UMBRELLAS.

PUNT FISHING.

5) HE great fishermen of our day—unless they
#| be great in bulk, when they are likely to
prefer a quiet seat mid-stream, or on the
bank, and let the river flow to them,
instead of having to pursue its windings,
rod in hand, over stones and ditches—the great fishermen
of our day, I believe, despise punt fishing. Your stalwart
salmon killer, ready to leap, skip, run, plunge into the
water in the exigencies of the long process which some-
times has to be gone through before a fish can be landed,
smiles at the placid content of the holiday-making
angler, who, with hamper of good cheer at his elbow,
takes his seat in a Windsor chair, that suggests the
sanded parlour of a public-house, and calls his interest in
the bobbing float, sport. Well, certainly it is not sport
of that athletic kind which is so fashionable now, but it
is recreation ; and the catching of fish from a punt is not
always an inevitable certainty. There are sometimes a

good many conditions to be fulfilled before a man can get |

into his boat and be pretty sure of landing a creel of fish.
‘The spot, the weather, the bait, the tackle, have to be
considered.

I grant you that if you are aided by a really con-
scientious attendant who knows the water well, and are
properly equipped with a suitable rod and line, and the
right worms, paste, or what not, you may probably
secure a store of what you seek to catch, if the day be a
propitious cne, without much hard-earned skill. But
there is punt fishing of various kinds. Let us not, how-
ever, sneer at the simplest, even when you do sit in a
chair and have your hook baited for you. ’Tis a pleasant
day, away, perhaps, from the bustling streets. The roar
of traffic is replaced by the soft sliding and ripple of the
stream around your boat, and you get some eight hours
of real rest. You are too tired to take violent exercise.
You want fresh air, quietude, and a change, say from the
stale monotony of the office or the shop. Go for a quiet
day’s punt fishing, and don’t be made ashamed by the
lively crities who would snigger at your arm-chair,
hamper, and repose.

UMBRELLAS.

(T is difficult to imagine an Englishman
without an umbrella. The fickle climate
of his country is reason enough for its
constant use, but besides this it helps him
to dispose of his hands, which, when un-
employed, are very embarrassing appendages. Turn
over the pages of any photographic album and you will
be pretty sure to find that an umbrella is associated with
nearly every male portrait, taking the place of the pillar
and curtain which fifty years ago occupied the back
ground in nine pictures out of ten. And yet there was a
+ime—and that not very remote—when umbrellas were
unknown in our land. Mr. Thomas Wright has, indeed,
discovered an ancient drawing which represents a Saxon
thane walking beneath a shade, held over him by an
attendant, but this must have been an isolated instance,
and does not contradict the fact that an article, now of
universal adoption, was exceptionally slow in commending
| itself to our forefathers. It had been employed for cen-
turies in eastern countries, and formed in China, India,
Egypt, and Assyria part of the insignia, if not of royalty

Ne

301

itself, at any rate of the highest class. In the Ninevite
sculptures it is never represented as borne over any other
person than the king; and the old Mahratta princes who
reigned at Poonah and Sattara rejoiced in the title of
“Lords of the umbrella.” As something (it is not very
clear what) was symbolized by the umbrella, we may
understand the importance with which it was invested in
oriental eyes, but it is not so easy to account for the
prominent place which was given to it in the sumptuary
laws drawn up for the Cape Colony, by Governor Ryk
Van Tulbagh in 1752. Itis there ordered ‘‘ That no one
less in rank than a junior merchant or those among the
citizens of equal rank,and the wives and daughters of
those only who are or haye been members of any council,
shall venture to use umbrellas.” And again, “ That those
who are less in rank than merchants shall not enter the
castle in fine weather with an open umbrella.” Perhaps
the Dutch governor had visited Japan, and had there
become imbued with the national reverence for an emblem,
of the significance of which he was wholly ignorant.

In England, however, there is no mystery attaching to
the umbrella. We have borrowed the word and the
article itself from Italy, altering both in some slight
degree, in order to naturalize them more effectually.
Thus we say “umbrella,” instead of “ombrello,” and we
apply the word exclusively to a portable defence against
rain or snow, whereas in Italy it occupies much more the
place which we have assigned to what we designate the
parasol. The Germans, by the way, are far more happy
in word-building than we are. Instead of borrowing the
words from two distinct languages, as we have done, they
make use of the very intelligible compounds, “ Regen-
schirm” (rain-screen), and “Sonnenschirm” (sun-screen),
to signify the two closely-allied articles. But after all
there is something to be said in favour of the English
method of constructing a language, for, as in the case
before us, with us words very often contain within them-
selves their own history. ‘ Umbrella” suggests at once
the source from which it came, and if we look in one of
the most curious books in our language—‘ Coryate’s
Crudities hastily gobbled up in Five Months’ Travel”

| (1611)—we shall find one of the earliest references to the

article. After describing other things which he observed
in Italy, he goes on to say, “many of them doe carry
fine things that will cost at least a duckat, which they
commonly call in the Italian tongue umbrelloes, that is,
things that minister shadow unto them for shelter against
the scorching heate of the sunne. These are made of
leather, something answerable to the forme of a little
cannopy and hooped in the inside with divers little
wooden hoopes that extend the umbrella in a prety large
compasse. They are used especially by horsemen, who
carry them in their hands when they ride, fastening the
end of the handle upon one of their thighs, and they
impart so large a shadow unto them, that it keepeth the
heate of the sunne from the upper parts of their bodies.”

It will be observed that the only use to which um-
brellas were put at this date was for defence against the
rays of the sun, and their adaptation to other purposes
was certainly much more recent. Throughout the English
literature of the seventeenth century there are to be found
occasional references to umbrellas, but they were evidently

by no means common and of dimensions which forbade |

their general employment. Thus they seem at first to
have been kept at taverns, coffee-houses, and in the halls