Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/503

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

415

portion du Texas. II est plus boise encore que le < possibility was suggested that it came from pays plat." 1839, E. Maissin, in 'San Juan de 'the Spanish mota. But such a suggestion, Expedition Frangaise au beside ^ lacking evidence in its support, is

pay

Ul'u

Mexique,' p. 547.

" This region [of rolling prairie], in its beautiful and romantic scenery, cannot be surpassed by those of which poets have sung and novelists have

dreamed The intervals between the streams are

mostly prairie land interspersed with beautiful groves, and having, at a distance, the appearance of a cultivated park. "1830, W. B. Dewees, 'Letters from an Early Settler of Texas ' (1834), p. 130.

"The intervening country between the rivers, creeks, and rivulets, is open, level, rich, and elevated prairie, clothed with a thick and luxuriant growth of grass of a good quality for pasturage, with occasional points and islands of timber, as the 'wooded projections and scattered clumps of trees are called, which give the plains the appearance of

vast

parks, with ornamental trees artificially

Mrs.

Mary A. Holley, 'Texas' (1833), p. 62.
 * arranged to beautify the prospect." 1831,

" The only interruption [in the prairie] is caused toy clusters of trees of different forms and sizes, scattered at distant intervals here and there. These clumps and groves, apparently possessing all 'the neatness and beauty which could have been given them if planted by the hand of man, and tended by his greatest care, added the charm of variety to the eye, while they promised thick and convenient shelter from sun and storm to man or

beast These groves are called islands, from the

striking resemblance they present to small tracts of land surrounded by water. 1834, ' Visit to Texas,' pp. 40, 41.

" As they approach these rivers, there is more or less of timber, relieving the eye, in unison with these fine airy groves of every shape, with which

the prairie mounds are studded In many places

these eminences, or inclined plains, are regularly

and beautifully decorated with timber These

rows of timber and picturesque groves are called islands, from the striking resemblance they present to small tracts of land surrounded by water. ' 1836, D. B. Edward, ' History of Texas,' p. 38.

wholly unnecessary ; for in that part of the United States the people have been nothing if not eclectic in their choice of words. Let me give three illustrations. For sixty years or more, " mesa " from the Spanish, " butte " from the French, and " bayou " from the Indian have been house- hold words in Texas.

ALBERT MATTHEWS. Boston, U.S.

With regard to the last paragraph of DR. SMYTHE PALMER'S interesting com- munication, the word in St. Jude is o-7riA.as, occurring twice in the ' Odyssey ' for a water-swept rock. The capital letters used for this word by Liddell and Scott perhaps justify the suggestion that a-TriA.0?, a stain, is a secondary meaning. The etymology, if forthcoming, would settle this point.

H. P. L.

PHILIP II. OF POMERANIA (10 S. x. 349). This duke, who reigned from 1606 to 1618, had rather a troubled time. According to Meyer's ' Conversations-Lexicon ' (orig. ed., s.v. ' Pommern ' ), one of the principal pieces of work which he achieved was the improve- ment of the administration of justice. The English reader unfamiliar with Pomeranian dukes may remember the dramatic incident at the grave of Duke Otto of Stettin in 1464, as told in Carlyle (' Friedrich II.,' Book III. chap iii.).

" Cuslino Pomerani " presumably means that the author was a Pomeranian and came " Here and there, however, *along the shore, from Koslin, one of the principal towns of

beautiful clumps of trees, commonly called islands Pommern.

of timber, are seen diversifying the landscape and relieving the otherwise monotonous, far-reachiri" horizon." 1841, A. Smith, in H. S. Foote, ' Texas and the Texans,' ii. 377.

EDWARD BENSLY.

CROWS " CRYING AGAINST THE RAIN

(10 S. x. 88, 136). Terashima Ryoan in his ' Wakan Sansai Dzue,' 1713, torn, iii., Here is ample proof that the early writers I mentions a Chinese belief that " the raven's on Texas were enthusiastic over the beauties 1 cry accompanied with a repercussion of the of its landscape, including clumps of trees, I sound is named wife-calling, and signifies and that DR. PALMER'S conception is fine weather ; otherwise it is named wife-

fundamentally wrong. It may be remarked that the word " island," meaning a clump of trees, did not originate in Texas, but had ^already been in use among Americans for a -generation or so. After the Americans had been in Texas for about twenty years, they suddenly began to use the word " motte." As already stated, the spelling, the italics, and the quotation marks all indicate that it was a foreign word. If not French, what ? It will perhaps be urged that a Spanish origin is more probable, and in 1890 the

rejecting, and presages rain."

The same Japanese encyclopaedist, from his own experience, goes on to assert that the raven, whenever in the summer it volun- tarily drenches itself with water, foretells rain, and expresses doubts as to the accuracy of the old Chinese saw, " Bathing magpies forebode rain ; bathing ravens forebode wind " (cf. MR. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL'S

reply, ante, p. 136). Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

KTJMAGUSU MINAKATA.