Volume 4 — Notes.

THE ABORIGINES OF ST. DOMINGO.

Perhaps you will kindly permit me to have recourse to "NOTES AND QUERIES" for the purpose of pointing out one or two errors in a letter from Sir R. Schomburgk, which was read at the meeting of the British Association on the 3rd July last, section of Geography and Ethnology. This communication, entitled "Ethnological Researches in Santo Domingo," and addressed to His Royal Highness Prince Albert, contains the following statement: I quote from the Athenæum of the 5th July:—

"The extirpation of the pure Indian race prevented me from making comparative inquiries between the still existing tribes of Guiana, and those that once inhabited St. Domingo. My researches were therefore restricted to what history and the few and poor monuments have transmitted to us of their customs and manners. Their language lives only in the names of places, rivers, trees, and fruits; but all combine in declaring that the people who bestowed these names were identical with the Carib and Arawaak tribes of Guiana."

The last sentence in this passage is obviously erroneous. That the aboriginal inhabitants of the great Antilles (Santo Domingo, Cuba, Porto-Rico, and Jamaica,) were identical with, or descended from, the Arawaaks of Guiana, is an opinion which has long prevailed, and which the circumstances stated by Sir R. Schomburgk tend to confirm. Indeed, they are described by most writers as Indians or Arawaaks. But that there was any identity between the Indians and the tribes known by the name of Caribs, is an assertion totally at variance with the established facts. In support, however, of this assertion, Sir R. Schomburgk appeals to "history;" but what history, he does not state. I have perused, and still possess, almost every work that was ever written on the history of these islands; and they all lead to the conclusion, that the Indians of Santo Domingo (also called Hispaniola and Haiti) were a totally distinct race from the Caribs. The Indians were a mild, inoffensive people; the Caribs a race of savages, some say, cannibals. The former were indolent and effeminate; the latter fierce and warlike. In short, no two races ever presented such a striking disparity, not only in their manners and customs, but in their features and personal appearance.

The second error into which Sir R. Schomburgk has fallen, is where he says:

"There are various proofs that the Caribs inhabited Santo Domingo; among others, I found at the eastern point of the island, called Junta Engaño, numerous heaps of conch shells."

The fact is, that the Caribs were the mortal enemies of the Indians. They were engaged with them in the fiercest warfare, and made frequent depredatory incursions into Santo Domingo and the other large islands. But they never formed any settlements in those islands, and cannot be said to have "inhabited" any of them, in the sense in which that word is used by Sir R. Schomburgk.

Whenever the Caribs in any of the lesser Antilles projected an expedition against the Indians, they provided themselves with clubs and poisoned arrows, and set off in their canoes. On their way, they touched at most of the other small islands; and with their conch shells, of which they always kept a supply, they summoned their brother Caribs to join the expedition. As the fleet of canoes approached St. Domingo (the principal theatre of their depredations) they glided silently along the coast, and secreted themselves in some sheltered bay, till the darkness of the night enabled them to emerge from their hiding places. Then, with the most savage yells and war-whoops, accompanied by the blowing of shells, they pounced upon the nearest village, beating down with their clubs such of the Indians as had not taken refuge in flight. In these encounters, however, the Caribs were not always victorious. If the Indians were less robust and warlike than their invaders, they were also far more numerous; and it sometimes happened that the Caribs were driven back to their canoes with much slaughter. In all hand-to-hand conflicts the conch shells would easily get detached, or, becoming an incumbrance, would be thrown aside; and the Indians, finding them on the field of battle, may be supposed to have piled them up as so many trophies.

As the Caribs were incited to these incursions by the prospect of plunder among a race of people their superiors in the arts of civilisation, but chiefly from their inveterate hatred to the Indians, so the moment they had accomplished their object, they lost no time in retreating from a country where a longer sojourn would only have afforded their enemies an opportunity of risings en masse, and exterminating them by the superiority of their numbers.

These facts are sufficient to account for the heaps of shells found by Sir R. Schomburgk, and for the other traces of the Caribs which he appears to have discovered in St. Domingo, without resorting to the supposition that the Caribs had actually "inhabited" that island, or warranting the conclusion that the two races were identical.

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia, Sept. 1851.

MITIGATION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT TO A FORGER.

The well-known cases of Dr. D. the divine and Mr. F. the banker, who were executed for forgery, notwithstanding the powerful intercessions that were made in their behalf, induced me to suppose that any mitigation of punishment under similar circumstances used to be a very rare occurrence; and, if so, that a curious instance of successful application for mercy may interest some readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES."

A young man of respectable Scotch connexions settled in a town in the north of England as a merchant, and soon afterwards made an offer of marriage to a young lady of the same place. Her parents rejected his suit, on the ground of his not being sufficiently established in business, and he seemed to acquiesce in their decision. In a short time, however, the young merchant took possession of larger premises than he had hitherto occupied, and showed other symptoms of wishing to have it understood that his fortunes were improving. But these appearances were of short duration. He was suddenly arrested, and committed to take his trial at the ensuing assizes on several charges of forgery. Immediately after his arrest, a sister of singularly energetic character arrived from Scotland, and applied to the father of my informant for professional aid. This gentleman told her that he never touched criminal business, and declined to interfere. But she was no common client, and it ended in his undertaking to prepare the defence of her brother, and receiving her into his house as a guest. Her immediate object was to prevent the prosecutors pressing their charges at the trial; and, by her indefatigable management, she succeeded with all, except the L——bank, the directors of which, as a matter of principle, were inexorable to her entreaties. The trial came on at an early period of the assize, and the prisoner was found guilty, and condemned to be hanged. His sister left the court, and instantly proceeded to Scotland. There were no railways in those days, and she had to rely on coaches and post-chaises, and she travelled for four days and nights successively, without stopping or removing her clothes, and carrying a petition with her from house to house amongst her titled and powerful Scotch friends.

With this she returned to the city at which the assizes had been held, just as they were concluded. The two judges were in the act of descending through the cathedral nave, after partaking of the holy sacrament, when the petitioner cast herself at their feet, and held forth her document. Baron G. was notorious for his unflinching obduracy; but her devotion and energy were irresistible. He received her petition; and her brother's sentence was eventually commuted to transportation for life. But his story is not yet finished. The forger was placed in the hulks prior to transportation; and, before this took place, he had forged a pass or order from the Home Secretary's office for his own liberation, which procured his release, and he was never afterwards heard of.

This "Jeanie Deans," who was the means of saving the life of her unworthy relative, was described to me as a person of extraordinary force of character. Indeed it could not have been otherwise. She prevailed with the solicitor, who before had been a stranger both to her and her brother; with the main body of the prosecutors; with the petitioners in Scotland; and ultimately with the judge himself. My friend, who lived in his father's house during the several weeks she stayed there, told me, that, night and morning when he passed her door, she was always in audible prayer; and he was convinced that her success was attributable to her prayers having been extraordinarily answered. Her subsequent fate, even in this world, was a happy one. She became a wife and a mother, and possibly is so still.

ALFRED GATTY.

PASSAGE IN JEREMY TAYLOR.

It may not be useless or uninteresting to the readers of Bishop Jeremy Taylor to bring under their notice a point in which the editor of the last edition seems to have fallen into an error. In Part II. of the Sermon "On the Invalidity of a Death-bed Repentance" (p. 395.), the Bishop says:

"Only be pleased to observe this one thing: that this place of Ezekiel [i.e. xviii. 21.] is it which is so often mistaken for that common saying, 'At what time soever a sinner repents him of his sins from the bottom of his heart, I will put all his wickedness out of my remembrance, saith the Lord:' yet there are no such words in the whole Bible, nor any nearer to the sense of them, than the words I have now read to you out of the prophet Ezekiel."

Now the editor, as a reference for this "common saying," says in a note—

"* See Jer. xviii. 7, 8.:"

whence I suppose that he thinks that text to be the nearest quotation to it that can be found. But he has altogether overlooked the fact that this "common saying" is, as the Bishop has here quoted it, the exact form in which the first of the sentences at the beginning of Morning Prayer occurs in the Second Book of Edward, and down to the time of the last review, with the exception of the Scotch book. As it did not agree with the translation of the Bible then in use, Bishop Taylor seems to have considered it as a paraphrase. This also is the view which Chillingworth took of it, who makes this reflection on it, in a sermon preached before Charles I.:

"I would to God (says he) the composers of our Liturgy, out of a care of avoiding mistakes, and to take away occasion of cavilling our Liturgy, and out of fear of encouraging carnal men to security in sinning, had been so provident as to set down in terms the first sentence, taken out of the 18th of Ezekiel, and not have put in the place of it an ambiguous, and (though not in itself, but accidentally, by reason of the mistake to which it is subject) I fear very often a pernicious paraphrase: for whereas they make it, 'At what time soever ... saith the Lord;' the plain truth, if you will hear it, is, the Lord doth not say so; these are not the very words of God, but the paraphrase of men."

Thus, I think, it is evident that this "sentence" has nothing to do with the passage of Jeremiah to which the editor refers us; and its being read continually in the church explains the application of the word "common" to it in this place.

While on this subject I would go on to mention that both Chillingworth and Taylor seemed to have erred in calling it a paraphrase, and saying that it does not occur in the Bible; for according to L'Estrange (c. iii. n. F.) the sentence is taken from the Great Bible, or Coverdale's translation. It is, however, remarkable that this fact should not have been known to these divines.

F. A.

PARALLEL PASSAGES.

I send you two parallels on the subject of Death and Sleep, Nature the art of God, &c.

The following are not exactly parallel, but being "in pari materia," are sufficiently curious and alike to merit annotation:

HARRY LEROY TEMPLE.

FOLK LORE.

Death Omen by Bees.

—It is not wonderful that the remarkable instincts and intelligence of the honey-bee, its domesticity, and the strong affinity of its social habits to human institutions, should make it the object of many superstitious observances, and I think it probable that if enquiry be made of that class of people amongst whom such branches of folk-lore are most frequently found lingering, other prejudices respecting bees than those lately noticed by some of your correspondents might be discovered.

If the practice of making the bees acquainted with the mortuary events of the family ever prevailed in that part of Sussex from whence I write, I think it must be worn out, for I have not heard of it. But there is another superstition, also appertaining to mortality, which is very generally received, and which is probably only one of a series of such, and amongst which it is probable the practice before-mentioned might once be reckoned. Some years since the wife of a respectable cottager in my neighbourhood died in childbed. Calling on the widower soon after, I found that although deeply deploring a loss which left him several motherless children, he spoke calmly of the fatal termination of the poor woman's illness, as an inevitable and foregone conclusion. On being pressed for an explanation of these sentiments, I discovered that both him and his poor wife had been "warned" of the coming event by her going into the garden a fortnight before her confinement, and discovering that their bees, in the act of swarming, had made choice of a dead hedge stake for their settling-place. This is generally considered as an infallible sign of a death in the family, and in her situation it is no wonder that the poor woman should take the warning to herself; affording, too, another example of how a prediction may assist in working out its own fulfilment.

Seeing that another P-urveyor to your useful P-ages has assumed the same signature as myself, for the future permit me, for contradistinction, to be—

"J. P. P.," but not "CLERK OF THIS PARISH."

THE CAXTON COFFER.

Did Caxton ever print his name CAUSTON or CAWSTON, or is it ever found so spelt? He tells us, in the preface or prologue to his Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, "that I was born and learned mine English in Kent, in the Weald." The only locality in Kent which I can discover at all approximating in its name to Caxton, is Causton, a manor in the parish of Hadlow, in the Weald of Kent, held of the honor of Clare. This manor was, in the fourteenth century, possessed by the family of "De Causton;" how and when it passed from them I have been unable to ascertain with certainty, possibly not long before the birth of William Caxton. In 1436, Beatrice Bettenham entails it on the right heirs of her son, Thomas Towne, by which entail it came into the family of Watton of Addington Place, who owned it in 1446. The honor of Clare, and the forest, &c. of South Frith, closely adjoining Causton, descended through one of the co-heiresses of Gilbert de Clare to Richard Duke of York, father of the Duchess of Burgundy and Edward IV., whose widow, Cicely, continued in possession till her death. I name the owners of the manor of Causton, and the chief lords of whom it was held, as affording, perhaps, some clue to identification, should any of your correspondents be inclined to take up the inquiry. I need hardly add that the difference between the two names of Causton and Caxton is of little moment should other circumstances favour the chances that Causton in Hadlow may claim the honour of having given birth to our illustrious printer, or that he was descended from the owners of that manor.

L. B. L.

Minor Notes.

Mental Almanac (Vol. iv., p. 203.).

—The additive number for this month of December, is 6. Hence next Sunday is 1 + 6 = the 7th of December. Christmas Day will be 25, less 20, that is 5, or Thursday.

A. E. B.

Corruptions recognised as acknowledged Words (Vol. iv., p. 313.).

—The first person who settled in Honduras was the celebrated buccaneer Wallis, in 1638, from whom the principal town and river were named. The Spaniards called it Valis; and v and b having the same pronunciation in Spanish, it became Balis, then Balize, Belize, the actual name.

PHILIP S. KING.

Pasquinade (Vol. iv., p. 292.).

—Will A. B. R. allow me to correct one or two to typographical errors in the Italian version of his clever epigram? In the first place "Piu," in both places where it occurs, should be "Pio," which the sense demands, while Piu is downright nonsense. What A. B. R. intended to write was no doubt:

The alteration in the third line is required both by sense and metre, which last is octosyllabic; and chiamo is pronounced as a dissyllable, as are also chiesa and -piente.

E. S. TAYLOR.

Epigram on Erasmus.

—The following epigram, written in a fly-leaf of a copy of the Epistolæ Obscuroram Virorum, published at Frankfort, 1624, in the possession of a friend, is commended to your notice; not, however, without a suspicion of its having been printed already:

D. B. J.

Etymology of London.

—I believe the word London has never yet received a satisfactory explanation, and it is, perhaps, too late in the day to try to explain it entirely. It has always, however, been supposed that it was significant in the old British language. It has been explained as "the town of ships," the final syllable don, formerly dun, meaning a town. Several other explanations have been given also on the same principle, namely, that the final syllable meant a town or fortified place, and the first was the characteristic distinguishing it from other towns or duns in the neighbourhood.

This mode of explanation is repugnant to the general principles of British topographical nomenclature: for they generally put the general name first, and the characteristic last. Might the first syllable "Lon" not be a corruption of the British "Llan," so common yet in names of places, and so universally retained in Wales to this day? Llan means a level place generally, as most of your readers who are versant in those subjects know. The don is not so easily explained, but perhaps some of your readers may be able to assist in finding a meaning.

"Don" might indeed still mean an enclosed strong place, and the meaning of the whole word "London" would then be Llandun, or "the level ground near the fort or strong camp." Perhaps some of your correspondents may be able to offer something confirmatory or adverse to this explanation, and in either case I should join with the rest of your readers in thanking them.

M. C. E.

Verses on Shipmoney.—

"A coppy of certaine Verses dispersed in and about London in febr. 1634 in ye 10th year of ye Raigne of ye King Charls occasioned by ye eager prosecucon of Shipmoney, and Imprisonmts therefore.

Columbus's Bust, &c. at Havanna.

—In case you do not happen to possess a correct copy of the inscription on Columbus's bust and tablet in the cathedral at Havanna, I send you one, and my translation of it, for the benefit of those who may not make out the force and beauty of the "éloge."

The bust is a mean and ill-executed one; although a late "lady" authoress has a different opinion of its merits. It is stiff and wooden-looking, and, still worse, the right cheek, and side of the head too, are comparatively flattened. Within it, built into the wall, are the "restos," the dust and bones, in the urn. Beneath the epitaph is a date of "1822"—the year, I presume, of the bust being "set up." It stands abreast of the altar, and on the right hand, the head of the bust being about six feet from the ground. I visited the interesting spot only a few days ago, as soon as possible after my landing, for the first time, in that truly noble city the Havana (or, in the Spanish, Habana).

A. L.

West Indies.