Bertha's Visit to Her Uncle in England; Vol. 2 [of 3]

ENGLAND.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

MDCCCXXX.

LONDON: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Stamford-street.

BERTHA’S VISIT.

_Dec. 1st._--COLONEL TRAVERS, who every day tells us something curious that he has seen in his travels, has been describing the cultivation of the pepper vine in the East Indies. In July, at the beginning of the rainy season, from eight to twelve shoots are planted round some tree chosen for their support; as they grow up they must be tied to its stem, and in dry or hot weather they are watered. They begin to bear in six years; in ten, they are in full perfection, and continue so for twenty years more, when they die. When the fruit is intended for black pepper, it is not allowed to ripen, but collected while green. As soon as the berries become hard and firm, which happens between the middle of December and the middle of January, they are pinched off by the fingers, placed on a mat, and rubbed by the hands or feet till the seeds, several of which are contained in each berry, are separated. These seeds are then spread on mats; and at night they are collected in earthen jars, to preserve them from the dew. Two or three days’ exposure to the sun sufficiently dries them, when they are put up in bags, containing from 60 to 120 pounds, and are then considered fit for sale. When the berries are intended to produce white pepper, they are allowed to become perfectly ripe, in which state they are red. They are then well rubbed in a basket, and when the pulp is washed off, the seeds are white, and are immediately dried for sale. The vines, however, in this case are apt to die, and in the province of Malabar but little white pepper is now made.

A good plant produces about 32 pounds: this is the highest produce; 21 pounds is the average. The mango tree is preferred for supporting the pepper vine, as the fruit is not affected by it; but the fruit of the jack tree, which is also used for the purpose, is thought to be injured in flavour by the pepper being so near it.

The Colonel says, that the pepper plant is not a vine in reality, though the knotted stem when dry has much the appearance of a common grape vine. The leaf, too, is different, being pointed, and with deep veins in it, all meeting at the point.

_2d._--Caroline amused us after dinner with a singular anecdote of a musician of the name of Davy; though she was at first unwilling to relate it, as she could not remember her authority.

He was the son of a Devonshire farmer, and when a little boy used to go continually to a neighbouring forge, where he seemed to be strangely interested in examining and sounding the horse-shoes.

After some time, the smith having frequently missed his shoes, began to suspect young Davy of stealing them; the boy was, therefore, watched, and one day he was observed to have separated two shoes from a parcel which he had been sounding for a long time. He took them up and went quietly off, but was followed, and traced to a loft, where he had formed a hiding-place for himself, unknown to any of his family. There he was found arranging his newly stolen treasure among a number of other horse-shoes which he had suspended with iron wires, so as to form a sort of musical instrument, on which with a small hammer he could play several tunes; particularly one with variations, which he had often heard chimed in the parish steeple.

The generous blacksmith not only forbore from punishing him, but joined in a subscription, by means of which he was apprenticed to a famous musician.--So much for genius.

_4th, Sunday._--My uncle read to us this morning the account in Exodus of the institution of the feast of the Passover. It took place in the beginning of the sacred or ecclesiastical year, in the month named Abib, which signifies, he says, an ear of corn; but this month was afterwards called Nisan, which means the “flight,” in allusion to the escape of the Israelites. It was at this same season that our Lord suffered for our redemption; and it is a remarkable circumstance that there was always a tradition among the Jews, that as they were redeemed from Egypt on the 15th day of Nisan, so they should on the same day be redeemed from death by the Messiah.

My uncle then said, “many of the ceremonial laws of the Hebrews had a direct reference to the idolatrous opinions and rites of the neighbouring nations. For instance, some of the ordinances of the passover, which was, you know, a memorial of the deliverance of the Israelites, were strikingly in opposition to the most deep-rooted prejudices of the Egyptians. Amongst that people, lambs and kids were held in the utmost veneration, and never sacrificed; but the Israelites were instructed to sacrifice both. The Israelites were desired to ‘eat no part raw,’ which might appear a very unnecessary injunction, did we not know that it was usual to do so in the heathen festivals, as we learn from Herodotus and from Plutarch, who both mention it as being customary at the feasts of Bacchus, which had their origin in Egypt. Of the Paschal lamb, ‘no bone was to be broken;’ for on those occasions the heathens broke the bones, and pulled them asunder with frantic enthusiasm. Neither was it to be ‘sodden,’ as in their magical rites: but roasted by fire, and not by the heat of the sun, which was one of the chief objects of their idolatry. It was to be eaten along with ‘the purtenance,’ that is, the intestines, which the heathens reserved for their impious divinations. Lastly, ‘no fragments’ were suffered to remain, because the superstitious multitude had been in the habit of preserving them for charms; and they were, therefore, ordered to be burned.

“The lamb or kid was to be slain in the evening; the Hebrew expression is literally ‘_between the two evenings_;’--for among the Jews there was an early and a later evening; the first beginning at noon, as soon as the sun began to decline, and the second at sunset, which at this season of the year, the vernal equinox, took place at six o’clock. Thus the time ‘between the two evenings,’ when the passover was slain, was about three o’clock in the afternoon; and this was the very time of the day when Christ, the true passover, was sacrificed on the cross.

“What a striking analogy there is,” continued my uncle, “between that typical sacrifice of the Paschal lamb, and the grand sacrifice of Him who is called ‘the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world;’--between the deliverance of the Israelites from bondage, and the deliverance of mankind from sin, by a final atonement, which for ever closed all other offerings and sacrifices.”

I asked why they were desired to eat unleavened bread at this feast; and my aunt told us that some authors suppose it was to remind them of the privations and hardships they had formerly endured in Egypt, as it is very heavy and disagreeable. “But,” she added, “I have also understood that, in the ancient figurative mode, of expression, leaven was the emblem of hypocrisy and artifice; and therefore that eating the passover with unleavened bread, implied the performance of the ceremony in sincerity and truth. They were commanded to eat it with ‘their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand,’ or, in other words, equipped for a journey. It appears to have been, and indeed is still, the universal custom of the inhabitants of the East to put off their shoes during their meals; not only because that is a period of enjoyment and repose, but because, to people who sit cross-legged on the floor, shoes would be troublesome, and would soil their clothes and their carpets. This solemn meal, on the contrary, which was intended to commemorate their miraculous and abrupt deliverance from Egypt, was to be eaten by the Israelites in the dress and posture of travellers, as if ready for immediate departure.”

My uncle gave us an amusing instance of the punctilious regard that the Jews pay to the letter of the law; which not only prohibits their eating leavened bread, but their having it at all in the house. In Exodus xiii. 7, it is written, “Neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters.” On the eve of the passover, the master of the family, attended by all his children and servants, formally search every corner of the house with candles in their hands; but why with candles?--because in the prophet Zephaniah i., 12, it is written, “I will search Jerusalem with candles.”

“This feast,” continued my uncle, “was called the Passover, because the destroying angel of God passed over the Israelites without smiting them; and to pass over is a literal translation of the Hebrew word pesach. From whence also we have the expression of the Paschal Lamb.

“The deliverance from Egyptian bondage was a specific type of our subsequent deliverance from the yoke of sin, which we commemorate in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper; and it is remarkable, that both the Jewish and the Christian rite were enjoined as memorials of events which had not yet happened. To all mankind the privileges of this great second deliverance are offered; and let us remember that, like the Israelites, we are but strangers and pilgrims here, hastening on to a land of promise.”

_6th._--Mary asked Colonel Travers to-day why rice is called paddy in the East Indies. He told us that the wet lands capable of being cultivated for rice, are called, in the province of Malabar, padda land; and thence has the name paddy been given to the grain before the husk is beaten off. It is cultivated in all the low grounds which are periodically overflowed; or where the water can be regularly let in. Sometimes it is sown dry, on fields properly ploughed and moistened beforehand, and when the leaf is a certain height, the water is gently let into the furrows; but in many places it is sown very thickly, and afterwards transplanted. The general mode of preparing the seed is to steep it in water, and then to mix it up with earth in a shed, where it heats a little, and soon sprouts: when the shoot is nearly two inches long, it is carried in baskets to the field, and planted in rows.

The operation of cleaning rice is assisted by boiling for a short time; after which it is beaten in a mortar with a stick five or six feet long, the bottom of which is shod with iron. But the rice used by the higher class of Brahmins is not boiled, lest it should be in any way defiled: it is every morning cleaned dry by one of the family, the labour of which is very great, because the husk adheres so closely to the grain.

Paddy is often kept in small caves called hagay, the entrance to each of which is by a very narrow passage. The roof, floor, and sides are lined with clean straw, and the cave is then completely filled.

Colonel Travers is just like my uncle, he is so ready to answer all our troublesome questions; and you may suppose that some of us ladies asked him about the ottar of roses. He says that the rose from which that essential oil is made, grows only in the valley of Shiraz, where there are immense fields of it. The flower is small, and of a deep red, and quite a different species from the rosa indica. It does not thrive south of Shiraz, as the climate is too hot; and the plants which have been brought to Bombay have generally failed.