Calumet

“ An Indian child baiting warriors caught the attention of the old braves. They scanned him so closely that they saw the calumet at which he pointed. They hastened to throw down their bows and arrows in token of submission to the peace pipe. Magic calumet!
Anthony did not enjoy the visit which followed nor the meetings with other inhabitants of this group of villages. He had a constant desire to look behind him. There was often a queer weakness in his knees. He wanted to keep his curly scalp close to the white eagle feathers. ”

“ In most of these conveyances the thongs are tied across one way only, from short pole to short pole, forming a ladder-like arrangement.
Fig. 175.—Travois ready for camping outfit.
Fig. 176.—Different parts of straw calumet.
Fig. 177.—Calumet finished.
A chief must always have his
[119]
Calumet,
or "pipe of peace," to smoke and pass around the council circle, when all the leaders of the different tribes meet to talk over important matters concerning the welfare of their people. Real calumets are generally large and of goodly length, some of them being four feet long. ”

“ Another impulse moved Calumet. He decided to have a talk with the man in order to learn, if possible, something of the life his father had led during his absence. He kicked his pony in the ribs and rode toward the man, the animal traveling at a slow chop-trot. ”

“ Mystery seemed to awaken and fill the world. The sky blazed with color—orange and gold and violet; a veil of rose and amethyst descended and stretched to the horizons, enveloping the mountains in a misty haze; purple shafts shot from distant canyons, mingling with the brighter colors—gleaming, shimmering, ever-changing. Over the desert the colors were even more wonderful, the mystery deeper, the lure more appealing. But Calumet made a grimace at it all, it seemed to mock him.
He rose from the rock, mounted his pony, and rode slowly down into the valley toward the Lazy Y ranch buildings. ”

“ The lighted calumet is also used among them for a purpose still more interesting than the expression of social friendship. The austere manners of the Indians forbid any appearance of gallantry between the sexes in day-time; but at night the young lover goes a calumetting, as his courtship is called. As these people live in a state of equality, and without fear of internal violence or theft in their own tribes, they leave their doors open by night as well as by day. The lover takes advantage of this liberty, lights his calumet, enters the cabin of his mistress, and gently presents it to her. ”

“ The Cayugas form a village of one hundred and twenty warriors. Their device generally is a very large Calumet, 120 The Senecas form two villages, in which are three hundred and fifty men. Their device is a big Mountain, 350 Besides the arms of each village, each tribe has its own, and every man has his particular mark to designate him. ”

“ Like all inhabitants of vast plains, the Kalmucks have exceedingly keen sight. An hour after sunset they can still distinguish a camel at a distance of three miles or more. Very often when I perceived nothing but a point barely visible on the horizon, they clearly made out a horseman armed with his lance and gun. They have also an extraordinary faculty for wending their way through their pathless wildernesses. Without the least apparent mark to guide them, they traverse hundreds of miles with their flocks, without ever wandering from the right course. ”

“ Khalid replied: "There is no other way, if we are to fetch a compass round the Greeks and not let them cut us off from succouring our friends." So he ordered the leader of each company to take water for five days, and to deprive a sufficient number of the best camels of water, and then let them drink once and again until they could hold no more. Next they must tie up the camels' ears and bind their lips so that they should not ruminate. So haply might the water last. At each stage across the wilderness, ten such camels were slain for each troop of a hundred lances. ”

“ It there attaches its grape-like eggs to some convenient stone or growing alga, and delights occasionally to sink to the bottom, and there to rest half covered by the sand, a habit for which the form of its body is well adapted. But the calamaries—they of the horny pen—prefer the wide waters of the open ocean; and although they, too, especially the smaller species, are common upon the coasts, they are frequently met with far out at sea, and away from any land. ”

“ In the mean time, Claud, in swimming over a sunken rock, luckily gained a foothold, which enabled him to rise and plunge forward again with redoubled speed; and, so well-timed and powerful were his exertions, that he came within reach of the stern of the fugitive canoe just as it was whirling round sideways in the reflux of the waves caused by the water dashing against a high rock standing partly in the current. It was a moment of life or death, both to the man and maiden ”

“ A slender-growing species of calamus was very common in the low forest below the cave, and it supplied “rattans” of excellent quality for tying up our plants. At least three showy species of cœlogyne grow on the rocks and mossy banks here, at 9,000 feet elevation; and a dainty little plant with reddish pseudo-bulbs in clusters, each bearing a single spathulate dark green leaf, is common. ”

“ The stem of the largest living species rarely exceeds half-an-inch in diameter, whilst that of the calamite attained a thickness of five inches. But the great point which is noticeable in the fossil calamites and equisetites is that they grew to a far greater height than any similar plant now living, sometimes being as much as eight feet high. In the nature of their stems, too, they exhibited a more highly organised arrangement than their living representatives, having, according to Dr Williamson, a "fistular pith, an exogenous woody stem, and a thick smooth bark." ”

“ The Indian flint factory at the Clackamas River suggests a large population, and Cathlamet was always a greater city of the dead than of the living. Between the Elokomon and the Skamokawa the sloughs were lined with the burial canoes of the dead, and as only distinguished men were so buried, this stood for a very large population, probably greater than that of the Bella- Bella Indian Village in British Columbia. These canoe burials were ancient to say the least. ”

“ When the water was fit to drink, I went and thrust my head in amongst the camels to drink with them; a Moor permitted me to drink out of his leather bucket, for we had not stopped to unpack calabashes, which were our usual drinking vessels. To the east of these wells, where the ground is lowest, we saw the ruins of some houses built of bricks of white clay; they are almost buried in the sand which the wind drives over them: further on in the same direction, there is a great deal of white-veined earth like that with which these houses were constructed ”

“ Caleb insisted, vigorously; but he now rushed away on his bewildered camel, because he wanted to warn the priest-custodian of the pyramids that there were great lords approaching.
“Caleb is wrong,” said Thrasyllus, as the three camels stepped along sedately, among the gigantic Libyans and shouting Arabs, while Caleb tore fantastically over the sands. “The black pyramid yonder is really not the tomb of Cleopatra. ”

“ The "calamus" followed the "brush," just as
phonographic writing which denotes arbitrary sounds or the language of symbols, came after the picture or ideographic writing.
The places where the calamus grew and the modes of preparing them are variously discussed by different ancient and modern writers. Some claim that the best reeds for pen purposes formerly grew near Memphis on the Nile, near Cnidus of Caria, in Asia Minor, and in Armenia. Those grown in Italy were estimated to have been of but poor quality. ”

“ A ludicrous misadventure that befel our dragoman, Anthony, amused us a good deal. Curiosity prompting him to ride a camel, he asked one of the Kalmucks to lend him his beast, and the request being complied with, he bestrode the saddle, pleased with the novelty of the experiment, and quite at a loss to know why the Cossacks and camel-drivers laughed among themselves as he mounted. But as soon as the beast began to move, a change came over his face, and he speedily began to bawl out for help. The fact is, one must be almost a Kalmuck to be able to endure the trotting of a camel ”

“ The faces of many of them, male and female, are perfect specimens of black beauty. They are generally called by the race the Kaulo Camloes, the Black Comelies. And here, though at the risk of being thought digressive, the writer cannot forbear saying that the darkest and at one time the comeliest of all the Caumlies, a celebrated fortune-teller, and an old friend of his, lately expired in a certain old town, after attaining an age which was something wonderful. ”

“ As our material increases it will be possible to further simplify the nomenclature for Calamarian plants, but it is unwise to allow our desire for a simpler terminology to lead us into proposals which are based rather on suppositions than on established fact. If it were possible to discriminate between pith-casts of stems having the different anatomical characters designated by the three sub-genera, Arthropitys, Arthrodendron and Calamodendron, the genus Calamites might be used in a much narrower and probably more natural sense than that which we have adopted. ”

“ In Calamites, Calamodendron, and Asterophyllites the scars of the branchlets or leaves are circular or oval, with only a single vascular « 158 » scar, and situated in verticils at the top of well-marked nodes of the stem.
In tree-ferns the leaf-bases are large and usually without a distinct articulating surface. The vascular bundles are numerous. Protopteris has rounded leaf-scars with a large horseshoe-shaped bundle of vessels above and small bundles below. Caulopteris has large elliptic or oval leaf-scars with vascular scars disposed concentrically. ”

“ The camels are so well acquainted with the desert that, as soon as they are loaded, they take, as if by instinct, the northern course. It would seem that they are guided by the recollection of the springs of water which are found in that direction. I really believe that a traveller, though alone, might safely trust himself to the guidance of his camel. ”

“ The exceptionally favourable conditions under which specimens of calamitean plants have been preserved, have enabled us to become almost as familiar with the minute structure of their stems and roots, as well as with their spore-producing organs, as with those of a living species. In short, it is thoroughly established that Calamites agrees in most essential respects with our well known Equisetum, and must be included in the same order, or at least sub-class, as the recent genus of Equisetaceae. ”

“ Caoilte asked news of him. "I am steward to the King of Ireland," said the old man, "and it is from him I hold this land. And we have great troubles on us in this district," he said. "What troubles are those?" said Caoilte. "I have many herds of cattle," he said, "and every year at Samhain time, a woman comes out of the hill of the Sidhe of Cruachan and brings away nine of the best out of every herd. And as to my name, I am Bairnech, son of Carbh of Collamair of Bregia." ”

“ The calamine has hitherto been worked in a very imperfect manner: the vein is broken into, when it meets the surface; a rough windlass is placed over the hole, and a bucket is attached to a few fathoms of rope; two or three men work at the vein as long as the ore is found in abundance, or until the water impedes their progress. ”

“ Here is a calabash that has a Magic in it. It has an axe in it also that you can use. And here is food that will last for the longest voyage. It is a leaf, but if you put it to your lips it will take away your hunger and your thirst. I give you my skirt of feathers also; the touch of it will bring death to your enemies.” Then his mo-o grandmother left him, and Au-ke-le was upon the sea-shore with a calabash that had Magic in it, [48] with the leaves that stayed his hunger and his thirst, and with the skirt of feathers that would destroy his enemies. ”

“ This Caliban, Prospero found in the woods, a strange misshapen thing, far less human in form than an ape: he took him home to his cell, and taught him to speak; and Prospero would have been very kind to him, but the bad nature which Caliban inherited from his mother Sycorax, would not let him learn any thing good or useful: therefore he was employed like a slave, to fetch wood, and do the most laborious offices; and Ariel had the charge of compelling him to these services. ”

“ The Calamite is another plant in which the Coal abounds. Its true botanical character is not yet clearly ascertained; but it bears a general resemblance, except for its gigantic 192 dimensions, to the common Horse-tail of our swamps and marshy grounds. It is a reed-like, jointed stem, sometimes thirty feet in length, hollow within, and curiously jointed without. ”

“ The mule is tricked out with as many feathers, rosettes, tufts, bells, and as much fringe as it is possible to fasten to the harness of any quadruped in existence. A calesin generally contains a manola, and a female friend as well as her manolo, not to mention a bunch of muchachos hanging on behind. All this flies along with the speed of lightning in the midst of a whirlwind of cries and dust. There are also carriages with four or five mules. ”

“ Our camels were always chained by the feet, and the chain secured by a padlock, lest they should wander in the night, or be liable to be stolen and carried off. Musing then upon the geographical difficulties just mentioned, and gazing before me, without any particular intention or suspicion, I heard the chain of the camels clink, as if somebody was unloosing them, and then, at the end of the gleam made by the fire, I saw distinctly a man pass swiftly by, stooping as he went along, his face almost to the ground. ”