Malesherbes

“ A double line of soldiers marching with guns reversed, a wilderness of helmets, of heads uncovered while an interminable procession passed. It was Mora's funeral procession.
"Don't stay here. Drive around some other way," she cried to the driver.
The vehicle turned painfully, tearing itself away with regret from that superb spectacle for which Paris had been waiting four days, rolled back up the avenue, into Rue Montaigne, and down Boulevard Malesherbes, at an unwilling, crawling trot, to the Madeleine. There the crowd was greater, more compact. ”

“ I prefer my peace; [157]
But truth compels me here. I’ll set my heel
On him, at least. Malesherbes will bear me out.
As for the rest—no theory of the earth
Can live without these rock-ribbed facts of mine,
The facts that I first mapped, I claim no more.
These rocks, these bones, these fossil ferns and shells,
Of which the grinning moon-calf makes a jest,
A byword for all dotage and decay,
Shall yet be touched with beauty, and reveal
The secrets of the book of earth to man.”
“He made no theory,” whispered Shadow-of-a-Leaf,
“And yet, I think, he looked on all these things
Devoutly ”

“ He was born at Paris on the 6th of December 1721, and was educated for the legal profession. The young lawyer soon proved his intellectual capacity, when he was appointed president of the cour des aides in the parlement of Paris in 1750 on the promotion of his father, Guillaume de Lamoignon, to be chancellor. One of the chancellor’s duties was to control the press, and this duty was entrusted to Malesherbes by his father during his eighteen years of office, and brought him into connexion with the public far more than his judicial functions. ”

“ We saunter into one of the many white mulberry plantations that surround us on every side, and observe that the leafless boughs are only just putting forth their tender spring buds: yet there is an unusual commotion amongst the rearers of the silkworm—whole families, men, women, and children, are variously employed; the earth round the roots of the mulberry trees is being hoed up; some are planting young shoots, others busy in the kitchen gardens; whilst, to the European eye, a few appear as though engaged in a mysterious occupation. ”

“ The “Bloodwood” (Eucalyptus corymbosa) has similar properties.
In the Denial Bay district a remarkable mallee (Eucalyptus dumosa) grows, whose roots supply the natives with water. This mallee is a rather big tree, which lives in association with other smaller species of the same genus. It appears, also, that not every specimen of the particular species referred to contains water; it requires the experience of an aboriginal to predict which of the trees is likely to carry such. ”

“ No objects with the exception of a few potsherds were found in the earth layers, but the layers of ashes were rich in flint and obsidian chips, fragments of conch and snail shells, clay beads and malacates, potsherds in great variety and abundance, with the bones of the deer, gibnut, and peccary. ”

“ At seven miles we came to stones, triodia, and mallee, a low eucalyptus of the gumtree family, growing generally in thick clumps from one root: its being rooted close together makes it difficult travelling to force one's way through. It grows about twenty feet high. The higher grade of eucalypts or gum-trees delight in water and a good soil, and nearly always line the banks of watercourses. The eucalypts of the mallee species thrive in deserts and droughts, but contain water in their roots which only the native inhabitants of the country can discover. ”

“ The mulberry does not thrive in these mountains; but in some localities this tree is cultivated for the sake of furnishing food to a particular insect which lives upon its leaves, and from which is obtained the lague or Chinese varnish. ”

“ On the third day after death, cooked rice and meat are offered to the soul of the deceased on seven arka (Calotropis gigantea) leaves. The male members of the family then eat from the same leaf. The Malasars who live in the plains consider the Ficus glomerata tree sacred, and worship it once a year. At least one branch thereof should be used in the construction of the marriage pandal, and the menstrual hut should be made of it. The Malasars of the plains also avoid the use of the Pongamia glabra tree for any purpose. ”

“ A mallet-shoot is split down the middle and the pith extracted, after which the two portions are fastened together, every care being taken not to injure the buds. The mallet-shoot is then planted in a mixture of earth and manure, and when it begins to throw out branches it is cut, the ground being repeatedly dug about it. ”

“ But those who have watched its growth when young under culture on rich soil can comprehend the fact that it is as easy to work as the Mahaleb. As with the Mahaleb the seedlings grown in seed bed will be large enough to set in nursery row the next spring, and of good size for August budding. ”

“ Everywhere the vegetation both of cultivated and of wild growth exhibits a close resemblance to and an evident affinity with the flora of the Earth. In fact, there appear such endless points of similarity between the natural features of Meleager and of the Earth that I have often found it difficult to realise I was not living in some hitherto undiscovered corner of my native sphere. ”

“ The white mulberry is largely cultivated in northern Syria on the coastal plain between Saida and Antioch (Antakia) , the lower mountain slopes, and in the Buka'a, for feeding silkworms; the black mulberry is also grown to some extent for its fruit. ”

“ Weeds, too, it is amazing how they spread. No such thing as arresting them—some of our pastures being a sort of Alsatia for the weeds. As for the grass, every spring it is like Kossuth’s rising of what he calls the peoples. ”

“ The person who cuts, binds, or threshes the last sheaf is called either the Old Woman or the Wolf, etc., according to the name bestowed on the sheaf itself. As in some places a sheaf made in human form and called the Maiden, the Mother of the Maize, etc., is kept from one harvest to the next in order to secure a continuance of the corn-spirit's blessing, so in some places the Harvest-cock and in others the flesh of the goat is kept for a similar purpose from one harvest to the next. ”

“ All the mulberry trees in the plantation, with the exception of some six or a dozen, present the lamentable spectacle of so many boughless stems; whilst nature around is profuse in luxuriance, and the wild convolvolus, as though compassionating the sad condition of the mulberry, twists its friendly leaves around, and decks it with gaudy blossoms of the early May morning. The peasant has been busy cutting down boughs of trees, etc., the bark of which he makes into string and ropes ”

“ From the jungle we emerged into an immense stone field,—padang-batu, the Malays called it. It extended along the mountain [174] side as far as we could see, in places quite bare, at others deeply fissured and covered with a most luxuriant vegetation. We tramped at times waist deep through ferns, some green, some dark red, and some lined with yellow, clumps of the splendid Dipteris Horsfieldi and Matonia pectinala, with their slender stems and wide-spreading palmate fronds towering two feet above our heads. ”

“ They construct their combs in any suitable crevice in trunks of trees or perpendicular banks, and the clay is required to build up a wall so as to close the gap, with the exception of a small orifice for their own entrance and exit. Most kinds of Meliponæ are in this way masons as well as workers in wax, and pollen-gatherers. One little species (undescribed) not more than two lines long, builds a neat tubular gallery of clay, kneaded with some viscid substance, outside the entrance to its hive, besides blocking up the crevice in the tree within which it is situated. ”

“ After a few miles' ride we crossed a low range of hills, and came upon the flourishing district of Be-tout,––literally, "without mulberries." The sagacious reader will justly infer that mulberry trees were in profusion every where else; indeed so plentiful are they in general that many of the natives live almost exclusively in winter upon the fruit, which is dried and reduced to a powder, and after being mixed with a little milk, or even water, forms a palatable and nutritious food. ”

“ Throughout the East the species of mulberry cultivated are numerous, but, as these trees have been grown for special purposes at least for three thousand years, they show the complex variations peculiar to most cultivated plants. ”

“ Others sallied out into the groves, for the purpose of gathering fruit or fibres of bark and leaves; the last two being in constant requisition, and applied to a hundred uses. A few, perhaps, among the girls, would slip into the woods after flowers, or repair to the stream with small calabashes and cocoa-nut shells, in order to polish them by friction with a smooth stone in the water. In truth these innocent people seemed to be at no loss for something to occupy their time ”

“ An economy no less remarkable than that of the Mangroves, but of a nature diametrically opposite, takes place in the bulb-like seeds of certain liliaceous plants, especially of Pancratium, Crinum and Amaryllis; in some of whose species the seed separates from the plant, and even from the pericarpium, before the embryo becomes visible. ”

“ In temperate climates they can be preserved through the winter without hatching until the time when the mulberry tree puts forth its leaves in the following spring. This tree forms the entire food of the caterpillar, and seems almost exclusively its own; for while other trees and vegetables nourish myriads of insects, the mulberry tree is seldom attacked by any but this insect, which in many parts of its native country, China, inhabits the leaves in the open air, and goes through all its changes without any attention from man. ”

“ The mulberry tree that ripens when cherries are ripe has a value in the fact that every mulberry eaten by a bird saves a cherry and the birds are valuable because they destroy insects that cause the worms in cherries. ”

“ The Mazzards, of which there are many, and some of them wild in the Eastern States, are counted inferior seedlings of the species avium, and are tall, large trees, the fruit being small and rather acrid and colors various. The Mahaleb is a European type with a smaller tree, fruit inferior to the Mazzards, and used as a root under soil and climatic conditions under which the Mazzard is not hardy and vigorous. Neither of the kinds are worth considering for their fruit. ”

“ The mulberry-trees form the genus morus—for this was the name by which they were known to the ancient Greeks. Of this genus there are several well-known species. No doubt there may be other species growing in wild countries, and yet unknown or undescribed by botanists ”

“ After sunrise, we met many droves of camels laden with melons. It was the time of the melon harvest. Every step we advanced, we found the land firmer and richer. The long fibrous roots of the marram-grass had bound the sands together, and made a bed for shrubs of many kinds, but all were thorny and prickly. A few evergreen oaks and thorny bushes enlivened the desert-like scene. We drew near to a narrow winding river. ”

“ While the patridge was swaying to and fro before the fire, Malaeska gathered a handful of chestnut-leaves and wove them together in a sort of mat; upon this cool nest she laid the bird, and carved it with a pretty poniard which William's father had given her in his first wooing; then she made a leaf-cup, and, going to a little spring which she had discovered, filled it with crystal water. So, upon the flowering turf, with wild birds serenading them, and the winds floating softly by, the mother and boy took their first regular meal in the forest. William was delighted ”

“ In the west places of the soile, wormewood growes very plentifully; whereas in the south part they plant it in their garden.
The soile of Malmesbury hundred, which is stone-brash and clay, and the earth vitriolish, produces excellent okes, which seem to delight in a vitriolate soile, and where iron oare is. The clay and stones doe hinder the water from sinking down, whereby the surface of the earth becomes dropsicall, and beares mosse and herbs naturall to such moist ground. In the ploughed fields is plenty of yarrow ”

“ They gather the leaves with their hands, put them in baskets, and give them to their sheep and cows. They appear, indeed, to be the chief food of these animals for many months in the autumn and beginning of winter. The entire absence of rain during the long hot summer burns up what grass may have been on the ground in the spring and early part of the summer, but the mulberry trees, which have much care taken of them, and watered, when it can be done, by [199] a channel from a stream, or by the hand, retain their greenness, and serve the important purpose of food for the cattle. ”

“ To the south-west is a rank clay, that requires the labour of years to render it mellow; while the gardens to the north-east, and small enclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling mould, called black malm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal manure ”

“ It was carried with music and dancing to the scene of the harvest-supper, which was called the mell-supper.510 In the north of Yorkshire [pg 152] the mell-sheaf “was frequently made of such dimensions as to be a heavy load for a man, and, within a few years comparatively, was proposed as the prize to be won in a race of old women. In other cases it was carefully preserved and set up in some conspicuous place in the farmhouse.”511 Where the last sheaf of corn cut was called the kirn or kern instead of the mell, the customs concerned with it seem to have been essentially similar. ”