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NOTES AND QUERIES. [i is. XL JUNE 26, 1915.

Cob ham copied it twenty-three or more years ago. He gives it thus :

Heare lyeth interred | the body of Capn Peter this | life ye 25 June 1685 | aged 38 years
 * Dare Comr of the ship | Scipio who departed

MB. JEFFERY has made a slip in saying that the oldest English grave in Cyprus is that of Peter Deleav, 1692, while both he and Mr. Cobham give 1685 as the date of Capt. Peter Dare's death.

The tomb of another English seaman is given by Mr. Cobham as in the graveyard of St. Lazarus :

Sacred | to the | Memory of | Win. Balls | late Seaman | on board | H.B.M.S. Volage | who died | May 20th, 1849 | aged 32 years | This tomb is erected as a token of | respect by his shipmates

Some of the discrepancies are very trivial, e.g., ye = the, honorably = honourably. In my comparisons I have not troubled about all differing stops or v=u. Mr. Cobham gives all the inscriptions in capital letters, large and small.

Respecting inscription No. 1, I suggest that the " churchyard of St. George " would be preferable to the " churchyard of Ay. Yeorgios Kondas," especially as the other churchyard is cited as that of St. Lazarus. M. Gennadius, the Greek Minister, in- forms me that Ay Yeorgios is an endeavour to represent the Greek pronunciation of F, which is very soft (i.e., before e and L). It is a fair representation when pronounced as in " vest" or "yeoman." He says that " Ay," otherwise " Ai," comes abcut in this way :

" "Ay LOS by the process of rapid speaking becomes 'A is, and when spoken in conjunction with the name of a saint it is further abbreviated into "At", while the feminine ' Ayia becomes in English phonetic rendering Aya."

He writes that Kondas is some local desig- nation of the particular church devoted to St. Gecrge, adding :

" What it precisely means I am unable to say, off-hand ; unless it is the ' near one,' not the one further off in the country beyond the town."

In inscription No. 6, Xpio-rocfiopos 6 Tpai'/juos means Christopher Graham (or some other form of that surname). Compare 'Iwo->) o Ttwpyetpt'ivrjs, 11 S. x. 493.

What is the meaning of " Britannici Regis Scutarius " in inscription No. 9 ?

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

AN ALPHABET OF STRAY NOTES (11 S. xi. 335, 459). I am glad to see Q. V.'s correction. Owing to the indistinctness of an aged hand "brothe" was set up as "toothe," and w r as passed unaltered. W. D. MACRAY.

CHESAPEAKE AND SHANNON (US. xi. 454). The words of this song are given in the- " Students' Tauchnitz Edition " of ' Tom Brown's School Days,' Leipzig, Tauchnitz, 1887, part i. p. 265. There are nine stanzas ; but the lines which, in part i. chap. vi. of ' Tom Brown,' Old Brooke is represented as- singing, do not appear in the song as here- printed. MUTUALLY.

AUTHOR WANTED : "LIFE is A ROMANCE ' T (11 S. xi. 401). I have searched in vain for this phrase, and have only found the follow- ing, which is but a distant approach to the- actual meaning of the above : "The romance of life begins and ends with two blank pages r first age and extreme old age " ( Johann Paul Richter). H. GOUDCHATJX.

Paris.

GOATS WITH CATTLE (11 S. xi. 452). I believe the real reason why grooms like to- keep goats in a stable is because of the fact that many horses dislike being left alone- On the other hand, I believe some horses dislike being stabled with a donkey.

J. M. BULLOCH. 123, Pall Mall, S.W.

Goats with cattle are said to prevent dropping of calves, and are still kept for that purpose with cattle. I think the idea comes- from Devonshire. E. E. C.

See 9 S. v. 248, 359, 521 : vi. 132, 196. At the third reference MR. F. T. HIBGAME men- tioned it as a fact that goats " eat certain herbs which would be very injurious to cattle." I have heard this statement made- before, and should much like to see it followed up by those who possess opportu- nities for investigation. Is it possible to- obtain the names of these herbs ?

In ' Middlemarch ' (p. 291, ed. 1881), when describing the old farm homestead called Freeman's End, George Eliot says r " There was an aged goat (kept, doubtless, on interesting superstitious grounds) lying against the open back-kitchen door."

JOHN T. PAGE. Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

Like many other disagreeable odours, the- scent of the goat w r as accounted healthy, and it was probably from the popular association with the Devil that the animal had the credit of being able to keep sorcerers in their place- In Lean's ' Collectanea ' we find that the luckiness of entertaining a goat on a farm, is mentioned in Egglestone's ' Weardale/ and that in Franche-Comte the belief is " qu'uri bouc assainit 1'etable et qu'it