Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/323

 ID* s. ii. OCT. 1.19W.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

263

Duch. Must I, like to a slave-born Russian, Account it praise to suffer tyranny ?

III. v. 87-92,

The quarto of 1640 reads "ruffian" for
 * ' Russian." Compare :

And now, like slave-borne Muscovite, I call it praise to suffer tyrannie.


 * Astrophel and Stella,' II.

The tragedy of c Selimus ' copies several times from Sidney's 'Astrophel and Stella,' and amongst other phrases it has "slave- born Muscovites" (1. 551, Grosart). Sidney's saying passed into a proverb :

Alberto. I tamely bear

Wrongs which a slave-born Muscovite would check at. Beaumont and Fletcher, ' The Fair

Maid of the Inn,' V. iii.

And again, in the same authors' plays, we find this :

MaMicorn. We are true Muscovites to our wives, and are never better pleased than when they use us as slaves, bridle and saddle us, &c. 'The Honest Man's Fortune,' III. iii.

CHAS. CRAWFORD. (To be continued.)

THE MUSSUK.

AMONG various articles which were crowded out from my book reviewed ante, p. 19, was one about the mussuk.

When as a boy I first saw the Assyrian sculptures, I assumed that the skins were pigskins ; but the veriest tiro in Oriental customs knows that such a thing could never be, as the Oriental horror of the pig is religious as well as personal. So it is with the Jews. The Assyrians, no doubt, had the same feelings.

When I was having the reproduction of the Assyrian sculptures done for my book, I wanted to see what uses a mussuk was put to, and all about it, as in five out of the seven illustrations the mussuk is depicted. I imagined that all I had to do was to consult the dictionaries, but soon found I was mis- taken. Making known my difficulty to friends, I was referred to all sorts of books where I should be sure to find all about it. One of these was Baron Charles Hiigel's 1 Kashmir/ 1845. This book has a frontis- piece of a man on a raft, and on p. 247 is an illustration of a man on a large inflated buffalo skin, swimming across a river. I was unable to find any description.

The only dictionary mention I could find is in Yule's * Hobson-Jobson,' 1886 :

"Mussuck, the leather water-bag, consisting of the entire skin of a large goat, stript of the hair and

dressed, which is carried by a man who carries

water."

I find no more in the second edition, 1903. It will be observed that this is just the con- trary of the use I want. It is a land use, not use in the water. It was not the mere men- tion I required, but a minute description of the way it was used. If the mussuk is named by Layard, it is not in the index (a wretched one) to his * Nineveh.' In the quotation I give in my book (p. 83) he calls the mussuks only "inflated skins."

Some writers put a c to mussuk ; as I see no- use in having an unpronounced letter in, I leave it out.

All sources failing, I then had recourse to

Smr (much too occasional) correspondent r. Walter Sandford ; but though he has spent twenty years in India and travelled there on an average over five thousand miles a year, he is like the people I refer to in my book (p. 15), who, though they had been to all parts of the world, had never thought of observing how the natives swam.

Mr. Sandford sent the following questions to his brother, and I should say that his replies are correct. Another copy was sent to a different person, who had been over twenty years on the Indus, and who replied to the questions in the most astonishing manner. I feel certain his answers are wrong when, for example, he says that a person can learn to swim with a mussuk in three or four trials. But he also says that it is easier than learn- ing to swim, and that it is possible to swim with one and blow it out at the same time ! (See my book, p. 130.) I cite this to show the difficulty of getting correct information ; it is really necessary to cross-examine a witness like this.

These are the questions : 1. What is an inflated skin used for swimming called? 2. If a mussuk, of what is it maae? 3. How long does it take a person to learn to swim with one ? 4. Is it easier than learning to swim in the usual way? 5. Do people who- cannot swim use mussuks? 6. How is it blown out? 7. Is it possible to swim with one and blow it out at the same time, as represented in the Assyrian sculptures pic- tured in Layard's ' Nineveh ' ?

It will be observed that the idea in these questions was that mussuks were mainly used for learning to swim ; but there is little doubt that this idea is wrong and that such use would only be occasional. In fact, as Dr. Budge says (in my ' Swimming,' p. 78), Orientals do not swim for pleasure.

Anstoers to Mr. Thomas's queries about musauk t

\floating, <ttc.

1. An inflated skin used for swimming, or rather floating, is called a mussuk. From my observation.