loaf bread would quickly turn sour, or be rendered | grains adhere, and of the dust with which any may be unpleasant by the absorption of its moisture. With this mingled, and which is sifted with much care. cause concur the habits of life which continue to indicate the common origin of the various tribes of people who inhabit the countries between the Indus and Mediterranean; for such is the wonderful tenacity with which ancient habits are retained in the East, that in one state of society we frequently find the usages of another, more early and rude, persisted in. Four thousand years ago, when the hospitable patriarch wished to place some refreshment before those who appeared to him as travellers in haste, he directed bread to be baked, and a calf to be killed and dressed for their entertainment. Hospitality would still be exhibited in the same form under similar circumstances; and, in any circumstances, as little delay would occur in the preparation of food, although it had as many processes to go through.

The very primitive process of grinding the corn is less varied than that of threshing. It is performed by the means of two small circular mill-stones. The lowermost stone is immoveable when in use; but the uppermost being turned round by a wooden handle or pin, the corn between the two surfaces is ground, and the meal falling out at the edges, is received in a cloth, while the mill is continually replenished through a hole in the upper stone. This labour is generally performed in the early morning by the women of the household, They sit upon the ground, commonly two to a mill, the lower part of which is held between their legs. As the upper stone is whirled round, the women beguile their labours by singing, at the top of their voices, certain songs which seem almost appropriated to this service, The simultaneous noise of grinding and singing in an Oriental city warns the indolent that it is time to rise; and the absence of such sounds is noticed in the Old

The various modes in which the grain is disengaged from the ear, reduced to meal, and made into bread, are all so different from our own, that one who has wit-Testament as a mark of desolation. This mode of grindnessed what he describes is led to think a connected view of the subject will not be unacceptable to the readers of the 'Penny Magazine.'

ing by women, with the tuneful accompaniment, is by
no means confined to Asia. The same practice has been
observed in Lapland; and Pennant not only notices
something very similar in Scotland, but gives an en-
graving which very well represents the Oriental pro-
cess. It is the same in Africa. Many readers will
remember the pathetic incident in the travels of Park,
in which some African women having taken him, when
ready to perish, to their homes, beguiled their labours
by an extempore song lamenting his destitute condition.
That he had "no wife to grind his corn," was the
burden and climax of their song. A verse of Mrs. Bar-
bauld's version may be given :-

"Unhappy man, how hard his lot;
Far from his friends-perchance forgot
As thus he sits forlorn!
He boasts no mother to prepare

The fresh-drawn milk, with tender care,--
No wife to grind his corn!"

So much corn is generally ground every morning as
will serve the family for the day; and after the grinding
the process of baking immediately commences.

In or near villages there are usually inclosed threshing floors, perfectly level, and laid over with a compost of clay and cow-dung, to prevent gravel and earth from being mingled with the grain. But generally, as it would be inconvenient to take the sheaves from the fields to the villages to be threshed, the husbandman seeks out some level spot on his grounds, to which the produce of the harvest is conveyed on the backs of his various cattle. At this place a portion of the corn in the ear is laid out in a circle of about a hundred paces in circumference, seven or eight feet wide, and from fifteen inches to two feet in height. When it is thus disposed, there are various methods of obtaining a separation of the grain from the ear,-all of them more expeditious though less cleanly than ours. It is often effected by simple treading. Oxen, and sometimes other cattle, are tied two or three together, and driven around upon the circle. As this exercise greatly fatigues them, they are frequently relieved. In some parts oxen are employed to draw a stone cylinder over the corn; The oven is usually built of clay, and generally inand, in the western parts of Asiatic Turkey, a plank or clines in shape to a cone, being about three feet high, frame of wood, the lower surface of which is roughened and much wider at the bottom than the top, where with sharp stones, is the implement in use. But, in there is an opening of more than a foot in diameter; Persia and the eastern parts of Turkey, they have a and near the bottom there is another hole for the conframe-work, to which is attached two or three revolving venience of introducing fuel and withdrawing ashes. cylinders of wood, bristled with spikes of different There are portable ovens of this kind, made of stout lengths, and which may not unaptly be compared to the earthenware, one of which is usually planted in the barrel of an organ. These teeth punch out the grain forecastle of the vessels navigating the Tigris, and in with considerable effect, and chop and crush the straw which bread is baked every day. In Kourdistan and at the same time. On the platform of this sufficiently Armenia, the general construction, which resembles a clumsy machine sits a man who whips on the cattle, lime-kiln, is in the main preserved, but with this differgenerally a couple of oxen,-which in all these pro-ence, that the oven, instead of being raised above the cesses have a beam laid over their necks. Men are ground, is dug in it, and is made to serve, besides, all always in attendance with wooden forks, which have the usual purposes of a fire-place. The oven is heated often many teeth spreading out like a fan, to keep the with wood; and when it is burnt down to clear embers, ears properly distributed, and to withdraw, into the which lie at the bottom and long continue to afford clear centre of the circle, the straw on the surface which much heat, the dough is prepared in a large wooden appears to have been sufficiently threshed. When the bowl, and portions are successively moulded into the grain seems completely disengaged, it is thrown up with form of thick round cakes on a board or stone near the spades against the wind, so that the separated grain, oven. These, when flattened out to about the size of a the chaff, and the uncrushed ears fall at different dis- breakfast-saucer, the woman takes up and tosses about tances. The latter are thrown by among the material on her arms, with surprising dexterity and quickness, till of the next layer. When one layer has been threshed, it becomes no thicker than a pancake, and forms a circle and the grain removed, the straw which had been with- of a foot in diameter, or an oblong of a foot and a half drawn into the central space, is replaced in the ring, in length. When the cake is brought to the requisite thinand driven over to be crushed and chopped for the use ness, one side is wetted with water as well as the hand of the cattle, whose food is composed of barley and and arm by which it is introduced into the oven. chopped straw, as they use neither hay nor oats in the wet side, by an operation which requires much tact with East. The process of threshing concludes with the a piece of dough of such tenuity and extent, is stuck careful collection of the clods of earth to which any against the side of the oven, where it adheres until per

Ва

The

fectly baked, when, if not properly attended to, it would
fall into the hot embers at the bottom; and, if prema-
turely removed, cannot again be attached. Its timely
removal becomes therefore an operation requiring much
judgment and care.
If the introduction and removal
of the cakes were not rapidly performed, the heat of the
oven is generally so great that the arms and hands of
the woman would be much injured. But such is the
facility acquired by habit in all these operations, from
the tossing of the cake to its final removal from the
oven, that one woman finds no difficulty in attending
to the baking of five or six cakes at once, at the same
time preparing others to replace those withdrawn. The
baking takes about five minutes, or less, according to
the heat of the oven. The women pride themselves
greatly on skill in these operations; and among the
Arabs, Kourds, Armenians, and the Eelauts of Persia,
the reputation of being a skilful maker of bread power-
fully recommends a young woman to the attention of
those who are desirous to marry.

The bread made in the manner we have described varies according to the prevailing taste in different parts. It is sometimes rather thin and crisp; but more generally flexible and moist-often, indeed, changed but slightly from the state of dough. In about twenty-four hours it becomes very hard, and cannot well be used without previous soaking in water; consequently bread is only baked or bought for the occasions of the current day. This bread is not generally liked by Europeans, and the writer felt no small satisfaction in finding at Erzeroom, all the way from thence to the Black Sea, and at Constantinople, this pancake-bread superseded by loaves which are baked in ovens not much unlike our own. This change probably arose from the circumstance that the colder climate enabled the people to have bread which might be kept longer than a single day. It is common in that part of the country to see a large loaf of brown bread in the shop windows, slices from which, sold by weight, the poor people purchase as their wants require.

Besides the ovens before described, there is a much simpler process of preparing the cake-bread, which we first had occasion to notice as performed by a poor Eelaut woman near the river Eraskh in Azerbijan, before the door of a hut, about six feet square, formed of mats and sticks. A convex plate of sheet-iron was supported, about five inches from the ground, by stones with the convexity upwards. This plate was heated by a slow fire underneath, and the thin cakes of dough were laid upon it and baked, less expeditiously, but we thought far more conveniently and cleanly, than by the other processes, in which particles of the clay, with which the oven is built or lined, are often brought away with the bread.

There is a mode different from any of those mentioned, by which a thin bread or biscuit is prepared, not thicker than a wafer, and which, being very crisp and dry, keeps much longer than any of the breads described. A thin paste is prepared, like that which we use in making puddings, and it is poured out and spread upon the outer surface of a portable oven of metal, stone, or earthenware. It is immediately consolidated by the heat, and baked in a moment.

The Dodo.-Mr. Reinagle, the eminent artist, has sent us a letter confirmatory of the existence of the Dodo, of which an account was given in the 75th Number of the 'Penny Magazine.' Mr. R. states, that while he was, for several years, engaged in the study of zoology, he had frequent occasion to hold discussions with Dr. Shaw of the British Museum, and with Messrs. Parkinson, on subjects in zoology of rare existence. He was on one occasion invited to spend a whole day with Dr. S. at the Museum, where he amused himself with a general examination of

the numerous objects of natural history, unstuffed birds, animals, and reptiles, which were heaped together in the then lumber-room. After turning over a vast pile, he iscovered the head and beak, with the short thick legs, of a bird, which instantly struck him to be those of the Dodo. Mr. R. immediately ran with the relics to Dr. Shaw, who in the end concurred with him in considering the remains as those of the Dodo, the existence of which seemed to them no longer questionable. Mr. R. has not been able to learn what became of the fragments, but they ought still to be somewhere in the British Museum.

THE VAIN REGRET.

OH! had I nursed, when I was young,
The lessons of my father's tongue,
(The deep laborious thoughts he drew
From all he saw and others knew,)
I might have been-ah, me!
Thrice sager than I e'er shall be.
For what saith Time?
Alas! he only shows the truth
Of all that I was told in youth!

The thoughts now budding in my brain,→
The wisdom I have bought with pain,-
The knowledge of life's brevity,-
Frail friendship-false philosophy,
And all that issues out of woe,
Methinks, were taught me long ago!
Then what says Time?
Alas! he but brings back the truth
Of all I heard (and lost) in youth!
Truths! hardly learn'd and lately brought
From many a far forgotten scene!
Had I but listen'd, as ought,

To your voices, sage,—serene,
Oh! what might I not have been
In the realms of thought!

BARRY CORNWALL's English Songs.

THE AURORA OF GUIDO. THE celebrated Aurora of Guido adorns one of the ceilings of the Palazzo Rospigliosi at Rome. The picture is painted in what may be called a middle manner, between the extremes of the two styles which this great artist practised at different periods of his life. Guido is chiefly known in this country by a style of silvery brightness, which he was led to adopt, less by any natural predisposition towards it than by a desire to obtain novelty, by a mode of practice directly contrasted to the dark and forcible manner of Caravaggio, which had acquired great popularity, and which he had begun by imitating. In all that relates to composition, character, and expression, the Aurora must rank among Guido's finest performances. The general conception is in the highest degree poetical; the figure of Apollo unites grace with dignity; and that of Aurora, flying before him and strewing flowers upon the earth, seems buoyant as the morning breeze itself. It may be objected to many of Guido's figures, however admirable in other respects, that their action is artificial, and even theatrical. The present composition is, however, entirely free from that defect: the action of the Hours is playful and simple, and the expression of their faces is admirably sweet and natural. The general vivacity of the effect is finely attempered by the still, broad, and brilliant light which surrounds the Apollo, and by the serene and silent aspect of the lower part of the picture, in which the earth and ocean seem just awakening beneath the dawn of day.

The great merits of this work,-those of poetic conception and beautiful character,-are attempted to be given, however inadequately, in our engraving.

The picture itself is not one of Guido's happiest efforts of colouring. The hues of the draperies are toe violently contrasted, and the sky presents a uniform mass of deep blue, the unpleasant effect of which, howe ever, has probably been heightened, or altogether occa sioned, by injudicious reparation,

TRADE WITH AMERICA.

PREVIOUS to the war which ended in the independence of the United States, that country was supplied from England with most articles which were required for domestic comfort or household decoration. Although the industry and skill of the Americans have subsequently been exerted on home manufactures as substitutes for these foreign commodities, yet such has been the growing prosperity of both countries since that period, that the average annual amount of the exports from England to the United States of America, is now much more than quadruple what it was between the years 1750 and

1760.

The official value of the medium annual exports to the whole of the Americas, both North and South, between the years 1749 and 1755, was 2,001,6901.; between the years 1784 and 1792, 5,605,6261.; in 1930, 21,117,0147. For the United States alone the exports from this country, in 1830, were 8,236,6771.; and if to this amount be added 2,619,562., the value of the exports, in the same year, to the British possessions in North America, the value will be 10,856,2391. This amount is nearly equal to the 10,915,778. which was the total amount of exports from England, in 1760, to all parts of the world except India and China: the value of the exports to the latter places only amounted to 736,359!.

The almost entire dependence of the British North American Colonies upon the parent country, for a supply of almost every article of commerce and luxury, is curiously illustrated, by an order sent to Glasgow for supplies for General Washington's family, in the general's own hand-writing, and dated the 20th of September, 1759*. We think this document will be found of interest, not only as illustrating the character of some part of our trade with America at the early period to which we have alluded, and as showing the relative position of the two countries with regard to arts and manufactures previous to their dismemberment, but as exhibiting a great public character interesting himself in family arrangements, and in the minute details of private life. It will be remembered that with the same hand, which, on this occasion, penned an order for a ribbon to adorn his wife, and barley-sugar for his children, he had a few years after to sign the treaty of peace, whereby the independence of his country was fully recognised.

Prussia--these all to be of the same size in order to fill up broken pediments over doors, and not to exceed 15 inches in height or 10 inches in width; Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough, of somewhat smaller size than the above; sundry small ornaments for a chimney-piece that is 6 feet long and 8 inches broad; 100 lbs. of white biscuit; 2 lanterns; various cloths (as specified), with buttons and threads, enough to make up into clothing; 40 yards coarse jean or fustian for summer frocks for negro servants; I piece dowlass at 10d.; dozen pair coarse strong thread hose for negro servants; 450 ells Osnaburgh; 350 yards Kendal cotton; 100 yards Dutch blankets; 20 lbs. brown thread; 20 sacks of salt; a large quantity of different kinds of nails (specified); 2 dozen best staples; sets of cooper's and joiner's tools; 5 lbs. white sugar-candy; 10 lbs. brown ditto; 1 lb. barley-sugar; a large quantity of drugs and horse medicines of different sorts (specified)."

MONKEYS AT GIBRALTAR.

(From a Correspondent.)

WHEN I was at Gibraltar, the most amusing creatures in the garrison were the wild monkeys that ran about in great numbers on the face of that remarkable rock. As they were constantly seen, they were frequently the subject of conversation. People used to wonder where they came from, as they are not found in the neighbouring mountains of Spain, nor indeed, in their wild state, in any other part of Europe; and it was equally matter of surprise how they lived on a bare rock that produced nothing but scorpions, lizards, a few black snakes, and, here and there, some dried up and diminutive shrubs that looked as sapless as the rock itself. The soldiers and common people, indeed, accounted for all this in a manner perfectly simple and satisfactory to themselves, by assuming, as a certainty, that the celebrated Saint Michael's Cave, which has a mouth or entrance near the summit of the Rock of Gibraltar, and which penetrates to a depth that nobody as yet has been able to ascertain, is continued under the bed of the sea all across the Straits which separate the rock from Africa, and has a corresponding mouth on Mount Abyla, or "Apes' Hill," (as the African mountain is popularly called,) which is just opposite, and abounds with monkeys of precisely the same description. I felt it, however, rather difficult to conceive this double cavern and this connecting tunnel, which must be some sixteen miles long even if it ran in a perfectly straight line, or that the monkeys (supposing such a communication to exist between Europe and Africa) could have used it as a road by which to emigrate; or (another thing included in their theory) that the monkeys continued constantly to use it, going to and fro for their supplies of provisions, &c.

2 beaver hats, plain, each to cost a guinea; 1 swordbelt of red morocco leather or buff,- Ñ.B., no buckles er rings; 4 lbs. of ivory blacking; 2 best two-bladed knives; 1 ream of paper; 2 flowered lawn aprons; 2 pair woman's white silk hose; 6 pair fine cotton ditto; 4 pair thread ditto; I pair black and I pair white satin shoes of the smallest sizes; 6 pair woman's best kid gloves; 6 pair ditto mittens; I black mask; 1 dozen most fashionable pocket handkerchiefs; 2 pair neat small scissors; 1 lb. sewing silk, shaded; 4 pieces binding tape; 19 M. pins (different sizes); 3 lbs. Scotch snuff; It is not so amusing, but more natural, to suppose 3 lbs. best violet Strasburgh; 1 piece white satin ribbon, that, when the Moors invaded Spain from the opposite pearl edge; 1 case of pickles; I large Cheshire cheese; coast and settled in Gibraltar, some monkeys were 4 lbs. green tea; 10 gross best corks; 1 hhd. best brought over with them; or that, at a more recent porter; 10 loaves of double and 10 of single refined period, when the Spaniards, among other possessions sugar; 3 snaffle bridles; 9 best girths; 25 lbs. brown in Africa, held Ceuta, in the neighbourhood of Apes' soap; 2 dozen packs playing cards; 2 sacks best Eng-Hill, that they sent some monkeys to the garrison; then lish oats; 1 dozen painter's brushes; 12 best hand padlocks; 18 bell-glasses for garden; more chair bottoms, such as were wrote for in a former invoice; 1 more window-curtain and cornice; busts of copper enamel or glazed, viz., of Julius Cæsar, of Alexander the Great, of Charles XII. of Sweden, and another of the King of

that some of these cunning creatures escaped, and taking refuge in the inaccessible cliffs and caverns which compose so great a part of the rock of Gibraltar, propagated their species at liberty, and laid the foundation of the now numerous and flourishing colony. The all but isolated position of Gibraltar, which is joined to the main land by a low, narrow isthmus of sea-sand, which, at no very remote period, has evidently been under water, may account for their remaining confined to that rock and not extending into Spain.

In whatever manner they may have come, there they

are, and, as I have said before, in great numbers. On
my walks to the upper part and the back of the Rock,
which were very frequent in the summer evenings,-
I scarcely ever returned without having seen many
of them. Sometimes going quietly along, and turning
the corner of a rock, I would come suddenly on
a large party, seated in a circle like neighbours met
together for the pleasure of an evening gossip. The
rapidity with which they would decamp on such oc-
casions, and the easy way in which they climbed up the
steepest rocks, were astonishing. All that I had seen of
the gambols of a captive monkey in England was as
nothing compared with the feats of these free denizens.
They would never stop or make any noise until they
reached a position where it was impossible for man to
follow them; but when once there in safety, they would
face about, mew and chatter, and make the strangest
grimaces, as if mocking me. If I threw stones at them,
they would draw themselves into holes or shelter them
selves behind some projection of the rock. After the
flight of the stone they would re-appear, and scream
and make faces anew; but as soon as they saw me
stoop to pick up another stone, or raise my hand to
throw one I might have already in it, they would again
withdraw to their defences as quick as thought. Once,
and only once, I succeeded in hitting a sturdy old fellow
that seemed the patriarch of the tribe; he set up a
curious, shrill, wild cry, which was echoed by his
companions, and the next moment they all crossed a
nigher ridge of the rock, which in many places is nar-
rower than a camel's back, and took refuge in the lofty
perpendicular cliffs that rise above Catalan Bay. They
seemed to be exceedingly gregarious. I do not re-
member having ever met with them except in rather
large parties.

several days. On these occasions great numbers of them are to be seen; as the monkeys, for shelter, always cross the ridges of the rock and come to its front, or western and more accessible face. Meantime a dirtygrey cloud, or haze, gathers round the summits of the rock and rests motionless upon them, while everywhere else the atmosphere is clear. Now, in local parlance, "Old Gib has got his night-cap on," and whenever this is the case, and the monkeys are all to the west," Gibraltar is a sad place to abide in. I have felt the famed sirocco wind in all its violence on the coast of Sicily and at Malta, but never suffered half so much from it as from the stifling easterly winds at Gibraltar.

'

In my time, the soldiers of the garrison used to say that the monkeys hated the sight of a red coat, and often threw or rolled stones down upon them as they were standing sentinel at the sides of the rock. If they did so, it was only fair retaliation, for the soldiers (particularly the new comers and young recruits) made it one of their principal amusements to hunt and annoy, and lay snares for the poor monkeys.

It is scarcely necessary to describe the Gibraltar monkey, as it is the same as the Barbary species, which is one of those most frequently exhibited in our streets by the strolling Italian boys. The size of the body is about equal to that of an Isle of Skye terrier,-perhaps rather larger. The colour is a sort of dirty fawn. It has no tail. The species is supposed to be found only in Barbary, Gibraltar, and Egypt.

EXPENDITURE OF A GREAT ABBEY IN ANCIENT

TIMES.

THE Harleian Manuscript, No. 647, in the British Museum, gives precise information concerning the weekly as well as annual expenditure of the Abbey of St. Edmondsbury in the 14th year of Edward I. It presents an account of the 11 chaplains, the nuns of Thetford. and visitors to the necessaries required to support 80 monks, 111 serving-men, monastery. It opens with an account of the weekly charges of the bakehouse and brewery :-164 seams (that is. quarters) and 2 bushels of wheat, at 5s. the seam, 47. 38No9d.; 124 seams of barley malt, at 4. per seam, 50s.; 32 seams of oaten malt, at 3s. the seam, 47. 168.; wages of the servants in the brewery and bakehouse, each week, 4s. 44d.; fuel, 26s. 8d. The total of weekly charge, 13. 91d., giving an

annual total of 678/. 1s 2d.

In the earlier part of my residence in the garrison,— in the months of May and June,-I used often to surprise these monkey parties when they had their young ones with them. These were the most interesting circumstances under which the animals could be seen. Their maternal affection was exemplary. The moment they were surprised, the old ones would take up each her little one on her back and so scamper up the rocks, never stopping, as at other times, to chatter and make faces, but running on until far beyond sight or reach. They carried their young precisely in the fashion which school boys call pick-a-back. However they might be surprised and close pressed, they never forgot their offspring in their own safety, or retired from the spot without their little ones. On one occasion I saw the curiosity and turn for imitation, which are so cha racteristic of all their tribe, very amusingly exemplified. The telegraph, which is situated on one of the loftiest points of the rock, was busily at work, announcing the approach of some ships from the Atlantic. On a ridge of the rock, at a short distance, a party of about a dozen monkeys had assembled; they sat all with their faces turned towards the signal-house, as though they under-pended on flesh, fish, eggs, cheese and other minor articles, stood, or were trying to understand, the mystic signs; and every now and then, as the arms of the telegraph swayed up and down, some of them waved their arms in the same manner, as if mimicking or repeating the

motion of the machine.

Some of these animals are always to be seen on the front of the rock; but their favourite resorts and strongholds are at the back of the rock, which, except for a few hundred feet on turning Europa Point at the south, and a much shorter space by Catalan Bay at the north, consists of towering cliffs which drop almost perpendicularly into the Mediterranean, and afford no footing to man either from above or below. From this place of safety they are, however, frequently driven by the levanters, or strong easterly gales, which beat against the back of the rock with furious violence, and sometimes continue for

Exclusive of this charge for the monastery, there is a separate account in the bakehouse and brewery for the abbot; the revenues of the abbot and convent, in all the greater monasteries, being kept separate, and the estates for the support of each detached from the other. The weekly expenditure in the abbot's department comes so near in amount (117. 58. 9d.) to that for the convent generally, that it seems necessary to add the remark that, as a parliamentary baron, the albot was obliged to maintain a farge retinue: he had his town residence and his country seats, and all the visitors to the monastery who held rank in society were necessarily his guests.

In the kitchen of the monastery, 107. per week was ex

making a total annual expenditure under this head of 5:07, besides the purveyance of the celarer, which consisted chiefly in the provision for Lent, du ing the continuance of of pulse for gruel, 328.; for 6 seams of beans, 30s.: honey, which his expenditure was for herrings, 251.; for 4 seams 6s. 8d.; nuts, 138. 4d.; salt, 668. 8d.; 42 seams of peas, for pottage through the year, 11.; total annual expense in the cellarer's department, 437 8s. 8d Here the abbot's portion comes in again; the weekly expenditure of which was. 6 carcasses and three quarters of oxen, at 4s. the ox, 278.; 15 porkers and a half, at 3s. the porker, 45s. 6d. : 31 geese, at 2d. each, 5s. 2d.; 155 hens, at id. each, 12s. 114. 47. 158. 7d., making an annual t.tal, exclusive of fuel, of 5681. The weekly expenditure in the abbot's kitchen amounted to 48. 3d. The annual cost of fuel for the kitchen, to both the abbot and the convent, was 30. A charge of 60%, then comes for the provender of the horses of the prior, cellarer, and hospitaller; and another 60%. is charged for pittances.