Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/429

 42 3. III. SEPT., 1917.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

ABBOR TBISTIS (12 S. iii. 386). The Arabian or night jasmine (Nyctanthes arbor- tristis) is a shrub which grows freely in Southern Asia. Its fragrant night-blooming flowers attracted the early Portuguese travellers, who bestowed on it the name of " arbol triste." See Yule, ' Hobson-Jobson,' s.v. ' Jasmine.'
 * 1) .v. ' Arbol triste,' and the ' N.E.D.,'

Thomas Bowrey, writing " Of Choro- mandel " in the seventeenth century (' Countries round the Bay of Bengal, 1669 to 1679,' Hakluyt Society, ed. Temple, pp. 49-50), gives a quaint description of this small tree or shrub :

41 Upon the top of Mount St. Thomas, groweth naturaly a Very remarkable tree, larger then most mulberrie trees be, which is called Arbor triste, vizt, the Sorrowful! tree, and not improperly so called. It Seemeth not to flowrish all the day longe, but from Sun Settinge to Sun riseinge it is Exceedinge full of white blossoms, both fragrant and beautifull, but noe Sooner is but broad day light, but all the blossoms fall to the ground and Suddenly wither ; and the Very leaves Shut them- selves, and Seeme to be in a very languishinge posture, and furthermore, the next Eveninge it appears as flourishinge as before, and thus not Once but every day and night throughout the yeare."

R. C. TEMPLE.

A friend of mine has courteously supplied the following information under this head :

" The 'arbor tristis ' is described in Durante's 4 Herbario Nuovo,' published at Rome in 1585, and also in his other book, of which only the German translation named ' Hortulus Sanitatis ' survives. His illustration shows a plant with large nettle-shaped, dotted leaves and pendulous strings of blossom. The flowers and leaves, he says, spread only at night, but droop and wither if sunlight reaches them. The legend goes that a beautiful Indian maiden loved the sun, who loved another. So she killed herself, and from the ashes of the funeral pyre there sprang the ' arbor tristis.' "

CECIL CLABKE. Junior Athenaeum Club.

This tree is described and figured by Gerard as " the Sorrowfull tree." It grows, .he says, in the East Indies, " especially in Goa and Malay o." It is called by many different names in different places, as Parizataco in Goa, Singadi in " Malayo," Singati in the Deccan, Guart by the Arabians, and Gul by the Persians and Turks. Its most poetical name in English is " the Indian mourner." Lemery gives . similar account to that of Gerard, and lias the same string of foreign names for it. He refers to several authorities.

The name Parizataco refers to a legendary Indian princess whom Durante in his

account of the tree in his ' Herbario Nuovo ' (1585) calls Parisataccho. She was a lover of the Sun, and when forsaken by him she died of grief, and this tree sprang from her ashes. C. C. B.

RUSHBBOOKE HALL (12 S. iii. 301). A short account of this moated Elizabethan house, the seat in the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries of the Jermyn family, is given in Mr. W. A. Dutt's ' Suffolk,' one of Methuen & Co.'s " Little Guides " : " There is a ' haunted room ' in the W. wing, where a lady, whose portrait hangs in the nursery, is said to have been murdered " (p. 285). The Hall is about 3 miles from Bury St. Edmunds. There is a good view of it in Mr. Dutt's book. EDWABD BENSLY,

JANE AUSTEN : ' PBIDE AND PREJUDICE ' (12 S. iii. 358). 1. It does not seem probable that Lambton and Pemberley were real places. The various lives of Jane Austen do not mention that she was ever as far north as Derbyshire.

2. Xo, " Bakewell " was not a slip of the pen for " Lambton." It was the town where the Gardiners and Elizabeth spent the night before they went to Lambton. Pemberley lay between the two towns, and the travellers paid their first- visit to Pem- berley before they had reached Lambton. This is clear from the conclusion of chap, xlii. : " Within five miles of Lambton, Elizabeth found, from her aunt, that Pem- berley was situated, It was not in their direct road ; nor more than, a mile or two out of it. In talking over their route the evening before " they went to Lambton, the Gardiners suggest a visit to Pemberley. Elizabeth makes objections, fearing to meet Darcy. That night she learns from the chambermaid that the family are not at Pemberley, and therefore next day she agrees to go there. When she unexpectedly meets Darcy, she is afraid that he will think she is pursuing him, and is careful to tell him that " before we left Bakewell, we understood that you were not immediately expected in the country." After they leave Pemberley they arrive at Lambton for the first time, and Mrs. Gardiner ' was too much engaged in pointing out to her husband all the interesting spots in its environs to think of anything else. Fatigued as she had been by the morning's walk, they had no sooner dined than she set off again in quest of her former acquaintance, and the evening was spent in the satisfactions of an intercourse renewed after many years' discontinuance."

M. H. DODDS.

Home House, Low Fell, Gateshead.