Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/523

 12 s. vii. NOV. 27, i92o.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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sometimes smaller. The ice worm which I brought to Sultan Ibrahim was smaller than a cucumber. It shines like a diamond, but melts quickly away, because it is all ice. It is prolific, and gives trength in the pleasure of love. It sharpens also the sight, and restores man to a healthy state of vigour, as if he was a new-born child. It is seldom found, and may only be the lot of kings. On Caucasus, they are found, it is said, in the size of dogs, with four feet, living and walking in the ice and snow. Faith be upon the teller, I have not seen it."

Apparently allied to this, two abnormal creatures are recorded as following in the Chinese 'System of Materia Medica,' by Li Shi-Chin, 1578, torn, xxxix. ;

" According to Yeh Tsze-Ki's ' Tsau-muh-tsze * (1378 A.D.J, the snow silkworm [Sieuh-tsan] grows in the north side of Mount Yin and upon Mount Ngsmei. The northern provincials call it Snow Maggot [Sieuh-tsu]. Those two mountains are covered with everlasting snow, amidst which there nourishes this worm, equalling the gourd in its size and tasting exceedingly sweet and deli- cious. Its nature is cold and non-poisonous, and renders it beneficial to feverish patients tor- mented with insatiable thirst. Akin to this perhaps is the Ice Silkworm [Ping-tsan], which Wang Tsze-Nien has recorded in his ' Shih-i-ki ' [4th cent. A.D.]. It is said to be a native of Mount Yuen-kiau, six or seven inches long, black -and with scales and horns. When covered with frost and snow, it forms a cocoon one foot long, which man can draw out into threads of five eyeral colors. The damask fabricated thereof is neither wetted with water nor burnt with fire. Once in the emperor Yau's reign [2357-2258 B.C.] a sea-coast people presented it to him : it was found to be light, warm, soft and sleek."

KUMAGUSTJ MlNAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

DE TEJADA ; GRANT OF ARMS. During the wars of expulsion of the Moors from Granada thirteen brothers of the name De Tejada fought against the Moors. For their success and gallantry the right was granted for all their descendants, in the female as well as in the male line, to bear their name and arms, in conjunction with their own thus, Saenz de Tejada, Larios de Tejada, &c., Is this grant unique ? Can any correspondent give me further particulars about these brothers ?

BASIL M. O'CoNNELi.

Lakeview, Killarney,

LONDON IN THE FIFTIES AND SIXTIES. I was born at Bartholomew Close, London E.C., in 1854, and left London in 1868 since when I have lived in Lancashire I have frequently asserted that I remember the London police wearing tall hats ; also that Smithfield was partly covered with open-air cattle pens. T am now told that

>ld enough to remember what I have asserted.
 * he thing was impossible and that I am not

Could any reader give me the year in which the London police discarded their tall hats, and also the date when Smithfield

as cleared of all the pens ?

Littleborough. G ' L BARKER.

WORKS OF EUGENE SUE. I have before me an English edition of some of the chief works of Eugene Sue, with finely engraved illustrations, in ten volumes, viz., 'The Seven Cardinal Sins,' in 4 : 'The Mysteries of Paris,' in 3 : and 'The Wandering Jew,' n 3 vols., published by C. T. Brainard, but without place and date. It is desired to ascertain where and when this apparently recent publication appeared ? H. K.

ADMIRAL BENBOW. I shall be greatly obliged if any reader will kindly give me some details about a fight that Admiral Benbow had with some pirates, not long before he fought his last battle with du Casse.

The Admiral's share of the prize-money awarded for taking the pirate vessels was 4,OOOL : he was dead before it was awarded, and the money became the nucleus of the Benbow Estate, which is still in Chancery. H. STEWART BENBOW.

Stechford, Birmingham.

FAMILY OF SIR JOHN CHEKE. Besides the Henry mentioned in the pedigree at ante, p. 386, there was a son John. Is anything known of his career ? A John Cheke was Vicar of Egham, Surrey, 1574-78, and as he was presented by Elizabeth it is probable that he was the son of Sir John. The probability is strengthened by the fact that he put in a curate to discharge the duties, and does not appear to have resided ,in Egham. Any information regarding him would be welcome. FREDERIC TURNER.

Raverisworth, Mortimer, Berks.

GASPAR BARLAEUS. Two portraits of Gaspar Barlaeus, one aged 41, with a pointed beard and wearing a deep ruff, engraved by W. Delff after D. Bailly in the year 1625. The other an older man with a short '"imperial" beard, dressed in deep black with a deep collar, "Puritan" style, engraved by G. Virtue, no date. Are these the same person ? or father and son, and who was Gaspar Barlaeus ? He appears by the first portrait to have been a well-known Dutch doctor and is described as "nuper