when arrived at the hostile formicary. The spot where the battle most rages, is about two or three square feet in dimensions; a penetrating odour exhales on all sides; numbers of ants are here lying dead, covered with venom; others, composing groups and chains, are hooked together by their legs or jaws, and drag each other alternately in contrary directions. These groups are formed gradually. At first, a pair of combatants seize each other, and rearing upon their hind-legs, mutually spirt their acid; then closing, they fall and wrestle in the dust. Again recovering their feet, each endeavours to drag off his antagonist: if their strength be equal, they remain immovable, till the arrival of a third gives one the advantage. Both, however, are often succoured at the same time, and the battle still continues undecided; others take part on each side, till chains are formed of six, eight, or sometimes ten, all hooked together, and struggling pertinaciously for the mastery: the equilibrium remains unbroken, till a number of champions from the same hive arriving at once, compel them to let go their hold, and the single-combatants recommence. At the approach of night, each party gradually retreats to its own city; but before the following dawn, the combat is renewed with redoubled fury, and occupies a greater extent of ground. These daily fights continue till violent rains separating the combatants, they forget their quarrel, and peace is restored. There was once in a certain part of India, such a voluminous library, that 1000 camels were requisite for its transport, and 100 Brahmins had to be paid for the care. The king felt no inclination to wade through all this heap of learning himself, and ordered his well-fed librarians to furnish him with an extract for his private use. They set to work, and in about twenty years' time they produced a nice little Encyclopædia, which might have been easily carried by thirty camels. But the monarch found it still too large, and had not even patience enough to read the preface. The indefatigable Brahmins began therefore afresh, and reduced the thirty cargoes into so small a substance, that a single ass marched away with it in comfort. But the kingly dislike for reading had increased with age, and his servants wrote at last on a palm-leaf: The quintessence of all science consists in the little word, PERHAPS ! - Three expressions contain the history of mankind: they were born; they suffered; and they died.-Love only what is good, and practise what you love.-Believe only what is true, but do not mention all that which you believe.' In former days, when good house-keeping was in fashion amongst the English nobility, they used either to begin or conclude their entertainments, and divert their guests with such pretty devices as the following—namely, with a castle made of pasteboard, with gates, drawbridges, battlements, and portcullises, all done over with paste. This was set upon the table in a large charger, with salt laid round about it, as if it were the ground, in which were stuck egg-shells full of rose and other sweet waters, the meat of the egg having been taken out with a large pin; upon the battlements of the castle were planted guns made of kexes, covered over with paste, made into the form of cannons, and made to look like brass, by covering them with Dutch leaf gold-these cannons being charged with powder, and trains laid, so that you might fire as many of them as you pleased at one touch. The castle was set at one end of the table; then in the middle of the table they would set a stag, made in paste, but hollow, and filled with red wine, and a broad arrow stuck in the side of him-this being also set in a large charger, with a ground made of salt, and egg-shells of perfumed waters stuck in it as before; then at the other end of the table they would have the form of a ship, made in pasteboard, and covered over with paste, with masts, sails, flags, and streamers, and guns made of kexes, and covered with paste, and charged with gunpowder, with a train as in the castle--this also in a large charger, set upright in, as it were, a sea of salt, in which were also stuck egg-shells full of perfumed waters; then betwixt the stag and castle, and stag and ship, were placed two pies, made of coarse paste, filled with bran, and washed over with saffron and yolks of eggs. When these were baked, the bran was taken out, a hole was cut in the bottom, and live birds put into one, and live frogs into the other, and the holes closed up with paste; then the lids were cut neatly up, so that they might be easily taken off by the funnels, and adorned with gilded laurels. These being thus prepared, and placed in order on the table, first of all, one of the ladies is persuaded to draw the arrow out of the body of the stag, which being done, the red wine issues out like the blood out of a wound, and causes some small admiration in the spectators; which being over, after a little pause, all the guns on one side of the castle are, by a train, discharged against the ship, and afterwards the guns of one side of the ship against the castle; then having turned the chargers, the other sides fired off, as in battle; this causing a great smell of powder, the ladies or gentlemen take up the egg-shells of perfumed water, and throw them at one another. This pleasant disorder being pretty well laughed over, and the two great pies still remaining untouched, some one will have the curiosity to see what is in them, and lifting off the lid of one pie, out jump the frogs-this makes the ladies skip and scamper; and lifting up the lid of the other, out come the birds, which will naturally fly to the light, and so put out the candles; and with the leaping of the frogs below, and flying of the birds above, it caused a surprising and diverting hurly-burly amongst the guests in the dark; after which, the candles being lighted, the banquet was brought in, the music sounded, and the particulars of each person's surprise and adventures furnished matter for diverting discourse. A writer on China mentions that the modes of living among the Chinese are exceedingly curious; differing materially according to the rank and wealth of the people; but that the extremes of luxury and misery are nowhere more ludicrously contrasted. Those who can afford to purchase rare and expensive delicacies, grudge no cost for them, as is proved by the price paid for edible birds-nests (glutinous compositions, formed by a kind of swallow, in vast clusters, found in caves in the Nicobar and other islands), 5000 dollars being sometimes given for a picul, weighing one hundred and thirty-three lbs. three-quarters. In the streets, multitudes of men are employed in preparing these for sale, with a pair of tweezers plucking from them every hair, or fibre of feather, or extraneous matter; and at the same time carefully preserving the form of the nests, by pushing through them very slender slips of bamboo. Sharks' fins are highly prized, and, when well dried, they fetch a great price. The beche-dela-mer (a horrid-looking black sea-slug), brought from the Pacific Islands, is also exceedingly esteemed by Chinese epicures. But while the rich fare thus sumptuously, the mass of the poor subsist on the veriest garbage. The heads of fowls, their entrails, their feet, with every scrap of digestible animal matter; earthworms, seareptiles of all kinds, rats, and other vermin, are greedily devoured. We have noticed lots of black frogs, in halfdozens, tied together, exposed for sale in shallow troughs of water. We have seen the hind-quarter of a horse hung up in a butcher's shop, with the recommendation of the whole leg attached. A lodger in our hotel complains that his bedroom being over the kitchen, he is grievously annoyed in a morning by the noises of dogs and cats, which are slaughtering below for the day's consumption but not at our table. Not a bone nor a green leaf is ever seen in the streets; some use or other is found for everything that would be refuse elsewhere. END OF VOL. XVI. |