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that a city be not only an object of utility and importance, but also a source of pleasure and diversion. Hence, even in the seals of the chief pontiffs, up to the time of Pope Leo, there was engraved on one side of the Bull the figure of St. Peter as a fisherman, and above him a key stretched out to him, as it were from heaven, by the hand of God, and around him this versc—

"For me thou left'st thy ship, receive the key."

On the obverse side was represented a city, with this inscription, "Golden Rome. It was also said in praise of Augustus Caesar and the city of Rome

"All night it rains, the shows return with day,

Cæsar, thou bear'st with Jove alternate sway."

London, instead of theatrical shows and scenic entertainments, has dramatic performances of a more sacred kind, either representations of the miracles which holy confessors have wrought, or of the passions and sufferings in which the constancy of martyrs was sigrally displayed. Moreover, to begin with the sports of the boys. (for we have all been boys), annually, on the day which is called Shrovetide, the boys of the respective schools bring each a fighting cock to their master, and the whole of that forenoon is spent by the boys in seeing their cocks fight in the schoolroom. After dinner, all the young men of the city go out into the fields to play at the well-known game of foot-ball. The scholars belonging to the several schools have each their ball; and the city tradesmen, according to their respective crafts, have theirs. The more aged men, the fathers of the players, and the wealthy citizens, come on horseback to see the contests of the young men, with whom, after their manner, they participate, their natural heat seeming to be aroused by the sight of so much agility, and by their participation in the amusements of unrestrained youth. Every Sunday in Lent, after dinner, a company of young men enter the fields, mounted on warlike horses

of which

"On coursers always foremost in the race;"

"Each steed's well train'd to gallop in a ring."

The lay-sons of the citizens rush out of the gates in crowds, equipped with lances and shields, the younger sort with pikes from which the iron head has been taken off, and then they get up sham fights, and exercise themselves with military combat. When the king happens to be near the city, most of the courtiers attend, and the young men who form the households of the earls and barons, and have not yet attained the honour of knighthood, resort thither for the purpose of trying their skill. The hope of victory animates every one. The spirited horses neigh, their limbs tremble, they champ their bits, and, impatient of delay, cannot endure standing still. When at length

"The charger's hoof seizes upon the course,"

the young riders having been divided into companies, some pursue those that go before them without being able to overtake them, whilst others throw their companions out of their course, and gallop beyond them. In the Easter holydays they play at a game resembling a naval engagement. A target is firmly fastened to the trunk of a tree which is fixed in the middle of the river, and in the prow of a boat driven along by oars and the current, stands a young man who is to strike the target with his lance; if, in hitting it, he break his lance, and keep his position unmoved, he gains his point, and attains his desire; but if his lance be not shivered by the blow, he is tumbled into the river, and his boat passes by, driven along by its own motion, Two boats however, are placed there, one on each side of the

target, and in them a number of young men who take up the striker, when he first emerges from the stream, or when

"A second time he rises from the wave."

On the bridge, and in the balconies on the banks of the river, stand the spectators, - well disposed to laugh."

66

During the holy days in summer the young men exercise themselves in the sports of leaping, archery, wrestling, stone-throwing, slinging javelins beyond a mark, and also fighting with bucklers. Cytherea leads the dances of the maidens, who merrily trip along the ground beneath the uprisen moon. Almost on every holyday in winter, before dinner, foaming boars, and huge-tusked hogs, intended for bacon, fight for their lives, or fat bulls or immense boars are baited with dogs! When that great marsh which washes the walls of the city on the north side is frozen over, the young men go out in crowds to divert themselves upon the ice. Some having increased their velocity by a run, placing their feet apart, and turning their bodies sideways, slide a great way: others make a seat of large pieces of ice like mill-stones, and a great number of them running before, and holding each other by the hand, draw one of their companions who is seated on the ice; if at any time they slip in moving so swiftly, all fall down headlong together. Others are more expert in their sports upon the ice; for fitting to, and binding under their feet the shin bones of some animal, and taking in their hand poles shod with iron, which at times they strike against the ice, they are carried along with as great rapidity, as a bird flying, or a bolt discharged from a cross-bow. Sometimes two of the skaters having placed themselves at a great distance apart by mutual agreement, come together from opposite sides; they meet, raise their poles, and strike each other; either one or both of them fall, not without some bodily hurt: even after their fall they are carried along to a great distance from each other by the velocity of the motion; and whatever part of their heads comes in contact with the ice is laid bare to the very skull. Very frequently the leg or arm of the falling party, if he chance to light upon either of them, is broken. But youth is an age eager for glory and desirous of victory, and so young men engage in counterfeit battles, that they may conduct themselves more valiantly in real ones. Most of the citizens amuse themselves in sporting with merlins, hawks, and other birds of a like kind, and also with dogs that hunt in the woods. The citizens have the right of hunting in Middlesex, Hertfordshire, all the Chilterns, and Kent, as far as the River Cray.

338. THE CHRISTMAS TREE,

COLERIDGE. Ratzeburg, 1799.

THERE is a Christmas custom here which pleased and interested me. The children make little presents to their parents, and to each other; and the parents to the children. For three or four months before Christmas the girls are all busy, and the boys save up their pocket-money, to make or purchase these presents. What the present is to be is cautiously kept secret, and the girls have a world of contrivances to conceal it—such as working when they are out on visits, and the others are not with them; getting up in the morning before day-light, and the like. Then, on the evening before Christmas Day, one of the parlours is lighted up by the children, into which the parents must not go. A great yew bough is fastened on the table at a little distance from the wall, a multitude of little tapers are fastened in the bough, but so as not to catch it till they are nearly burnt out, and coloured paper hangs and flutters from the twigs. Under this bough the children lay out in great order the presents they mean for their parents, still concealing in their

pockets what they intend for each other. Then the parents are introduced, and each presents his little gift, and then bring out the rest one by one from their pockets, and present them with kisses and embraces. Where I witnessed this scene there were eight or nine children, and the eldest daugher and the mother wept aloud for joy and tenderness; and the tears ran down the face of the father, and he clasped all his children so tight to his breast, it seemed as if he did it to stifle the sob that was rising within him. I was very much affected. The shadow of the bough and its appendages on the wall, and arching over on the ceiling, made a pretty picture; and then the raptures of the very little ones, when at last the twigs and their needles began to take fire and snap!-Oh, it was a delight for them! On the next day, in the great parlour, the parents lay out on the table the presents for the children: a scene of more sober joy succeeds, as on this day, after an old custom, the mother says privately to each of her daughters, and the father to his sons, that which he has observed most praiseworthy, and that which was most faulty in their conduct. Formerly, and still in all the smaller towns and villages throughout North Germany, these presents were sent by all the parents to some one fellow, who in high buskins, a white robe, a mask, and an enormous flax wig, personates Knecht Rupert, the servant Rupert. On Christmas night he goes round to every house, and says that Jesus Christ his master sent him thither; the parents and elder children receive him with great pomp of reverence, while the little ones are most terribly frightened. He then inquires for the children, and, according to the character which he hears from the parent, he gives them the intended presents, as if they came out of heaven from Jesus Christ. Or, if they should have been bad children, he gives the parents a rod, and in the name of his master recommends them to use it frequently. About seven or eight years old the children are let into the secret, and it is curious to observe how faithfully they keep it.

339. THE CANADIAN INDIANS.

SIR F. B. HEAD.

[SIR FRANCIS B. HEAD is one of those writers who has achieved a reputation, not by the power of his imagination or the resources of his learning, but by the happy art by which he can describe, in a vivid and picturesque manner, scenes and characters which have come under his own observation. He has thus made his gallopings across the Pampas, and his loungings at the baths of Nassau, equally interesting. The following extract from The Emigrant has the same quality of graphic truth.]

I do not know at what rate in the eastern world the car of Juggernaut advances over its victims, but it has been roughly estimated that in the opposite hemisphere of America the population of the United States, like a great wave, is constantly rolling towards the westward over the lands of the Indians, at the rate of about twenty miles per annum.

In our colonies the rights of the Indians have been more carefully attended to. The British sovereign and British parliament have faithfully respected them; and as a very friendly feeling exists between the red men of the forest and their white brethren, our governors have never found any difficulty in maintaining the title of "Father" by which the Indians invariably address them.

Yet, notwithstanding this just feeling and this general desire of our countrymen to act kindly towards the Indians, it had for some time been in contemplation in Upper Canada to prevail upon a portion of them to dispose of their lands to the crown, and to remove to the British Manitoulin Islands in Lake Huron.

When first I heard of this project, I felt much averse to it, and, by repeated personal inspections of the territories in which they were located, took a great dood

of pains to ascertain what was the real condition of the Indians in Canada, and whether their proposed removal would be advantageous to them, as well as to the province; and the result of my inquiries induced me, without any hesitation, to take the necessary steps for recommending to them to carry this arrangement into effect.

Whosoever, by the sweat of his brow, cultivates the ground, creates, out of a very small area, food and raiment sufficient not only for himself, but for others; whereas the man who subsists solely on game requires even for his own family a large hunting-ground. Now, so long as Canada was very thinly peopled with whites, an Indian preserve, as large as one of our counties in England, only formed part and parcel of the great forest which was common to all, and thus, for a considerable time, the white men and the red men, without inconvenience to each other, followed their respective avocations; the latter hunted, while the former were employing themselves in cutting down trees or in laboriously following the plough. In process of time, however, the Indian preserves became surrounded by small patches of cleared land; and, so soon as this was effected, the truth began to appear that the occupations of each race were not only dissimilar, but hostile to the interests of each other. For, while the great-hunting ground of the red man only inconvenienced the white settler, the little clearances of the latter, as if they had been so many chained-up barking dogs, had the effect of first scaring and then gradually cutting off the supplies of wild animals on whose flesh and skins the red race had been subsisting; besides which, every trader that came to visit the dwellings of the white man, finding it profitable to sell whisky to the Indians, and the fatal results of drunkenness, of small-pox, and other disorders combined, produced, as may be imagined, the most unfortunate results.

The remedy which naturally would first suggest itself to most men, and which actually did suggest itself to the minds of Sir Peregrine Maitland, Sir John Colborne, and other administrators of the government who paid parental attention to the Indians, was to induce them to give up their hunting propensities, and tether themselves to the laborious occupations of their white brethren. In a few cases, where the Indians, circumscribed by temptations such as I have described, had become a race of half-castes, the project to a certain degree succeeded; but one might as well attempt to decoy a flight of wild fowl to the ponds of Hampstead Heath-one might as well endeavour to persuade the eagle to descend from the lofty regions in which he has existed to live with the fowls in our court-yards, as to prevail upon the red men of North America to become what we call civilized; in short, it is against their nature, and they cannot do it.

Having ascertained that in one or two parts of Upper Canada there existed a few Indians in the unfortunate state I have described, and having found them in a condition highly demoralized, and almost starving on a large block of rich valuable land, which in their possession was remaining roadless and stagnant, I determined to carry into effect the project of my predecessors by endeavouring to prevail on these people to remove to the British islands in Lake Huron, in which there was some game, and which were abundantly supplied with fish; and with a view to introduce them to the spot, I caused it to be made known to the various tribes of Indians resident throughout the immense wilderness of Canada, that on a certain day of a certain moon I would meet them in council, on a certain uninhabited island in Lake Huron, where they should receive their annual presents.

In the beginning of August, 1836, I accordingly left Toronto, and with a small party crossed that most beautiful piece of water, Lake Simcoe, and then rode to Penetanguishene Bay, from whence we were to start the next morning in bark

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It was proposed that we should take tents; but, as I had had some little experience of the healthy enjoyment of an out-of-doors' life, as well as of the discomfort of a mongrel state of existence, and as, to use the words of Baillie Nicol Jarvie, "a man canna aye carry at his tail the luxuries o' the Saut-market o' Glasgow," I determined that, in our visit to our red brethren, we would adopt Indian habits, and sleep under blankets on the ground.

As soon as our wants were supplied, we embarked in two canoes, each manned by eight Lower Canadian Indians; and, when we got about a mile from the shore, nothing could be more beautiful than the sudden chorus of their voices, as, with their faces towards the prow, and with a paddle in their hands, keeping time with their song, they joyfully pushed us along.

For some hours we steered directly from the land, until, excepting the shore on our right, we could see nothing but the segment of a circle of blue water; and as the wind became strong, as our canoes were heavily laden with provisions, portmanteaus, powder, shot, &c., I certainly for some time looked with very respectful attention to each wave, as one after another was seen rapidly and almost angrily advancing towards us; but the Indian at the helm was doing exactly the same thing, and accordingly, whenever it arrived, the canoe was always precisely in the proper position to meet it; and thus, sometimes to one tune, and sometimes to another, we proceeded under a splendid sky, through pure, exhilarating air, and over the surface of one of the most noble of those inland seas which in the western hemisphere diversify the interminable dominions of the British crown.

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It was a heavenly morning; and I never remember to have beheld a homely picture of what is called " savage life" which gave me more pleasure than that which, shortly after I landed, appeared immediately before me.

On a smooth table-rock, surrounded by trees and shrubs, every leaf of which had been washed by the night's rain as clean as it could have appeared on the day of its birth, there were seated in front of their wigwam, and close to a fire, the white smoke from which was gracefully meandering upwards through the trees, an Indian's family, composed of a very old man, two or three young ones, about as many wives, and a most liberal allowance of joyous-looking children of all ages.

The distinguishing characteristic of the group was robust, ruddy, healthy. More happy or more honest countenances could not exist; and as the morning sun with its full force beamed on their shiny jet black hair and red countenances, it appeared as if it had imparted to the latter that description of colour which it itself assumes in England when beheld through one of our dense fogs.

The family, wives, grandfather and all, did great credit to the young men by whose rifles and fishing-tackle they had been fed. They were all what is called full in flesh; and the Bacchus-like outlines of two or three little naked children, who with frightened faces stood looking at us, very clearly exclaimed in the name and on behalf of each of them, "Haven't I had a good breakfast this morning?" In short, without entering into particulars, the little urchins were evidently as full of bear's flesh, berries, soup, or something or other, as they could possibly hold.

On our approaching the party, the old man rose to receive us; and, though we could only communicate with him through one of our crew, he lost no time in treating his white brethren with hospitality and kindness. Like ourselves they had only stopped at the island to feed; and we had scarcely departed when we saw the paddles of their canoes in motion, following us.

Whatever may be said in favour of the "blessings of civilization," yet certainly in the life of a red Indian there is much for which he is fully justified in the daily thanksgivings he is in the habit of offering to "the Great Spirit." He bre

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