant. The
late Bishop, Dr. Ewing, with whom we had the honour of being on most
intimate and friendly terms, was an unostentatiously pious, thoroughly
good, and really very able man, whom nine-tenths of the clergy of his
own Church would not or could not understand. Thank God that in the
enumeration of the good men whom we have known, the fingers of both
hands do not suffice; and of the really good men whom we have been
privileged to know and honour with affectionate regard was the late
Bishop Ewing.
Some months ago we wrote to an old college chum, now farming in
New Zealand, advising him, as some occupation for his idle hours,
to pick up and send us such scraps of songs and poems as he might
find among the Maori race around him. No uncivilised people that
we had read or heard of seemed to us, in many respects, so like our
ancient Highlanders--the Fingalians, so called, of our older ballad
poetry--and we thought that so much of their poetry and folk-lore as
could be gathered could not fail to be interesting. Our correspondent
says:--"The Maoris, as you so shrewdly guessed, have a good deal
of poetry among them; short songs, however, for the most part,
and rhymed proverbs, and "wisdom words," as they call them, very
much like the Welsh "Triads," for they generally teach some three
particular doctrines, or state historically some three particular
facts. A few weeks ago I got an old man who came this way to sing me
some aboriginal songs, and the one that most struck my fancy I now
send to you. It is perfectly literal, for I know the native language
well, and as you are fond of rhyming, you may put it into verse if
you like. I can only send a true translation, line for line.
Maori Song.--(Translation.)
Fish in the pool? No fish in the pool;
And the women are sad because of it.
The men, too, are sad; but to-morrow
The fish will be big, and fat, and many.
I heard the bird singing a pleasant song.
He sang of food; he also sang of love.
The name of this bird is known to me,
But I will not tell it till we meet under the moon.
The stranger, with his face so ugly and pale,
Has come from far over the sea.
He loves us, he says; but a Maori maid
Will not listen to his love.
The mountains and vales of our own land
Are pleasant to see and live among.
And the sun at his setting is very red--
Red with love to the Maori; angry at the stranger.
My father lived here long ago;
He lived here, and here also lived the paraipa (a kind of bird).
The paraipa is not here, and my father is dead:
Woe is me, I wander among strangers.