Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/142

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[12 s. i. FZB 12, me. (12 S. i. 10).—In reply to C. B.'s inquiry, which I have just seen, the following are in full the lines which he asks for:—

I have no idea who was the author and have never seen the piece in print. I have known it for over forty years, as an old friend of ours used to recite it to my brother and myself when we were boys. I have found it on several occasions a useful encore recitation; it is always appreciated, and is new to all who hear it.

The reference to matches points to its not being more than a century old.

'THE MAGICAL NOTE ' (US. xii. 400). A friend now tells me he thinks this little book has reference to some trouble with the Duke of York and a Mrs. Clarke ; and he has shown me an old Sussex newspaper which refers slightly to the matter. Perhaps this may furnish a clue.

JOHN C. DOWDNEY. Whitehall, Stratford, E.

[An account of Mary Anne Clarke and her relations with the Duke of York will be found in the 'D.N.B.'l

BRITISH HERB : HERB TOBACCO (12 S. i. 48). Perhaps British Herb, or Herb Tobacco r. was an English-made imitation of what is mentioned below. According to a quotation from Joseph Price's ' Tracts,' vol. i., 1782, p. 78, given in ' Hobson-Jobson ' by Yule and Burnell, new edition edited by William Crooke, 1903, s.v. ' Hooka,' the composition smoked in a hooka (or hookah) was a " mixture of sweet-scented Persian tobacco,, sweet herbs, coarse sugar, spice, &c."

If I remember rightly, I was told many years ago that rose petals were used in the composition for smoking in the hookah r riarghilly, or hubble-bubble. According to ' The Oriental Interpreter,' by J. H. Stocqueler. 1848, s.v. ' Hookah-burdar,' the preparation was made by

" chopping the tobacco very small, then adding ripe plantains, molasses, or raw sugar, together with some cinnamon, and other aromatics ; keeping the mass, which resembles an electuary, in close vessels. When about to be used, it is again worked up well ^ some at that time add a little tincture of musk, or a few grains of that perfume ; others prefer pouring a solution of it, or a little rose-water, down the snake, or pliable tube, at the moment the hookah is introduced. In either case, the fragrance of tlie> tobacco is effectually superseded."

The preparation was, I suppose, the work of the hooka.h-burdar, who had also to place burning charcoal on the top of the composition, when in the bowl of the pipe,. for his master to smoke. Probably there are no, or very few, Europeans in India now who- smoke goracco (guracco) the name given to the composition by Stocqueler.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

The leaves of the common coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) form the basis of the British herb tobacco ('Wild Flowers.... and their Medicinal Uses,' a handy book of wild flowers, Ward, Lock & Co.) ; the dried leaves are mixed with yarrow, rose-leaves,, and some sweet herbs, and this herb tobacco is said to be useful in cases of asthma (' Old English Wild Flowers,' W r arne & Co.). The smoke from the burning roots is employed for driving away gnats C Wild Flowers,' G. Routledge & Sons). Indian tobacco is Lobelia inflata. Mountain tobacco is Arnica montana. QUILL.

Seventy years ago both men and women smoked as tobacco a mixture com- posed of coltsfoot flowers and leaves dried in the sun, then cut and shredded. Many smoked the mixture alone, others filled the pipe with this and tobacco crammed into the pipe bowl in alternate layers. It was mingled with dandelion flowers,