158 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



may be gathered, so as to serve the purpose well, quite on to 

 autumn. It would be needless to add that the largest and 

 longest are best. Decayed labourers, women, and children, 

 make it their business to procure and prepare them. As soon 

 as they are cut they must be flung into water, and kept there ; 

 for otherwise they will dry and shrink, and the peel will not run. 

 At first a person would find it no easy matter to divest a rush of 

 it's peel or rind, so as to leave one regular, narrow, even rib from 

 top to bottom that may support the pith : but this, like other 

 feats, soon becomes familiar even to children ; and we have seen 

 an old woman, stone-blind, performing this business with great 

 dispatch, and seldom failing to strip them with the nicest 

 regularity. When these junci are thus far prepared, they must 

 lie out on the grass to be bleached, and take the dew for some 

 nights, and afterwards be dried in the sun. 



Some address is required in dipping these rushes in the scalding 

 fat or grease ; but this knack also is to be attained by practice. 

 The careful wife of an industrious Hampshire labourer obtains all 

 her fat for nothing ; for she saves the scummings of her bacon-pot 

 for this use ; and, if the grease abounds with salt, she causes the 

 salt to precipitate to the bottom, by setting the scummings in a 

 warm oven. Where hogs are not much in use, and especially by 

 the sea-side, the coarser animal-oils will come very cheap. A 

 pound of common grease may be procured for four pence ; and 

 about six pounds of grease will dip a pound of rushes ; and one 

 pound of rushes may be bought for one shilling : so that a pound 

 of rushes, medicated and ready for use, will cost three shillings. 

 If men that keep bees will mix a little wax with the grease, it 

 will give it a consistency, and render it more cleanly, and make 

 the rushes burn longer : mutton-suet would have the same effect. 



A good rush, which measured in length two feet four inches 

 and an half, being minuted, burnt only three minutes short of an 

 hour : and a rush still of greater length has been known to burn 

 one hour and a quarter. 



These rushes give a good clear light. Watch-lights (coated 

 with tallow), it is true, shed a dismal one, "darkness visible" ; 

 but then the wicks of those have two ribs of the rind, or peel, to 

 support the pith, while the wick of the dipped rush has but one. 

 The two ribs are intended to impede the progress of the flame 

 and make the candle last. 



In a pound of dry rushes, avoirdupois, which I caused to be 

 weighed and numbered, we found upwards of one thousand six 



