648 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 218. 



eldest son William, and one daughter, assisting 

 Mrs. Allan in the management. The son William 

 IS an experienced blaster, and occupies himself in 

 excavations and improvements ; the daughter, a 

 brunette, is a first-rate shot, and a girl of extraor- 

 dinary spirit and gaiety. She is the Grace Dar- 

 ling of the neighbourhood, and both her and her 

 mother have saved many lives by their dexterity 

 in boating and extraordinary courage. Peter 

 himself was a bold, determined, and honest man, 

 fond of a joke, and passionately devoted to bees, 

 birds, pigs, and dogs, many of whom (pigs espe- 

 cially) used to follow him to Shields and Sunder- 

 land, when he went thither. After twenty-two 

 years' possession of the caverns, the proprietor of 

 the adjoining land served him with a process of 

 ejectment ; Peter refused to leave the habitation 

 which he had formed by twenty years' unremitting 

 toil, and which he had actually won from the sea, 

 without encroachment on an inch of the mainland. 

 After a tedious law-suit, judgment was given in 

 his favour, but he had to pay costs. The anxieties 

 of this lawsuit broke his heart, and he never re- 

 covered either health or spirits. He died on the 

 31st of August, 1849, in the 51st year of his age, 

 leaving his wife and eight children to lament him. 

 He was buried in Whitburn churchyard, and 

 over his grave was placed a stone with the in- 

 scription : 



" The Lord is my rock and my salvation." 



Numerous memorials of Peter exist at the grotto, 

 and in the neighbourhood of Marsden. Particu- 

 lars of these and other matters touching this ro- 

 mantic history, may be obtained in No. 2. of 

 Summer Excursions to the North, published by 

 Ward, of Newcastle ; and in a paper entitled A 

 Visit to Marsden Rocks, contrlbvited by myself to 

 the People's Illustrated Journal, No. XIV. 



Shiklet Hibbebd. 



" COULD WE WITH INK, ETC. 



(Vol. vIH., pp. 127. 180. 422.) 



I think that your well-read correspondent J. 

 W. Thomas will agree with me that the honafide 

 authorship of the beautiful lines alluded to must 

 be ascertained, not by a single expression, but by 

 the whole of the charming poem. The striking ex- 

 pression of Mohammed, quoted by J. W. Thomas, 

 is quite common amongst the Easterns even at 

 the present day. I remember, when at INIalta, in 

 March, 1848, whilst walking in company of the 

 most accomplished Arabian of the day, the con- 

 versation turned upon a certain individual who 

 had since acquired a most unenviable notoriety in 

 the annals of British jurisprudence, my companion 

 abruptly turned upon me, whilst at the shore of 

 the Mediterranean, and said, in his fascinating 



Arabic, " Behold this great sea ! were all its water 

 turned into Ink, it would be insufficient to describe 

 the villany of the individual you speak of." 



Eabbi lilaylr ben Isaac's poem corresponds not 

 merely In a single expression, but in every one. 

 The Chaldee hymn has the ink and ocean, parch- 

 ment and heavens, stalks and quills, mankind and 

 scribes, &c. Pray do me the favour to insert the 

 original lines. I assure you that they are well 

 worthy of a place in " N. & Q." Here they are : 



: Nn-itJ'^jp >p hy\ »»^ -i^x r"? 

 { \^r\^&\ 'ips^'ni nan xy-iN n^."i 



Moses Margoliouth. 

 Wybunbury. 



In the Des Knahen Wmiderhorn there is some- 

 thing of the same idea, though not quite to the 

 same purpose : 



" Und wenii der Himmel papyrige war, 

 Und e jede Sterne Seliryber war, 

 Und jedere Seliryber hat slebesiebe Hand, 

 Ei schriebe doch alii mlr Liebi Kesend ! 

 Dursli und Babeli." 



G. H. R. 



what day is it at our antipodes ? 

 (Vol. vlii., p. 102.) 



This question was asked by H., and at p. 479. 

 an answer to it was undertaken by Este. But, 

 probably from over-anxiety to be very brief, Este 

 was betrayed into a most strange and unaccountable 

 misstatement, which ought to be set right before 

 the conclusion of the volume ; since, if correctness 

 be generally desirable In all communications to 

 " N. & Q.," it is absolutely Indispensable in pro- 

 fessed answers to required Information. Este 

 says : 



" A person sailing to our Antipodes westward will 

 lose twelve hours ; by sailing thither eastward he will 

 gain twelve hours." 



This Is quite correct. But if one person lose 

 twelve, and another gain twelve, the manifest dif- 

 ference between them is twenty-four ; and yet 

 Este goes on to say : 



" If both meet together at the same hour, say eleven 

 o'clock, the one will reckon 1 1 a.m., the other 1 1 p.m." 



This is the misstatement. No two persons, by 

 any correct system of reckoning, could arrive at 

 a result which would imply a physical impossi- 

 bility ; and it is needless to say that the concur- 

 rence of A.M. and P.M. at the same time and place 

 would come under that designation. What Este 

 should have said is, that both persons meeting 



