Evenings at Home; Or, The Juvenile Budget Opened. John Aikin
that one might see the seeds at their very centre. Here were whole fields full of extremely odoriferous flowers, which they told me were succeeded by pods bearing seeds, that afforded good nourishment to man and beast. A great variety of birds enlivened the groves and woods; among which I was entertained with one, that without any teaching spoke almost as articulately as a parrot, though indeed it was only a repetition of a single word. The people were tolerably gentle and civilized, and possessed many of the arts of life. Their dress was very various. Many were clad only in a thin cloth made of the long fibres of the stalk of a plant cultivated for the purpose, which they prepared by soaking in water, and then beating with large mallets. Others wore cloth woven from a sort of vegetable wool, growing in pods upon bushes. But the most singular material was a fine glossy stuff, used chiefly by the richer classes, which, as I was credibly informed, is manufactured out of the webs of caterpillars—a most wonderful circumstance, if we consider the immense number of caterpillars necessary to the production of so large a quantity of stuff as I saw used. This people are very fantastic in their dress, especially the women, whose apparel consists of a great number of articles impossible to be described, and strangely disguising the natural form of the body. In some instances they seem very cleanly; but in others, the Hottentots can scarce go beyond them; particularly in the management of their hair, which is all matted and stiffened with the fat of swine and other animals, mixed up with powders of various colours and ingredients. Like most Indian nations, they use feathers in their head-dress. One thing surprised me much, which was, that they bring up in their houses an animal of the tiger-kind, with formidable teeth and claws, which, notwithstanding its natural ferocity, is played with and caressed by the most timid and delicate of their women.”
“I am sure I would not play with it,” said Jack. “Why, you might chance to get an ugly scratch if you did,” said the captain.
“The language of this nation seems very harsh and unintelligible to a foreigner, yet they converse among one another with great ease and quickness. One of the oddest customs is that which men use on saluting each other. Let the weather be what it will, they uncover their heads, and remain uncovered for some time, if they mean to be extraordinarily respectful.”
“Why that’s like pulling off our hats,” said Jack.—“Ah, ah! papa,” cried Betsy, “I have found you out. You have been telling us of our own country, and what is done at home, all this while!”—“But,” said Jack, “we don’t burn stones or eat grease and powdered seeds, or wear skins and caterpillars’ webs, or play with tigers.”—“No?” said the Captain—“pray, what are coals but stones? and is not butter, grease; and corn, seeds: and leather, skins; and silk, the web of a kind of caterpillar? And may we not as well call a cat an animal of the tiger kind, as a tiger an animal of the cat-kind? So, if you recollect what I have been describing, you will find, with Betsy’s help, that all the other wonderful things I have told you of are matters familiar among ourselves. But I meant to show you, that a foreigner might easily represent everything as equally strange and wonderful among us as we could do with respect to his country; and also to make you sensible that we daily call a great many things by their names, without ever inquiring into their nature and properties; so that, in reality, it is only their names, and not the things themselves, with which we are acquainted.”
THE DISCONTENTED SQUIRREL.
In a pleasant wood, on the western side of a ridge of mountains, there lived a squirrel, who had passed two or three years of his life very happily. At length, he began to grow discontented, and one day fell into the following soliloquy:—
“What, must I spend all my time in this spot, running up and down the same trees, gathering nuts and acorns, and dozing away months together in a hole! I see a great many of the birds who inhabit this wood ramble about to a distance wherever their fancy leads them; and, at the approach of winter, set out for some remote country, where they enjoy summer weather all the year round. My neighbour cuckoo tells me he is just going; and even little nightingale will soon follow. To be sure, I have not wings like them, but I have legs nimble enough; and if one does not use them, one might as well be a mole or a dormouse. I dare say I could easily reach to that blue ridge which I see from the tops of the trees, which no doubt must be a fine place; for the sun comes directly from it every morning, and it often appears all covered with red and yellow, and the finest colours imaginable. There can be no harm, at least, in trying; for I can soon get back again if I don’t like it. I am resolved to go, and I will set out to-morrow morning.”
When squirrel had taken this resolution, he could not sleep all night for thinking of it; and at peep of day, prudently taking with him as much provision as he could conveniently carry, he began his journey in high spirits. He presently got to the outside of the wood, and entered upon the open moors that reached to the foot of the hills. These he crossed before the sun was gotten high; and then, having eaten his breakfast with an excellent appetite, he began to ascend. It was heavy toilsome work scrambling up the steep sides of the mountains; but squirrel was used to climbing; so for awhile he proceeded expeditiously. Often, however, was he obliged to stop and take breath; so that it was a good deal past noon before he had arrived at the summit of the first cliff. Here he sat down to eat his dinner; and looking back, was wonderfully pleased with the fine prospect. The wood in which he lived lay far beneath his feet; and he viewed with scorn the humble habitation in which he had been born and bred.
When he looked forward, however, he was somewhat discouraged to observe that another eminence rose above him, full as distant as that to which he had already reached; and he now began to feel stiff and fatigued. However, after a little rest, he set out again, though not so briskly as before. The ground was rugged, brown, and bare; and to his great surprise, instead of finding it warmer as he got nearer the sun, he felt it grow colder and colder. He had not travelled two hours before his strength and spirits were almost spent; and he seriously thought of giving up the point, and returning before night should come on. While he was thus deliberating with himself, clouds began to gather round the mountain, and to take away all view of distant objects. Presently, a storm of mingled snow and hail came down, driven by a violent wind, which pelted poor squirrel most pitifully, and made him quite unable to move forward or backward. Besides, he had completely lost his road, and did not know which way to turn toward that despised home which it was now his only desire again to reach. The storm lasted till the approach of night; and it was as much as he could do, benumbed and weary as he was, to crawl to the hollow of a rock at some distance, which was the best lodging he could find for the night. His provisions were spent; so that, hungry and shivering, he crept into the farthest corner of the cavern, and rolling himself up, with his bushy tail over his back, he got a little sleep, though disturbed by the cold, and the shrill whistling of the wind among the stones.
The morning broke over the distant tops of the mountains, when squirrel, half frozen and famished, came out of his lodging, and advanced, as well as he could, toward the brow of the hill, that he might discover which way to take. As he was slowly creeping along, a hungry kite, soaring in the air above, descried him, and making a stoop carried him off in her talons. Poor squirrel, losing his senses with the fright, was borne away with vast rapidity, and seemed inevitably doomed to become food for the kite’s young ones: when an eagle, who had seen the kite seize her prey, pursued her in order to take it from her; and overtaking her, gave her such a buffet, as caused her to drop the squirrel in order to defend herself. The poor animal kept falling through the air a long time, till at last he alighted in the midst of a thick tree, the leaves and tender boughs of which so broke his fall, that, though stunned and breathless, he escaped without material injury, and after lying a while, came to himself again. But what was his pleasure and surprise, to find himself in the very tree which contained his nest. “Ah!” said he, “my dear native place and peaceful home! if ever I am again tempted to leave you, may I undergo a second time all the miseries and dangers from which I have now so wonderfully escaped.”
The Mask of Nature, p. 25. EVENING II.