_Beef-eaters_, or yeomen of the guard, are stationed by the sideboard at
great royal dinners. The term is a corruption from the French
_buffetiers_, from _buffet_, sideboard.
_A Lion Killer._--Lions abound in the west of India. A gentleman assured
Captain Skinner that he had, in one season, killed forty-five in the
province of Hissar, alone. None of them were large, but he mentioned
having met with one of uncommon beauty; its skin was of the usual tawny
colour, but its mane a rich glossy black, as was also the tuft on the
tail.
_Vultures._--On passing the carcass of a bullock (says Captain Skinner,)
we had a proof of the keenness of the vulture's scent. An hour before
not one was seen; nor was the place, being so wild and far removed from
all habitations, likely to be haunted by them: yet now they thronged
every tree in the neighbourhood. There could not have been less than
four or five hundred.
_Jackalls._--In some parts of India the howling of innumerable jackalls
is never out of your ear, from the minute night falls to the first dawn
of day. Captain Skinner says, until he became familiar to the screaming
sound, he used to start from his sleep, and fancy some appalling
calamity had driven the inhabitants of a neighbouring town to rash forth
in fear and madness from their homes. Such frightful clamour might
attend an earthquake or a deluge. The animals come up close to your very
doors in large packs, and roar away without any apparent object,
frequently standing a longtime in one place, as a dog does when "baying
the moon."
_Narrow Streets._--In grand Cairo, if you unfortunately meet a string of
masked beauties upon donkies, you must make a rapid retreat, and resign
yourself to be squeezed to a mummy against the wall for daring to stand
in their course, if your curiosity should tempt you to do so.
_Mussulman and Hindoo Religion._--"Where the same village is inhabited
by people of both religions, they occupy opposite portions of it: and
the circumstance may always be known by there being a well at each end
of it; for the Hindoos would not draw water from the same fountain as
the Mahomedans, for all the wealth of this world."
_The only Favour._--At the battle of Spires, a regiment had orders not
to grant any quarter; an unhappy enemy, wounded and disarmed, begged
hard for his life from one of its officers, who touched with his
situation, replied, "I pity your misfortune, and--ask anything else but
that, and upon my honour I will grant your request."
* * * * *
Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House,)
London; sold by ERNEST FLEISCHER, 626, New Market, Leipsic; G.G. BENNIS,
55, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris; and by all Newsmen and Booksellers.