Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/493

10 s. x. NOV. 21, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

405 —The other day I saw in a bookshop near the Bankruptcy Court, Strand, the only specimen I ever met of one of the Celestial Passports of Joanna Southcott (1750-1814), which, if not unique, must now be extremely scarce. It is in a leather case about 5 in. by 4 in., and reads thus:—

For such a document to be seriously issued, in London, in the nineteenth century, is a phenomenon of some note in religious history.

—I have recently rescued from oblivion a memorandum-book kept from 1792 to 1814 by an apparently close follower of this remarkable woman. In form it is a ruled book of accounts, neatly bound, with a clasp. Reference is made by volume and page to twelve volumes, probably the twelve parts of Joanna's revelations; and as the paging does not agree with the printed work, it may be that the page-numbers were taken from the original manuscript. Among the more curious entries I note Ashen faggots, Boiling the Bible, Cat and lark, Cock crowing 7 times, Clock striking 64 times, Inscription on eggs, Joanna buying a rug, Pens and Bible, Bruce the Man Child, Beet's dream of a serpent in his pocket, The enemy (April, 1804) will not land, &c.

There are notes concerning Joanna in 5 S. i. and ii. and 7 S. iii. and iv. M. Aikin gives her the prominent place in his 'Memoirs of Religious Impostors,' London, 1823, with a biography of 120 pages.

—Coming back for a short time from Provence, I find the last two sections of the 'O.E.D.,' and have been looking with special pleasure through the April one. Among other words of interest to me is "Moor," with its derivatives. English seems to have but one derivative of this word in the sense of black, dark, through the name of the mulberry in Southern Europe: L. morus, It. moro, Prov. amouro, Fr. mûre. Our "murrey" corresponds to the Prov. moureto, brown, dun. It is this sense of "moor"= black, which deprives the blackberry of any special name in the Romance tongues; it is merely a wild mulberry though in Provence it has a little-used name ampo, probably connected with ampoulo, Fr. ampoule, a blob). I cannot think that our "moor," as in "moorland," originally meant "black," and has been superseded by the latter adjective. The "moor-hen" and the "moorad," a dusky brown race of sheep, point to this. The Welsh mwyar, blackberries, and mwyalch, blackbird; merwydd, mulberry tree, and merwys, blackbird, not only strengthen this idea, but also make one suspect a relationship between L. morus and merula.

Returning to the original "Moor," I note under meaning 2, "a Mohammedan inhabitant of India," that the latest quotation extends this sense to Indians generally. It certainly is so in barrack-English. And in that dialect the synonym "Moorman" is used in the same sense. It is often pronounced "Mormon," though this term,, suggestive of a Latter-Day Saint, is usually applied to Moslems only. I have heard it out of barracks.

"Moors" is correctly given as "a name for the Urdū or Hindustānī language." But this term, possibly extinct in literature, still survives in barrack-English, and is applied not only to Hindustani, but also to any Indian language. I remember a curious instance of this. St. Thomas's Mount, a hill about five miles from Madras, is one of the places where St. Thomas is reputed to have been martyred, and on the summit of the mount is a Goanese- Catholic church, which is a place of pilgrimage for native Catholics. Behind the altar is a stone tablet on which is carved a cross hanging from a dove's beak, with a Pahlavi inscription of Nestorian origin, about the eighth century. Close by this church lives the Goanese priest in charge. As the mount commands a fine view of the flat coast, there is also, at about fifty yards from the church, a tall signal-mast, with the quarters of the signal-sergeant, usually a pensioner with a family. About thirty years ago I had gone to the top of the mount for the view, and, talking to the old sergeant, I remarked: "I suppose, Sergeant, that you often have a talk of an evening with your neighbour the Padre." "Well, sir," he replied, "I have been up here over twenty years, and he was here when I came, but we have never spoken; you see, sir, he only talks moors."