Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/22

16 NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. vi. jn.r 7,1900. modern comedies he was placed beyond the reach of praise or censure :— Tread lightly here—for though no marble weeps, "Tis sacred ground—beneath, a Poet sleeps ! Spare flattery now, it cannot charm his ear ; But give the silent tribute of a tear !— Lamented Tobin! F. E. MANLEY. Stoke Nowington. In the last chapter but one of 'David Harum,' a novel by the late Edward Noyes Westcott, there is mention of a Villa Volante at Naples. Possibly the villa took its name from the fact that it was perched up 500 feet above the city. ARTHUR MAYALL. "BLENKARD" (8th S. vi. 89, 398, 473 ; x. 116, 160 ; 9th S. v. 402).—A "blinkard " is a person who blinks or has bad eyes. Would not the word, transferred from the person to a coarse, heady wine, merely be a cant term for any strong cheap wine, calculated to make one blink ? Similarly " humming ale " was applied to any potent malt liquor, and wine " of one ear" to good wine. See the 'E.D.D.,' s.v. ' Blinkard,' and the ' H.E.D.,' s.v. the suffix "ard," as in "drunkard," "sluggard " &c. J. HOLDEN MAcMlCHAEL. DELAGOA AND ALOOA (9th S. v. 336, 424).— CANON TAYLOR'S statement that "in Por- tuguese padron means 'the stone pillar'" is incorrect in at least two particulars. In the first place, padron is Spanish, not Portu- guese ; and in the second place, a padrfio, in the special sense of a commemorative pillar (for the word has several meanings in Portu- guese), need not necessarily have been of stone. With regard to the origin of the name Algoa Bay, I quote the following from Mr. Ravenstein's admirable edition of 'A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Garaa' (Hakluyt Soc.), p. 221 :— " Our present Lagoa [sjcl Bay seems originally to have been called ' Bay of the Bock." Subsequently it became known as Bahia dos lobes (Seal Bay) and Bahia de lagoa (Lagoon Bay), perhaps after the Rio da lagoa (Lagoon River), which figures very promi- nently on Dr. Hamy's and Cantmo's Charts, and almost seems to represent the Rio de Infante in the case of the former. "The Kosuga River, which is closed at its mouth, and forms a lake-like expansion at the back of the dunes, seems to correspond more nearly with the conditions required. Several other rivers, to the east and nest of it, present the same feature, and these may have given rise to the designation ' Praia das alagoas,' i.e.. Shore of Lagoons." DONALD FERGUSON. Croydon. INFECTIOUS DISEASE AMONG CATTLE (9th S, v. 33S).—The disease among horned cattle to which your correspondent refers swept over the greater part of England and caused im- mense loss ; but I fear we have no means of estimating, even approximately, the nu m her of animals that died. This pestilence was sairl •a have arisen, or been introduced hero, about the year 1745. It was probably of the same character as that from which the herds of the British farmer suffered so severely up- wards of thirty years ago. The following contemporary memorandum relating to the ravages of this disease in the. parish of Hibaldstow, near Brigg, may be of interest to W. B. and others :— " Towards the latter end of the year 1747, About the begining of the month of March, 1747 [i.e.., 1748], began at Hibaldstow Grange that most fatal Dis- temper amongst the Horned Cattle (vulgarly called Beasts) which swept away in the parish of Hibald- stow between the fore end of March, as aforesaid, and about Lammas following. Anno 1748, to the number of 388 of the Horn'd Cattle. John Lacy 31 James Kemp 1 George Kitchin 6 John Barkworth, Sonr 13 Joseph Saunderson 30 Robert Dent 24 William Middleton 1 Mary Brumby 4 Robert Little, Sen' 21 George Cutbirt 2 Richard Ellison 3 John Little 31 Sarah Driffill 5 William Crowder 17 Henry York 1 John Barkworth, Junr 1 Robert Wright 5 Kdmund Cross 4 John Carr 60 Thomas Ellsome 4 Esther Steejier 1 Edward Watson 6 Isaac Emerson 11 John Scupholme 2 Robert Aston 1 John Frankish 10 George Nettleship 4 Thomas Hunt 3 William Sharp 9 Edward Moody 5 William Smith 1 Thomas Atkinson 1 William Shearlock 2 Robert Little, Jun' 19 John Coupland 12 William Little 32 Thomas Wright 4 The Town's Bull 1 Lost in all the said destemper ... 388 Besides this number here expressed 2 Cows nf John Coupland, which was lost in the summer next before that this great Mortality happened, in the said Parish of Hibaldstow' : which was most assuredly believ'd to be the said Distemper, which was not as then known to us: Yet the said Dis- temper, hod raged very Fatal in the Southern and