Vol. V. No. 14.

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THE

CONTENTS.

NOTES:-Leuca, 157-Curious Coptic Customs-Myatt, 158.

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Queries on all matters of general literary and historical interest-folk-lore, the origin of proverbs, familiar sayings, popular customs, quotations, etc., the authorship of books, pamphlets, poems, essays, or stories, the meaning of recondite allusions, etc., etc.-are invited from all quarters, and will be answered by editors or contributors. Room is allowed for the discussion of moot questions, and the periodical is thus a valuable medium for intercommunication between literary men and specialists.

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Liberated from Prison-Claude's Wife, 158-Lazarillo de Tormes-River Turned Back, 159-Lobster Changing Color -Mephistopheles-Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon, 160.

REPLIES:-The Liwash, or Putrid Sea, 160-St. MichaelTom Green-I Shall be Satisfied-Sambo-Seal of the Confederacy-Rush Carpets, 161.

REFERRED TO CORRESPONDENTS :-Leper KingsBusy as a Nailer, 161-Barkstone-Brazen Fly of VirgilInquisition, 162.

COMMUNICATIONS:-Crowned A-I Acknowledge the Corn-Lord Timothy Dexter-Colen-Greek Cities in France and Spain, 162-Curious Burial Customs-Curiosities of Animal Punishment, 163-Raymond Lully-The Guinea-Underground Rivers-Sunken Cities, 164-Bottomless PondsThe Captain of My Dreams-Arthur Kill-Palæologus— Maroons Oddities of Noted People, 165- Trivium and Quadrivium-Famous Spinsters-Duke of York, 166-The Landfall of Columbus-" Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep; or, "Four Corners to My Bed," 167. BOOKS AND PERIODICALS:-168.

ПОТЕЅ. LEUCA.

(LOWEY OF TUNBRIDGE, vol. v, P. 113.)

The word leuca, mentioned in the interesting note at the above reference, supplies an instance of early topographical trope, the word being made to denote a certain linear distance, whereas it really meant the boundary of that distance, just as though along our railroads miles were called posts.

As a matter of fact, leuca means a flat stone; stones were ever convenient distancemarkers by the roadside, and thereby hangs the tale.

The Roman soldiers heard the word leac on the lips of the Celto-Gauls; they gave it (as they did in so many other cases) a Latin termination, and from leuca came not only Lowey and league, but also the word which

I have heard the common rhubard, the leaf-stalks of which are used for making pies, called myatt, both in New England and Pennsylvania. The origin of this name is as follows: Some thirty years ago or more, there was introduced what was alleged to be a new variety of this plant, called "Myatt's Victoria" by the seedsmen. From this fact some people evolved the name myatt for the plant. There is even a myatt wine, a kind of drink made from the juice of the stalks.

observers that the above custom prevails in Central China, where wheelbarrows are extensively employed, even in the conveyance of travelers. Somewhat similar is the practice of loading ships with lime-phosphate at Starbuck island, in the South Pacific. The material in bags is loaded upon tram-cars which are driven by sails; for the tradewind is very steady and uniform. The cars are thus propelled to the extremity of a wharf or jetty, and there the bags are transferred to a lighter.

Bishop Liberated from Prison.-What bishop is said to have been set free from prison by reason of his singing? R. M. JACKSON.

PHILADELPHIA, PA.

It is related that on Palm Sunday, in the year 821, the Emperor-king Louis the Débonnair, while passing by the prison, or monastery-dungeon, at Angers, heard the voice of a prisoner singing the "Gloria, laus, et honor," in clear and joyful tones. On inquiry, the good king was told it was the voice of Theodulf, the imprisoned Bishop of Orleans, who was singing a hymn of his own composing. Thereupon the monarch ordered the release of the holy man. This story does not rest upon any very good evidence, but it is quite in keeping with the fashion of the times in which the event is said to have happened.

Claude's Wife.-Can you tell me anything about a famous play called "La FemJ. R. OXFORD.

ine de Claude ?”

MARSHALL, TEX.

"Claude's Wife" (Fr., "La Femme de Claude') is a three-act drama, in prose, by Alexander Dumas the younger, produced at the Gymnase in Paris, January 16, 1873. It was very successful, owing in great part to the magnificent acting of M'lle Aimée Desclée. The history of the play is rather curiSome months before it was written, a M. Dubourg had been sentenced to five years' imprisonment for murdering his wife whom he had caught in adultery-her paramour making good his escape to the roof. Thereupon M. Dumas had brought out a pam.

ous.

phlet, "Man-Woman" ("L'homme-femme"), in which he had laid it down that when a wife was peculiarly vicious, it was not only proper but necessary for the husband to kill her. "Tue-la" was the short and pithy formula in which the advice was given. Subsequently (finding, perhaps, that wife-murder had not notably increased in Paris), he brought out this play in which the same moral was enforced. It may be mentioned, in passing, that this moral had been an incidental part of the teachings of his novel, "The Clemenceau Affair," written long before the Dubourg murder. Claude Ripert is an inventor, living in Paris. His wife, Césarine, is a modern Messalina, who gives herself to lover after lover, sometimes for gain, oftener to gratify her lusts. She has had two illegitimate children, one being the fruit of a prematrimonial episode, has been forgiven by her husband, but the other is of subsequent birth, and as for certain reasons it is impossible to father it on Claude, she has murdered it. Now it happens that a certain mysterious society wishes to possess itself of a wonderful invention by M. Claude, a cannon of irresistible destructive powers. As the society is absolutely omniscient, one of its agents, Montagnac, threatens Madame Claude with a revelation of her infamies unless she gets possession of the secret of this invention. In great trepidation she sees only one thing to do. She gratifies the passion of Antonin, her husband's disciple, and obtains from him the necessary papers. But Claude has been warned; he comes upon the scene just as she flings the papers out of the window to Montagnac, catches up a musket and blows out her brains. Then coolly turning to Antonin, he says, "Now let's go to work."

story, is the son of a miller in Tormes. When eight years of age his mother makes him over to a blind beggar to act as his guide. The beggar maltreats the boy, and nearly starves him, but Lazarillo soon learns to cheat him out of the money and provisions given by the charitable. Finally, he rids himself of his master by making him jump against a stone pillar, under the idea that he is leaping over a stream, and while the old man is lying insensible from the shock, the boy runs away. His next patron

is a priest who proves even meaner than the beggar had been, and he then attaches himself to a third master, a grandee of Toledo, who had an air about him of such magnificence and ease, that Lazarillo flatters himself his position will be an enviable one. But appearances are deceptive. The hidalgo is really at the point of starvation, and Lazarillo, who seems to cherish a warm affection for him, is driven to begging to support the pair, while the hidalgo hears mass and stalks about the promenades with all the dignity that befits his birth. But a law is passed against vagrancy, and this avenue of industry is closed. Lazarillo then enters the service successively of a friar, a chaplain and a dealer in indulgences, and the novel winds up abruptly with his marriage to an ignoble woman. Several continuations were published, the best known being that by H. de Luna, in which the hero is saved from shipwreck, dressed so as to represent a hermit, and exhibited in several Spanish towns. He escapes from his owners, and arrives at a hermitage, and the hermit dying soon after, he assumes his habit, and lives on the contributions of the faithful.

The "Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon," in Scandinavian folk-lore, is a story which is told in various forms in different localities. It is one of the many variants of the Cupid and Psyche myth. William Morris has versified it in the "Earthly Paradise." The outlines of the story are as follows: A maiden sacrificed herself for the sake of her family and married the White Bear. He brought her to a magnificent palace, and every night in the dark he came to her in a man's shape. In spite of the most solemn warnings curiosity impelled her to light a candle one night, and three drops of tallow fell upon the sleeping prince. He awoke and told her sorrowfully that if she had only waited a twelve-month the enchantment under which he labored would have been broken, but that now he must go to a dreary castle East of the Sun and West of the Moon and marry a witch princess with a nose three ells long. Then he disappeared. But the wife set off bravely in search of him, and after a long and weary journey the North Wind, whose assistance she had secured after all the other winds had failed, set her down in front of

the witch's castle. of her arrival, whereupon he told the witch princess that he would only marry the woman who could wash out the three tallow drops on his shirt. Of course the witch princess could not do it, and when the strange maiden accomplished the task, the princess and her mother and all their attendant trolls burst into pieces with vexation and the enchantment was at an end.

She let the prince know

--

REPLIES.

The Liwash, or Putrid Sea (Vol. v, p. 115). The German naturalist, Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811), lived fifteen years (17951810) in the Crimea, where he had built a residence; he published "Travels in the Southern Provinces of Russia, 1793-'94." Eng. Trans., Blaghorn, 1803. For his remarks on "Putrid Sea," refer, Vols. iii and iv.

Ed. Daniel Clarke (1769-1822), who also traveled extensively, sometimes in company with Pallas, published "Travels in Russia, Tartary, and Turkey." His narrative abounds in descriptions of the country about the Sea of Azof, and contains quotations from other "Travels" in the same region, going back to Rubrignis, of the thirteenth century.

Baron von Haxthausen (1792-1866), in his account of his journey to Kertch, says: "The slip or tongue of land which separates the Putrid Sea from the Sea of Azof is fifty miles long. In the direction of the Sea of Azof, it forms a sandy down from twenty to sixty feet high. On the side of the Putrid Sea, it extends in a flat, for the most part, marshy tract of land, terminating in the unsightly shores of this, in part, stinking sea. The isthmus is in many places not more than a mile, in others scarcely four hundred paces wide, and the view from the high bank between the two seas, whence the traveler descries at a great distance beyond the Putrid Sea, the peaks of the mountains in the Crimea, is very remarkable" ("Russian Empire," Vol. i, p. 430).

The account of the military movements around the Sea of Azof, along with the

I Shall be Satisfied (Vol. ii, p. 22).-The beautiful little poem with the above title was written by Mrs. Sylvia A. Eberhardt, of Knoxville, Iowa, just after the death of her mother, in 1881 or 1882. The last verse of this exquisite little ballad is as follows:

"But not for long will the parting be;
Life's story will soon be told for me;
My fancies oft linger around that shore
Where partings will never trouble more,
And there I know by my mother's side
I shall be perfectly satisfied."

KNOXVILLE, IA.

J. WELLINGTON Wright.

Sambo (Vol. iv, p. 222).-Major Serpa Pinto describes a tribe and a territory of this name in the east of Benguella. It does not seem likely that the Samboses of the earlier English slave-traders were of this latter tribe, but it may be that they were. That the Spanish sambo or zambo, for a negro of mixed blood, is the same word, I do not venture to affirm. Zambo means also bandy

legged; and I suspect that confusion has taken place between the words. Sambo, as a nickname for a negro, may well have come from the tribal name. Few late works on Africa mention the tribe. N. S. S.

GERMANTOWN, Pa.

Seal of the Confederacy (Vol. iii, p. 202). -The Great Seal of the Southern Confederacy is now in the State House at Columbia, S. C. It is made of polished bronze, and is about three inches in diameter. On one side of it is an equestrian statue of Washington, and on the other the inscription: Confederate States of America, 22d February, 1862. Deo Vindirece." It was made in England, and reached Richmond only a few days before the evacuation. the general tear up which followed, it was overlooked, and afterwards fell into the hands of William E. Earle, of Washington, D. C., by whom it was presented to the State above mentioned, in 1888.

KNOXVILLE, IA.

J. WELLINGTON WRIGHT.

In