ENTERTAINING VARIETIES. $43 



original story. M. de Gubernatis does not see them in this light, but regards 

 them as something highly mythical, and as signifying that the white cat was the 

 moon, and became the dawn. So in iEsop's fable of the cat-woman, that the 

 bride went to bed must mean that " the evening aurora sinks into night." " The 

 Italians describe an empty house by saying, ' There was not even a cat there.' 

 But do they mean that the house is deserted, even by the home-loving, domestic 

 puss ? Nothing so commonplace. The proverb is derived from the sun entering the 

 night, where he finds nothing, or ' only the cat moon.' Black cats are not black 

 cats, but they are the moonless night. ' The cat in the bag of the proverb has 

 probably a diabolical allusion ! ' When a German invalid sees two cats fight, he 

 thinks it a bad omen. "Why ? Because, in M. de Gubernatis's opinion, the cats 

 'represent, perhaps, night and twilight.' It seems to be held that men take no 

 interest in anything except so far as it may be considered a symbol of night or 

 light. When monies parturiunt, and nascitur ridiculus mas (the mountains labor 

 and a ridiculous mouse is born), the reference is not to the immensity of the la- 

 bor and the minute results. Oh, no ; ' from the mountain came forth the mice of 

 night, the shadows of the night, to which the cat moon and cat twilight give 

 chase.' . . . ' When the cat's away the mice will play.' What does this mean? 

 It means that ' the shadows of night dance when the moon is absent,' which is 

 precisely what they do not do. ISTo moon, no shadows, still less any shadow- 

 dance. The most ordinary truths of experience are not only set aside, but re- 

 versed, by the method of M. de Gubernatis, a method from which not even poor 

 puss has escaped." 



Baron von Nordenskiold, in his "Voyage of the Vega," gives a pleas- 

 ant account of the domestic life of the Chukches, the tribe that inhabits the 

 northeasternmost part of Asia. "Within the family," he says, " the most remark- 

 able unanimity prevails, so that we never heard a hard word exchanged, either 

 between man and wife, parents and children, or between the married pair who 

 own the tent and the unmarried who occasionally live in it. The power of the 

 woman appears to be very great. In making the more important bargains, even 

 about weapons and hunting implements, she is as a rule consulted, and her 

 advice is taken. A number of things which form women's tools she can barter 

 away 'on her own responsibility, or in any other way employ as she pleases. 

 When the man has by barter procured a piece of cloth, tobacco, sugar, or such 

 like, he generally hands it over to his wife to keep. The children are neither 

 chastised nor scolded ; they are, however, the best behaved I have ever seen. 

 Their behavior in the tent is equal to that of the best brought- up European 

 in the parlor. They are not, perhaps, so wild as ours, but are addicted to games 

 which closely resemble those common among us in the country. Playthings are 

 also in use, for instance dolls, bows, windmills with two sails, etc. If the parents 

 get any delicacy they always give each of their children a bit, and there is never 

 any quarrel as to the size of each child's portion. If a piece of sugar is given to 

 one of the children in a crowd, it goes from mouth to mouth round the whole 

 company. In the same way the child offers its father and mother a taste of the 

 bit of sugar or piece of bread it has got. Even in childhood the Chukches are 

 exceedingly patient. A girl who fell down from the ship's stair, head foremost, 

 and thus got so violent a blow that she was almost deprived of hearing, scarcely 

 nttered a cry. A boy, three or four years of age, much rolled up in furs, who 

 fell down into a ditch cut in the ice on the ship's deck, and in consequence of 

 his inconvenient dress could not get up, lay quietly still until he was observed 

 and helped by one of he crew." 



