A STKANGE TRADITION. 203 



and modellers in wax, when depicting the horrors of a martyr- 

 dom, or moulding the yet more repulsive tokens of corruption. 



A certain sort of martyrdom and things not very remote 

 from corruption are, indeed, involved in our present topic, 

 which we shall proceed, therefore, to treat, as we have said, in 

 a manner as anti-Dutch as consists with accuracy ; employing, 

 to throw over its most ugly features, a softening veil of badinage. 



What's coming now ? queries a timid or fastidious reader, 

 alarmed at our chapter-head, or preface. Why, only some- 

 thing certain somethings resembling or allied to certain other 

 somethings of the same description, recorded to have 



" Once on a royal plate dropped down." 



Now your inquiry is answered, if you have ever read the 

 courtly epic of our courtly Pindar. 



To begin with the beginning the origin of insect vermin. 

 There is given by a certain traveller* the following curious 

 tradition, as preserved amongst a sect of Kurds who dwelt at 

 the foot of Mount Sindshar : 



"When Noah's ark sprang a leak by striking against a 

 rock in the vicinity of Mount Sindshar, and Noah despaired 

 altogether of safety, the serpent promised to help him out of 

 his mishap, if he would engage .to feed him upon human flesh 

 after the Deluge had subsided. Noah pledged himself to do 

 so ; and the serpent, coiling himself up, drove his body into 



* Eulia, quoted in tho ' Mirror.' 



