Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/324

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. 11. OCT. i, im.

I should say it is not used for proper swimming, but merely as a float to allow people to cross rivers dn times of flood, when they are convenient for .passing over small loads, such as parcels, postbags, >&c., which would hardly be possible were the carrier to swim in the ordinary way.

2. A mussuk is made of a goat or buffalo calf s skin, which is taken off whole, but the legs are cut off about the knees, and are tied up so that the neck is the only open part.

3. The management of a mussuk requires a cer- tain amount of skill, but I am unable to say how 'long it would take to learn the manipulation of it. As with many other things in India, mussuks are 'most generally only used by people living on the banks of rivers, whose hereditary occupation is fishing and boating, &c., and so the use of the

mussuk comes to them from their infancy almost as soon as they learn to walk, so that it may be said it 4s never learnt.

4. The people who use the mussuk also know how to swim, and they only use it as a support to ease themselves in crossing broad rivers.

5. I doubt if people who cannot swim make regular use of mussuks, but most Indian people of the inferior castes swim very well, particularly those living near big rivers.

6 and 7. I believe the mussuk is inflated with the mouth, as, to my knowledge, they have no special appliance for the purpose. I have never seen a mussuk inflated ; they certainly are not inflated or kept blown out while crossing a river, as shown in Assyrian sculptures.

I take it that mussuks are only used to support a swimmer in going a long distance, as in crossing a river. Other similar means of floating are (a) by means of a cot supported on hollow gourds ; (b) by means of leather bags tied round the edge to a hoop, like the coracle of the ancient Britons ; (c) by means of an empty sugar-pan ; and (d) in Assam by means of a raft made from the stems of the wild plantain tied together.

Perhaps the cot arrangement (a) is the most nearly allied to swimming, and it is managed thus : A common string bedstead called a charpon (four legs) is brought out, and two large bundles of hollow gourds fastened to the string part of it. The cot is then turned over and put in the water, the legs then uppermost, and the passenger takes his seat on a box on the under side of the strings, and two or four men, with one arm round the legs, swim away with it to the opposite side, keeping as direct a course as they can. When the current is strong, they cross the river in a diagonal line, and may land a mile or two down stream. In this way, with these bundles of gourds, carts and animals cross over, only in this case no cot is used, the gourds being fixed on in convenient positions, so that the load may get as little wet as possible.

The coracle arrangement is used, I think, only in the rivers of Southern India.

Another means of floating in use by the fishermen on the Indus is to rest the stomach on the mouth of a specially made earthen pot, into which the fish are put as they are caught. But this again is floating, not swimming, though the art of floating in this way is, I believe, very difficult to attain by any one who is not born to it. Mussuk floating is often practised, and that successfully, by Europeans as a pastime in a large swimming-bath.

J. R. SANDFORD.

Coonoor, 22 Sept., 1901

The only piece about this aid that I have come across is from * Voyage dans PEmpire Othoman, 1'Egypte, et la Perse,' par G. A. Olivier. 1807, vol. iii p. 452 :

" Tout le terns que nous fumes campes sur les bords de 1'Euphrate, nous vimes passer au milieu du fleuve des families arabes qui allaient faire leur moisson. Le mari, la fern me et les enfans etaient appuyes sur des outres enflees, et se lassaient emporter par le courant ; ils nageaient des pieds et de 1'une ou 1'autre main lorsqu'ils voulaient accelerer leur marche, ou se diriger a droite ou a gauche. Les enfans a la mamelle, et ceux qui n'avaient pas encore la force et 1'adresse d'aller seuls, etaient lies sur les epaules de la femme ou sur celles de I'homme. Nous avons vu jusqu'a sept enfans suivre de cette maniere leur parens. Les provisions pour le voyage Etaient enferme'es dans 1'une des outres, et les vetemens Etaient lies autour de la tete."

Further on he says (p. 453) there is no crocodile or dangerous fish in the Euphrates.

I hope the above will enable the next editor of a dictionary to give some descrip- tion. I regret to see, however, that such editors dp not always avail themselves of the information in ' N. & O.,' for the superstition about the costs in the Thellussqn case, which I exposed in 8 th S. xii. 489, is still repeated in the last edition of Haydn's * Dictionary of Dates.' Knowing how badly such com- pilations pay, and the great difficulty of altering stereotyped books, I do not feel inclined to make any severe remarks on the subject'. KALPH THOMAS.

ANOTHER HEUSKARIAN RARITY. A year ago *N. &Q.' (9 th S. xii. 285) published my announcement of the discovery, in the Stadt- Bibliothek at Hamburg, of a thitherto un- known hymn-book in Labourdin Baskish. 1 had the luck to discover in a tavern at Legaspia, in the province of Guipuzcoa, on 20 August, an equally unknown catechism in the Biscayan dialect. The tabernero who sold it to me stated that only two days previously he had destroyed some still earlier books in Baskish. What treasures may have thus perished ! The modern Basks do not appre- ciate their old books, and many similar cases of vandalism have been brought to my notice. The book is complete and well preserved, consisting of 114 pages. Its title, in nineteen lines, runs thus :