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British Sociability in the
European Enlightenment
Cultural Practices
and Personal Encounters

Edited by Sebastian Domsch · Mascha Hansen

British Sociability in the European Enlightenment
Sebastian Domsch • Mascha Hansen
Editors

British Sociability in
the European
Enlightenment
Cultural Practices and Personal Encounters
Editors
Sebastian Domsch Mascha Hansen
Greifswald, Germany Greifswald, Germany

ISBN 978-3-030-52566-8    ISBN 978-3-030-52567-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52567-5

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
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 Acknowledgements

As we finish this book, the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 keeps us home-­

bound and in search of new sociable practices. Future historians will have
a lot to say about how this crisis changed twenty-first century sociability—
for good, or temporarily? Virtual varieties of sociability have emerged over
the last decades, social media are an established feature of many friend-
ships, and video conferencing is not entirely new, either. However, friends
sharing a pint in front of the webcam while each in fact stays in their own
kitchen is still unusual. Once this is over, will we scramble to get back to
the pub-shared pint, or will the webcam be the new normal? Time will tell.
However, right now one feels grateful to a number of people not usually
given credit in academic volumes: all those who make it possible for us to
stay safely at home and still enjoy running water and food supplies—and
books: thank you.
This particular book enjoyed the support of many colleagues in the
fields of social history and literature: the GIS Sociabilités under Annick
Cossic and Valérie Capdeville, who initiated the Digital Encyclopedia of
British Enlightenment Sociability (DIGITENS), and more recently, the
EU-funded project led by Kimberley Page-Jones, the Digital Encyclopaedia
of European Sociability, going by the same acronym (see https://www.
univ-brest.fr/digitens/). The DIGITENS project has received funding
from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation pro-
gramme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no 823862.
A first conference on “Sociable Encounters” in Greifswald in the sum-
mer of 2018, funded by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach
Stiftung and the GIS Sociabilités, allowed us to debate some of the issues

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

now assembled in this volume. Particular thanks go to Dr Christian Suhm

of the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald, our conference’s
kind and competent host. In February 2020, Felix Schmid joined the edi-
tors of this volume as a student assistant, and a most valuable one he has
proved to be!

March 2020 Greifswald and Munich

 Contents

1 Introduction  1
Mascha Hansen

Part I Conceptualizing Sociability: Travel and Tourism  13

2 The Cham on the Seine: Dr Johnson in Paris (and Mrs

Thrale) 15
Allan Ingram

3 Enlightened Fratriotism: Boswell in Corsica, Paoli in

London 29
Sebastian Domsch

4 Communing with the Fictional Dead: Grave Tourism and

the Sentimental Novel 41
Helen Williams

5 Medicinal Sociability: British Bluestockings and the

Continental Spa 63
Mascha Hansen

vii
viii Contents

Part II Practicing Sociability: Conflict, Commerce, and

Cultural Transfer  85

6 Philip Thicknesse’s Sociable Encounters in France: The

Politics of Eccentricity 87
Annick Cossic-Péricarpin

7 Elizabeth Craven, Private Theatricals and Friedrich

Schiller’s The Robbers107
Susanne Schmid

8 “The English can’t waltz, never can, never will”: The

Politics of Waltzing in Romantic Britain127
Kimberley Page-Jones

9 Sociable Encounters in Model Commercial Letters147

Alain Kerhervé

Part III Fictionalizing Sociability: Conversation, Friendship

and Philosophy 163

10 ‘Musick in their Company’: (Per)Forming Friendship and

Early Enlightenment Sociability in Frances Brooke’s The
History of Lady Julia Mandeville165
Katrin Berndt

11 Robinson Crusoe: Speech, Conversation, Sociability187

Jakub Lipski

12 Reshaping the Leviathan: A Commonwealth Built around

Sociable Encounters in Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks203
Patrick Müller

13 Hume and de Maistre: Sociable Fundamentalism223

Michael Szczekalla

Index237
 Notes on Contributors

Katrin Berndt is Professor of English Literature and Culture at Martin-­

Luther-­University Halle-Wittenberg. She works on contemporary British
fiction, postcolonial writing, and the cultural poetics of Britain’s long
eighteenth century. Her publications include the monographs Female
Identity in Contemporary Zimbabwean Fiction (2005) and Narrating
Friendship in the British Novel, 1760–1830 (Routledge 2017).
Annick Cossic-Péricarpin holds an agrégation in English, has a doctor-
ate from the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III, and is Professor Emeritus of
English at the University of Western Brittany, France. She has written on
Christopher Anstey, Georgian Bath and eighteenth-century spas. Her
research interests have recently focused on models of sociability in Britain
and in France and she is Series Editor for Transversales (Paris: Le
Manuscrit), a bilingual collection dedicated to the subject, and
General Editor for DIGITENS, a digital encyclopaedia of British
Enlightenment sociability.
Sebastian Domsch Chair of Anglophone Literatures at the University of
Greifswald, is the author of The Emergence of Literary Criticism in 18th-­
Century Britain (2014) and co-editor of British and European
Romanticisms (2007) and Romantic Ambiguities: Abodes of the
Modern (2017).
Mascha Hansen Her research focuses on women in the long eighteenth
century; especially Frances Burney, the Bluestockings, Hester Thrale and
Queen Charlotte. She has published a monograph on Frances Burney in

ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

2004, and co-edited volumes on Great Expectations: Futurity in the Long

Eighteenth Century (Peter Lang, 2012) and “The First Wit of the Age”:
Essays on Swift and his Contemporaries in Honour of Hermann J. Real
(Peter Lang, 2013). Her particular interests range from women’s (life)
writings to their involvement in sociability, science and education. She is
part of the GIS Sociabilités and the DIGITENS project.
Allan Ingram is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of
Northumbria at Newcastle. He has published books on James Boswell, on
Swift and Pope, and on eighteenth-century insanity and its representation,
as well as edited collections of primary material on the relations between
insanity and medicine in the period. He edited Gulliver’s Travels for
Broadview Press (2012). Between 2006 and 2009 he was Director of
the Leverhulme Trust research project, ‘Before Depression,
1660–1800’, later Co-Director of a second Leverhulme Trust research
project, ‘Fashionable Diseases: Medicine, Literature and Culture,
1660–1830’ and is now Co-Director of a third Leverhulme Trust
project, Writing Doctors: Representation and Medical Personality ca.
1660–1832. His current work, which is connected with this project, is
on relations between Swift, Pope and the medical profession. He is
one of the editors of the English Association journal, English.
Alain Kerhervé is Professor of British Studies at the University of Western
Brittany, France, and Director of the research unit HCTI (Héritages et
Constructions dans le Texte et l’Image). His research focus is on the the-
ory and practice of letter-writing, and he has published edited collections
of The Correspondence of Mary Delany (1700–1788) and Francis North,
Lord Guilford (1704–1790) (Cambridge Scholars, 2009), The Ladies
Complete Letter-Writer (Cambridge Scholars, 2009), and The Memoirs of
the Court of George III, vol. 2 (Routledge, 2015). His recent work is con-
cerned with sociability: he co-founded the GIS Sociabilités together with
Annick Cossic and edited a volume on British Sociability in the Long
Eighteenth-Century (Boydell and Brewer, 2019) together with Valérie
Capdeville.
Jakub Lipski is an associate professor and the head of Anglophone
Literatures at Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland. He is the
author of In Quest of the Self: Masquerade and Travel in the
­Eighteenth-­Century Novel (Brill/Rodopi, 2014) and Painting the Novel:
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi

Pictorial Discourse in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (Routledge,

2018). He is the editor of Rewriting Crusoe: The Robinsonade across
Languages, Cultures, and Media (Bucknell University Press, 2020) and is
currently preparing a new edition of Robinson Crusoe for the Polish
National Library series.
Patrick Müller took his Ph.D. at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität
Münster with a thesis on Latitudinarianism and Didacticism in Eighteenth-­
Century Literature in 2007 (Peter Lang, 2009), and was part of the
Shaftesbury project at Friedrich Alexander-Universität, Erlangen-­
Nürnberg, for the next six years. In 2018, he edited a volume on Shaping
Enlightenment Politics: The Social and Political Impact of the First and
Third Earls of Shaftesbury (Peter Lang). He now works as a teacher of
English at the German Federal Office of Languages in Dresden.
Kimberley Page-Jones is senior lecturer at the University of Western
Brittany in France. Her research has focused on the practice of notebook
writing during the Romantic era and she has published a monograph on
the Notebooks of S.T. Coleridge: Energie et mélancolie: les entrelacs de
l’écriture dans les Notebooks de S.T. Coleridge (Grenoble: UGA, 2018). She
is part of the GIS Sociabilités and currently coordinating the H2020 proj-
ect called DIGITENS on European sociability in the long eighteenth-
century (2019–2021). Recently, she has co-edited La sociabilité en France
et en Grande-Bretagne au Siècle des Lumières: l’insociable sociabilité: résis-
tances et résilience (Paris: Editions Le Manuscrit, 2017) and Discours sur la
mer. Résistance des pratiques et des représentations (Rennes: PUR, 2020).
Her research work currently focuses on the political values attached to
sociable practices and their aesthetic representations in literature.
Susanne Schmid has taught at a range of universities in Germany, Britain,
and the US, among them Princeton, Salford, Freie Universität Berlin,
Frankfurt, Mainz, and Greifswald. Book publications include her award-­
winning Shelley’s German Afterlives: 1814–2000 and British Literary Salons
of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (both Palgrave
Macmillan). She coedited several collections: The Reception of
P. B. Shelley in Europe (Bloomsbury), Drink in the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries (Routledge), and Anglo-American Travelers and
the Hotel Experience (Routledge). Her most recent book is an edition
of Marguerite Blessington’s 1847 novel Marmaduke Herbert for the
Chawton House series (Routledge).
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Michael Szczekalla is a headmaster and also adjunct professor for English

Literature at the University of Greifswald. He took his doctorate at the
University of Münster in 1989. He has published monographs on Bacon
and Hume, and his numerous articles and reviews cover seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century English literature, historiography, and philoso-
phy. He has also written on Oscar Wilde, Ford Madox Ford, Aldous
Huxley, Anthony Burgess, Pat Barker, Malcolm Bradbury, Jennie Erdal,
Glyn Maxwell, and on the methodology of teaching.
Helen Williams is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Northumbria
University. She is the author of Laurence Sterne and the Eighteenth-Century
Book (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), co-editor of John
Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Broadview, 2018), and sits
on the editorial board of the Shandean journal. She is Principle
Investigator of the AHRC-funded ‘Sterne Digital Library’ project,
whose primary output is the open-access database Laurence Sterne and
Sterneana available through Cambridge Digital Library, a 2019 win-
ner of the British Academy Rising Star Engagement Awards, and
co-investigator of the Leverhulme-funded research project ‘Writing
Doctors’.
 List of Figures

Fig. 8.1 Thomas Wilson, An Analysis of Country Dancing, London:

W. Calvert, 1822, p. 65 (fig. 7) 132
Fig. 8.2 James Gillray, “Waltzer au Mouchoir” (1800), Hand-coloured
etching published by Hannah Humphrey, National Portrait
Gallery, London 138
Fig. 8.3 Edward Francis Burney, “The Waltz” (late eighteenth, early
nineteenth century), Watercolour drawing, Victoria and Albert
Museum, London 139
Fig. 9.1 Letter movements in Négociant universel (1799) 151
Fig. 9.2 Letter movements in Epistolae Commerciales (1779) 152
Fig. 9.3 Part of a war-time letter in Epistolae Commerciales (1779, 26) 154
Fig. 11.1 George Cruickshank, Crusoe and Poll the Parrot
in dialogue, 1831. (Photo: Phillip V. Allingham. Courtesy
of The Victorian Web) 193
Fig. 11.2 George Cruickshank, Crusoe and Friday encounter the
captain of a British ship whose crew have mutinied, 1831.
(Photo: Phillip V. Allingham. Courtesy of The Victorian Web) 199
Fig. 12.1 Detail from the emblem for The Moralists (1714/15) 209
Fig. 12.2 Detail from the Upper Border to the Frontispiece of the third
volume of Characteristicks214
Fig. 12.3 Detail from the Lower Border to the Frontispiece of the third
volume of Characteristicks215

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Mascha Hansen

Throughout the long eighteenth century, in Britain and all over Europe,
whether in the private, semi-public, or public sphere, through correspon-
dences or commerce, what may be termed sociable encounters took place
at an increasing rate: meetings, exchanges, negotiations, conversations or
friendships framed by the sociable practices of the day. ‘Encounter’ is a
term that has spawned its own literature, and within travel-related genres
usually refers to Europeans exploring and/or exploiting the cultural and
racial Other in remote parts of the world—remote, to be sure, only from
a European perspective (for a recent discussion, see Craciun and Terrall
2019). This book, by contrast, seeks to highlight the importance of
encounters between Britons and continental Europeans, moments when
not only people but also their different cultures and their varying sociable
practices got together. Individuals frequently felt torn between the convic-
tion of being basically of a similar kind, as Europeans whose frequent
meetings and exchanges had seemingly aligned social practices, and funda-
mentally different nevertheless, as nations who did things in quite distinct
ways, be it waltzing or writing or wrestling. Whether consciously or not,
continental sociabilities willy-nilly influenced British travellers—but in

M. Hansen (*)
Greifswald, Germany
e-mail: mascha.hansen@uni-greifswald.de

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
S. Domsch, M. Hansen (eds.), British Sociability in the European
Enlightenment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52567-5_1
2 M. HANSEN

turn, British tourists’ sociable interests also impacted on continental

spaces, generating the infrastructures to accommodate them, since—as
was frequently flagged up by critics of the practice in Britain—they brought
a lot of money into the countries they visited (see, for instance, Black
1999, 86). Money, indeed, cannot be kept out of a discussion of sociabil-
ity, as funds, high or low, facilitated or prevented private commerce and
travel, be it the purchase of a book or that of a passage to France.
Tourists, traders and even readers, with their varying social convictions
and cultural practices, met, traded, clashed and compromised, in fact as
well as in fiction, and their meetings more often than not eventually led to
cultural transfers that had in turn to be comprehended, negotiated and
finally encompassed by the individual within a larger social frame.
Encounters between private persons and professional groups served to
spread the sociable ideals of the Enlightenment, here taken in the sense
advanced by Roy Porter as based on instructive conviviality as well as prac-
tical results: “In Britain, at least, the Enlightenment was thus not just a
matter of pure epistemological breakthroughs; it was primarily the expres-
sion of new mental and moral values, new canons of taste, styles of socia-
bility and views of human nature” (2001, 14). All of these, we argue, had
an impact on the European Enlightenment, too, via the spreading of
British notions of sociability on the Continent through personal, practical,
and fictional encounters. Travellers as well as books, be they novels or
advice manuals, disseminated these new values, conveying the sense of a
modern taste for sociable encounters. Newly-found leisure contributed to
the vogue for foreign travel, as did the realization of the necessity of pro-
fessional exchanges despite, or perhaps because of, frequent political tur-
moil. Modern languages had become a matter of course in middle-class
education, and a thriving book market as well as circulation libraries made
European literature and travel advice manuals freely available to all.
A surge in tourism and private travels in the later eighteenth century,
lasting roughly until the French revolution and the subsequent wars made
travelling difficult, may have contributed to a (temporary) decline in xeno-
phobic reactions at home, possibly, as Jeremy Black has argued, because
Britain felt “politically and culturally more secure”, a security to which
economic factors certainly contributed but which also points to a new-­
found self-confidence (Black 1999, xiii). Travelling inevitably also led to a
change not only in the perceptions of those travelling but also in how they
were perceived by others, and Britons and their cultural practices were
“ridiculed, revered and emulated” in the rest of Europe, frequently at the
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

same time (Farr and Guégan 2013, 1). Some derision notwithstanding,
British travellers could generally count on the Anglophilia of at least the
Northern and Central European countries, on an “admiration for political
liberty and commercial and manufacturing progress” in Britain (Sweet
et al. 2017, 4), a fascination with the British way of life, and thus—this
volume argues—with British sociability. Conversely, while British liberty
and literature were admired or rejected, advanced or contested through-
out Europe, any actual sociable encounters would still have to cope with
national prejudices, patriotism and largely irrational feelings of superiority
on all sides. To some British travellers, however, the neighbouring
European countries hardly counted as foreign countries any more: “The
manners of nations who have so much intercourse with each other, have
very little variety”, the Bluestocking Elizabeth Carter deplored already in
1763 (Pennington 1807, 193), a claim with which Samuel Johnson would
have agreed. Nonetheless, on being abroad, both found much to puzzle
over, delight in, or disapprove of. Their letters are filled with comparisons
to England, and mostly, confidence and pride in their nation prevail.
Indeed, as critics have argued, many travellers came home “better-­
informed xenophobes” (Black 1999, 235), and it is certainly true that
British travellers by and large voiced a decided preference for their own
country. Yet this can be said of the travellers of other nations as well, and
many such statements were due to the relief of finally being back at home,
or even to homesickness while abroad. Back in Britain, once the strains of
travel had worn off, the fascination with other countries remained. This
volume, thus, is meant as another challenge to the “enduring trope” of
British travellers returning home “firmly embedded in the culture that
they had brought with them” (Sweet et al. 2017, 4), even if they them-
selves may have thought so (see also Barczewski 2013, 38).
This is not to say that British travellers, or even British readers, easily
adopted foreign ways, as contemporary critics feared: “there was relatively
little unthinking assumption of foreign customs, manners and mores”,
instead, there was a growing openness towards foreign cultural influences,
more willingness to accept other cultures on their own terms (Black 1999,
302). There were, in short, more frequent personal encounters between
the different nations, and paradoxically, while each individual encounter
may have served to foster prejudices, xenophobic reactions gradually
began to decline, and even to be replaced by curiosity. Over time, even the
favourite destinations on the Continent changed, and while going on a
Grand Tour to Italy was still a dream for some, costs and other
4 M. HANSEN

complications led many to prefer a less ardent route. This may have been
due to a more general shift in the goals of travelling, away from educa-
tional purposes towards leisure and pleasure, self-serving goals which no
longer needed defending. Journeys especially to Northern Europe, includ-
ing Britain, were undertaken in search of modernity rather than antiquity,
attracted by “contemporary power, society and culture” (Sweet et al.
2017, 5–6). Health had long been another reason for travel, and with the
amelioration of continental infrastructures, this goal seemed within reach,
or at least accessible, to British travellers in search of alleviations for their
sufferings. Last but not least, impecunious middle- and upper-class fami-
lies began to move abroad for a few months or even years to save on the
costs of living, or in some cases, avoid scandal, and these, too, would have
brought their own notions of contemporary sociability to the Continent.
Nonetheless, the concept of British sociability should not be stretched,
or contracted, into a uniform or homogeneous practice; neither should it
be taken for granted, as every British book or traveller of the time followed
their own preferences rather than a predetermined code of conduct. As
Michèle Cohen has pointed out, “sociability changed over time […] it was
a living practice” in which “apparently contradictory practices could co-­
exist without being antithetical” (2019, xv). Clearly, the spreading of a
new kind of sociability does not require everyone to follow suit, it just
needs a critical mass, or general awareness, to reach a state of widespread
acceptance and emulation to establish itself as the dominant mode of pro-
cedure in social situations. Politeness, for instance, served different pur-
poses at different times, and for different classes. Jeremy Black, for one,
has raised the interesting point of the connections between sociability and
morality: he questions the usefulness of the concept of politeness in the
context of the aristocratic Grand Tour’s frequent sexual encounters. Love
affairs, or sexual exploits, could be a dominant trope, related in rather
crude language, indeed in “a clear contrast to Addisonian restraint”, in
letters to friends rather than family back at home. Black continues:

Any stress on this politeness has to address the question as to how far it was
deliberately inculcated in order to cope with a very different culture. A self-­
image of politeness must be understood as a cultural artefact, a
socio-­
­ ideological aspiration designed to foster particular ends of moral
improvement. (Black 1999, 194)
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

Politeness is certainly a means of coping with a very different culture: to

facilitate encounters of whatever kind is the mandate of politeness, and
social usefulness the indicator any practical concept of politeness has to be
measured by. This is not to say that British sociability relied on politeness
alone, or that “moral improvement” of the limited sense implied here was
its main goal. On the contrary, morality and politeness were and often still
are at cross-purposes, especially in the area of the polite lie. Black is look-
ing at the kind of wealthy young men, those on the Grand Tour, for whose
moral example Richardson invented Sir Charles Grandison. For other
tourists, male or female, sexual exploitations would not have constituted
the basic excitement of travelling; instead, they actively employed and
adjusted their own standards of politeness in order to socialize successfully
with their European neighbours. Nonetheless, even a sexual liaison of the
kind described by Black counts as a cross-cultural encounter, outlining the
conditions of polite sociability each party relied on. One of the letters
detailing such a sexual encounter between a young aristocrat and a penni-
less Italian—possibly a servant as she is called “Ancilla” in the letters—
highlights the theatricality that is also part of sociability: the young man,
having left never to return but still keeping up the semblance of a corre-
spondence with his ‘beloved’, knows that she needs to move on to another
lover for financial reasons, and reflects on this to his friend: “I wrote her
however most violent letters for doing what I had tacitly consented to”
(quoted in Black 1999, 194), a stance no doubt taken in order to maintain
the fiction of a loving encounter between them, rather than admitting to
a heartless exchange of money for sexual favours. Indeed, Brian Cowan
raises the spectre of a “paradoxical juxtaposition” of politeness and liber-
tinage in the eighteenth century only to conclude that the progress of
both “went hand in hand” (2019, 19). Love and sex in any case were mat-
ters of sociability, too, relying on the same means of polite negotiation, or
cover-up, as other encounters: the young man is saving face here, his own
most prominently, but arguably also that of the woman, by politely pre-
tending that she has chosen to desert him rather than being compelled by
necessity to move on. Judged by any moral standards, this is inacceptable
behaviour, but from the point of view of social politeness, the young man
at least would not have considered himself wanting, whatever ‘Ancilla’
may have thought about the matter (if she was in love, she might have
preferred those insincere letters to a blunt cheque). Polite sociability relies
on a certain amount of adroitness, or even theatrical know-how, rather
than on sound moral principles. However, even the young nobleman’s
6 M. HANSEN

traditional Grand Tour was changing: Sarah Goldsmith speaks of the

“staggering effort devoted to socializing” (Goldsmith 2017, 67) by young
aristocrats in the later eighteenth century. These young men not only rep-
resented the British elite on tour, they also served to promote British ideas
of sociability abroad, and brought back their own accounts of social prac-
tices in other countries. This “social itinerary”, Goldsmith argues, should
not be confined to an educational frame but be linked to larger socio-­
political concerns of the time, though it did teach “vital skills in social
versatility” (70). Social customs and reactions to the political situation in
Europe were closely interrelated, then as now.
This volume, then, is meant to address a broad range of private and
public, touristic, commercial and even fictional meetings that led to a
meaningful exchange of opinions, and of practices of sociability, in Europe.
Drawing on recent publications such as Capdeville and Kerhervé’s innova-
tive British Sociability in the Long Eighteenth Century (2019), this book
takes the existence of a specific British variety of sociability as its vantage
point. Going beyond the English-French connections, we are interested in
debating how those sociable encounters played out in a European rather
than national frame. Even apart from clubs and coffee-houses, face-to-face
encounters took place—quite literally taking up some space somewhere—
in specific locations that also require further attention: whereas the polite
society of salons and debating rooms has received quite some consider-
ation by now (for recent work see e.g. Schmid 2013; Prendergast 2015;
Lilti 2007/2015), other places and other forms of spreading sociability
still need to be investigated. Most kinds of encounters require specific
spaces at least in the sense of material or physical requirements that have
to be met before an encounter can take place. Letters rely on ink and paper
as well as postal services, and may be read by others than those they are
addressed to, while European travel even then was largely based on a
newly emerging reliable infrastructure of coaches and ships, roads and
inns, all of which offered numerous opportunities for chance encounters.
Martin Farr and Xavier Guégan point out that the long-standing tradition
of British travelling abroad itself entailed the “export of British tourism
practices to Europe and beyond” (2013, 1). The notion of travel, and
especially that of tourism, in turn depends on its being defined as a “cul-
tural and political experience, generating images, dreams and promises of
alternatives to life at home” (2), and, we might add, of alternatives to local
modes of sociability.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

The essays in these volumes try to capture a broad variety of situations:

the everyday moment, the shifting attitude and explanation, the cultural
practice in the process of changing. They show that defining Britishness
against the social practices of other cultures is only one way of accepting
that those have inevitably already impacted on, and probably significantly
changed, individual British perceptions and practices, and that this process
can rarely be pinned down to particular events (or encounters).
Reciprocally, of course, the British left their own stamp on the places they
visited and people they met abroad, no matter whether these were local
servants they hired to interpret for them or urban spaces redesigned to suit
their conversational habits and tourist requirements. Given the demand
for British fiction abroad, the imaginary encounter may well have had a
comparable impact not only among British readers, but also among conti-
nental European markets keen on immediate translations of British novels,
plays, poems, histories, and philosophical treatises. The personal and fic-
tional experiences of the people and places mentioned in this volume thus
exemplify larger topics, such as the influence of specifically British practices
of sociability on sociable practices in the rest of Europe (or vice versa); the
reception, appropriation, or transfer of local and regional customs; the
expectations travellers brought to other countries concerning conversa-
tion and/or conviviality; the emergence of tourism as a practice of socia-
bility closely tied to the spreading of (fictionalized) travel accounts, and
travel writing as a means of literary production and consumption in Europe
throughout the long eighteenth century.
On a more practical level, this raises various questions: how did sociable
meetings between individuals of different cultures actually proceed, and
which meetings proved to be meaningful or influential in the long run (for
instance by being described in letters preserved for publication)? What was
the importance of gender in areas of sociability that go beyond those
notions of politeness in which women held sway, at least nominally? What
happened if sociability turned sour? Not all initially sociable encounters
ended in mutual understanding, let alone an advancement of politeness or
civilization. Failures in the expectation of finding sociability and explora-
tions of unsociable outcomes need to be explored as well: not for nothing
is the term “encounter”, which has no entry of its own in Samuel Johnson’s
Dictionary of the English Language (1755), made use of to explain the
sense of “affront” (s.v. ‘affront’, 95:3). Encounters can be hostile indeed,
and it is interesting to note the cultural rather than personal reasons why:
Another random document with
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A who a knock a Nana gate, bing beng beng?” 1

When de boy come, de king say “What you want?” An’ say, “I kill Ballinder Bull, Sir.” Hanansi come out.
(King says) “You’s a little liar! Little boy like you couldn’t fight Ballinder Bull!” An’ [115]Hanansi run in,
said, “Der is de head!” De boy put his han’ in his pocket said, “Der de tongue an’ de teet’!”

Dey ketch Hanansi an’ ’tretch him out on a ladder, an’ beat him. After dat, dey sen’ him to look wood fe
de weddin’. Dey sen’ Dog to watch him. Hanansi carried de wood, carry about ten bundle. Ev’ry trip,
Dog go wid him. When him come back, ’im say, “Brar Dog, you love meat? I hear one hog over yonder;
run go see if we kyan’ get little!” By time Dog return back, Hanansi gwine under wood ’kin an’ hide, an’
all de hunt Dog hunt, kyan’t fin’ him till dis day.

1 In a Brownstown version of the same story, the song is as follows:—

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

♩ = 69
Gashawnee, oh, Gashawnee, oh, Gashawnee, Look how little bit a
Sammy call yo’ name, why.

[Contents]
 90. Bird Arinto. [Note]

Mrs. Ramtalli, Maggotty.

There was a bird Arinto; it used to feed on human flesh. In the district there was a little boy by the
name of David Lawrence who was lame in both feet. When the boy heard the bird fly, he asked his
sister to take him; but she refused, saying if she remained Arinto would eat her too. The boy, having no
other resource, dug a hole in the ground where he lived for some time. When the bird came and
perched on the house-top, he said, “Smell flesh; somebody about here!” Then David Lawrence sang,

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

♩ = 108

You Arintoe, You Arintoe, Shake, shake, come down to David Lawrence.

Then the bird pitched off the house to the spot where he heard the singing. As it was an underground
passage, the boy would move along and the bird would follow him up and down. As he went to the foot
(of the passage), the bird would go there; as he went above, the bird would go there,—all day like that.
At night the bird would go to rest,—couldn’t eat he was so tired. But the boy cooked at night and had
his rest.

It went on for some weeks until the bird got tired an’ weary and one night fell off the roost. David
Lawrence came out, cut out the tongue, and took it to the king, who had promised whoever killed Arinto
would get his daughter’s hand in marriage. Anansi, passing the nex’ day, saw the dead bird, cut off the
head and hurried with it to the king. A wedding feast was made to have Anansi married to (the king’s)
daughter. Just as that was going on, a ragged boy called at the gate, but Anansi told the king to have
nothing to do with him. But he appealed so loudly that the king after all went out, and the boy said to
him, “Anansi [116]is a usurper, because, king, have you ever seen a head without a tongue?” Anansi, on
hearing that, ran under the table and from there into the house-top. David Lawrence was taken in,
dressed, married to the king’s daughter, and lived happily.

Jack man dora!

[Contents]
 91. Tiger Softens his Voice. [Note]

George Parkes, Mandeville.

Once upon a time a woman had one daughter, an’ that daughter was the prettiest girl in an’ around that
country. Every man want the girl to marry, but the mother refuse them as they come. Tiger, too, wanted
the girl, an’ demands the girl, an’ the mother says no. Tiger said if he don’t get the girl he will kill her.
So they remove from that part of the country and go to another part, into a thick wild wood where no
one live. And she made a house with a hundred doors and a hundred windows and a large staircase;
and the house is an upstairs, an’ there both of them live.

Tiger hear of it, always loafing aroun’ the house to see if he can catch the girl, but the girl never come
out. During the day, the mother went to her work, leaving the girl at home. When going out, the mother
fasten all the doors an’ windows; coming home in the evening, at a certain spot where she can see the
house an’ notice that all the windows an’ doors are close as she leave it, then now she have a song to
sing, go like this,—

“Tom Jones, Tom Jones, Tom Jones!”

(that’s the name of the girl). Girl now—

“Deh lo, madame!”

Woman said to her now,

“Fare you well, fare you well, fare you well,

Fare you well, me dear; fare you well, me love!
A no Tiger, deh la, ho, deh la, ho?
Me jus’ come, ho!”

Then the door open, so—

“Checky checky knock umbar,

Checky checky knock umbar,
Checky checky knock umbar.”

The door don’t open without that song now, and when it open, the mamma go into the house.

At that time, Tiger in the bush listening to the song. So one day while she was away, hear time for her
to come home, Tiger approach the spot where she always sing. He now in a very coarse voice sings
the song,—

“Tom Jones, Tom Jones, Tom Jones!”

[117]

The girl look from the window, said, “Tiger, a who no know sa’ a you!” So now Tiger go ’way an’ hide till
mamma come. When she come, he listen good. Next day, Tiger go to a blacksmith an’ ask de
blacksmith what he t’ink can give him, Tiger, a clear v’ice. De blacksmit’ say he must hot a long iron an’
when it hot, mus’ take it push down his t’roat. An’ de blacksmit’ give him a bit of meat to eat after he
burn the throat an’ that will give him a clear v’ice. So Tiger go away eat de meat first an’ den burn de
t’roat after. Nex’ day he went to the spot where the woman always sing from. An’ that make his v’ice
more coarser. He sing now—

“Tom Jones, Tom Jones, Tom Jones!”

The girl look thru the window an’ say, “Cho! a who no know sa’ a you!” So Tiger got vex’ now, an’ he
went home, burn the throat first and afterward eat the meat, and that give him a clearer v’ice than the
woman. The nex’ day, when most time for the woman to come home from her work, Tiger went to the
spot where he can see the house. He begin to sing,

“Tom Jones, Tom Jones, Tom Jones!”

The girl answer (tho’t it was her mother now)—

“Deh la, madame!”

Then Tiger say,

“Fare you well, fare you well, fare you well,

Fare you well, me dear; fare you well, me love!
A no Tiger deh lo o-o-o
Me jus’ come, h-o-o-o!”

The door commence to open now,—

“Checky checky checky knock umbar,

Checky checky checky knock umbar,
Checky checky checky knock umbar!”

And as the door open, Tiger step up an’ caught the girl an’ swallow her.

And when the mother coming home, reach to the spot and saw the doors and windows open, she
throw down what she carry and run to the house. And she saw Tiger lay down. And the mother then
went away an’ get some strong men come an’ tie Tiger, kill him, an’ open de belly an’ take out de
daughter. At that time, little life left in her an’ they get back the life in her. The woman then leave the
house an’ go off away far into another country, and that is why you always fin’ lot of old houses
unoccupied that no one live in. [118]

[Contents]
 92. Hidden Names. [Note]

[Contents]

a. Anansi and Mosquito.

George Parkes, Mandeville.

An ol’ lady have a daughter which no one know the name, an she never call the name at all make no
one hear it. So she offered a hundred pound to anyone who could tell the girl name. Anansi say he
mus’ get that money. Now he went an’ mak a bargain with Mosquito that Mosquito mus’ go in the girl
room, as he’s a small man an’ can go thru crevices, an’ he, Anansi will go underneath the mother
room. In the night while the girl was sleeping, Mosquito went an’ sing at her ear; an’ the girl then knock
her han’ up on Mosquito an’ say, “Go ’way!” At that time the mother stop into her room an’ hear. After a
little time, Mosquito went back to the girl ear an’ sing again. The girl knock after him an’ say, “Go ’way!”
again. Anansi underneath the mother’s room give a clear listening. A little time after, Mosquito went
back to the girl an’ sing at her ear. She then knock after him again an’ say, “Go ’way!” The mother then
called to the girl, said, “Zegrady, Zegrady, what’s the matter?” The daughter said, “It is something
worrying me in my sleep, mum.” Anansi never wait now for Mosquito, run right to his house, take up his
fiddle an’ begin to play,—

“Zegrady, Zegrady, Zegra, Zegrady,

Come shake up Anansi hand,
My dear!”

The next morning he start for the house and play. So the girl hear her name and say, “Mother, I heard
someone call my name!” So the old woman invite Anansi to come in an’ Anansi get the money, never
give Mosquito none. So from that day is why Mosquito flying at people ear making noise, because
Anansi rob him out of the money.

[Contents]

b. Anansi plays Baby. (1)

Eliza Barrett, Harmony Hall, Cock-pit country.

There was t’ree sister living to a house. Nobody was to know their names. An’ Anansi want to hear
them an’ he couldn’t get them. An’ he have a young man an’ turn the young man into a baby (an’ turn
himself the baby mother), an’ he carry the baby go an’ ask them if they min’ the baby for her; tell ’em
say, when part of the day the baby crying they mus’ bathe the baby for her. [119]An’ one of the sister
name Santa Cruka. Santa Cruka take the baby an’ ’trip him an’ put him into a bowl, an’ Santa Cruka
said, “Run come a sister Aminty! ever see such a little baby have such a big man place?” An’ Aminta
say, “Run come, Sister Amata! ever see such a little baby have such a big man place?” So when de
baby mother come now an’ carry the baby under a tree, the baby tell the mother, “That one name
Santa Cruka, an’ the other one name Aminta, an’ the other one name Amata.” An’ he put down the
baby an’ he turn a big tall man before him. An’ he go up to de t’ree lady an’ said, “Missus, is not you
name Mistress Santa Cruka? An’ she go into her room an’ drop down dead. An’ go back to Aminta an’
say, “Sister, is not you right name Sister Aminta?” An’ she drop down die. An’ go back to Sister Amata
an’ say, “Is not you right name Sister Amata?” An’ (she) drop down dead. An’ (Anansi) take all the
richness of the three sisters an’ never care to go home.

[Contents]

b. Anansi plays baby. (2)

Henry Spence, Bog, Westmoreland.

Anansi go to a groun’. Nobody know dose two sister name, not from dem born. So he come bet dat him
will fin’ out dem two sister name. When he come home, he said to his wife him going to fawn himself a
baby an’ de wife mus tek job grass-weeding at de groun’ fe dem two women, when him gwine, mus’
put him quite unter de shady tree as a baby. An’ de wife did so. So when de two woman go under de
tree, mek much of de baby, nice baby! So as dem woman play wid de baby, de baby laugh, mout’ full of
teeth. Two sisters frighten to see young baby have so much teeth. So one of de sister say, “Sister
Agumma, run see Anansi baby mout’ full of teet’!” Sister Agumma run come an’ see. Anansi catch dat
name. Sister Agumma come say, “O sister Agumma, a-a-ah! Anansi baby mout’ full of teet’ fe true!”
Anansi catchy bot’ name an’ win de money.

[Contents]

b. Anansi plays baby. (3)

Richard Morgan, Santa Cruz Mountains.

Der is a man livin’ at a town for eight years, nobody know his name. Hanansi say, “Ma tek off me
trousers, put on me long shirt, kyar’ me go a man yard, let him nurse me till you come home from
ground.” De baby stay good all de while. When he see h’ mudder comin’ home, de baby creep, cryin’,
go to his mudder. [120]De man went to tek him back, said, “What kind of baby dis count fe, he see he
mudder he start to cry?” Meanwhile he go to tek de baby an’ saw de shirt jump up in de back. Him
’toop down, him peep, him knock him han’. “Mercy, me Lord! what kind of a baby got such long hair on
him so, poor me, Tom Goody!” Den de baby gwine to his mudder cryin’ “Tommy Goody!” So from dat
day, de whole town fin’ out de man dat he name Tommy Goody.

[Contents]
 93. Anansi and Mr. Able. [Note]

Thomas White, Maroon Town.

Able have two daughter an’ dey was pretty young women. Anansi hear about dese two women, did
want dem for wife, didn’t know what way he was to get dem. Able is a man couldn’t bear to hear no
one call him name; for jus’ as he hear him name call, him get disturb all to kill himself. So Anansi get
two ripe plantain an’ give de young women de two ripe plantain, an’ dey tek de two ripe plantain from
Anansi an’ dey eat de two ripe plantain. Das de only way Anansi can get dese two young women.

An’ Able nebber know ’bout it until one day Mr. Able deh at him house an’ him hear de voice of a
singin’,—

“Brar Able o, me ruin 1 o

Me plant gone!”

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

♩ = 192

Brar Able, oh, me ruin, oh, Brar Able,

oh, me ruin, oh, Brar Able, oh, me ruin,
oh, Brar Able, oh, me plantain gone.

Brar Able say, “Well, from since I born I never know man speak my name in such way!” So he couldn’t
stay in de house, an’ come out an’ went to plant sucker-root. Anansi go out,—

“Brar Able o, me ruin o,

Me plant gone.”

[121]

Mr. Able went out from de sucker-root an’ he climb breadfruit tree. Anansi go just under de breadfruit
tree, sing,

“Brar Able o, me ruin o,

Me plant gone.”
Mr. Able went up in a cotton-tree. Anansi went up to de cotton-tree root, give out—

“Brar Able o, me ruin o,

Me plant gone.”

An’ Mr. Able tek up himself off de cotton-tree an’ break him neck an’ Mr. Anansi tek charge Mr. Able
house an’ two daughters.

Jack man dory, choose one!

1 Pronounced “roon”. ↑

[Contents]
 94. The King’s Three Daughters. [Note]

Vincent Morrison, Mandeville.

Once a king had three daughters and the king die and some young fellows go up to the fence, but as
they come they run them. The fellows meet Brar Nansi one day and they said to Anansi, “I bet you
never go to that house!” Mr. Anansi said, “I bet you I go up there!”

Anansi went an’ got some horse-mane and get a cotton-tree spar an’ dig out a fiddle. An’ he come out
de road de evening, an’ he start to play de fiddle say,

“Tom body tom ting,

Tweety tweety tweety tweety tweety twee
Linga linga loo
Nobody never go deh yet,
Linga linga ling
Anansi go deh t’-night
A go linga linga ling.”

The ladies call out and ask who is it playing that sweet music. Anansi say, “It’s me, missus!” And the
ladies ask who. He says, “Me, Mr. Anansi, missus.” The ladies carry him up to the house and he play
for two hours and come away. So the fellows who did bet him, he win them.

Jack man dora!

[Contents]
 95. The Dumb Child. [Note]

George Parkes, Mandeville.

There was once a little child born into a country, born with golden tongue an’ golden teet’, an’ from de
day she born, nobody [122]see de teet’ excep’ de mother an’ de father; she never talk for no one to hear
her nor to see neither the teeth nor the tongue. Now the king of the country hear of it, an’ he offer a
gran’ reward for anyone who would get to make the chil’ talk, because he, the king, never seen a
golden tongue an’ teet’ yet. So lot of men went to the house an’ try all sort of mechanic; the chil’
wouldn’t talk.

So Anansi heard off it, went to the king an’ tol’ the king that he would make the chil’ talk; an’ the king
say if Anansi make the chil’ talk before him, he will make the reward much larger, but if he don’t make
the chil’ talk before him, he, the king, will kill Anansi. So Anansi went away, got his fiddle, cord it up, an’
went to the place of the little chil’; an’ he played on his fiddle to make the chil’ hear,—

“Poly don ya sin do,

Poly don ya sin do,
Poly don ya sin do,
Merry day t’-day ya,
Merry day t’-day ya,
Sin do, sin do-o!”

The chil’ look upon Anansi an’ smile; Anansi shake his head. He play the tune again—

“Poly don ya sin do,

Poly don ya sin do.”

The chil’ laugh; Anansi get to see de teet’. Now Anansi play stronger again de same t’ing,—

“Poly don ya sin do,

Poly don ya sin do.”

The chil’ begin hum it now,—

“Poly don ya sin do,

Poly don ya sin do.”

Anansi play again harder now,

“Poly don ya sin do,

Poly don ya sin do,
Poly don ya sin do,
Merry day t’-day ya,
Merry day t’-day ya,
Sin do, sin do-o!”

The chil’ make,

“Poly don ya sin do,

Merry day t’-day ya.”

Anansi shake de head an’ laugh an’ he play much stronger now,

“Poly don ya sin do,

Poly don ya sin do.”

[123]

The chil’ now sing louder,

“Poly don ya sin do!

Poly don ya sin do!”

As the chil’ sing that time, Anansi pick up the chil’, run right away to the king palace, call for the king,
put the chil’ in the chair, tol’ the king he make the chil’ sing, see tongue an’ teet’. The king wouldn’t
believe him. Anansi play him fiddle before the king, play the same tune,—

“Poly don ya sin do,

Poly don ya sin do,
Poly don ya sin do,
Merry day t’-day ya,
Merry day t’-day ya,
Merry day t’-day ya,
Sin do, sin do-o!”

Chil’ begin now,

“Poly don ya sin do,

Merry day t’-day ya!”

And the king was very glad, an’ Anansi was nicely rewarded and the king took the child in his own
home, an’ dere she live wid de king forever.

[Contents]
 96. The Dumb Wife. [Note]

Thomas White, Maroon Town.

Deh was a man name of Goolin. He had a wife. He married him wife fe so many years dat de wife
turned dummy,—she couldn’t speak to nobody. An’ Mr. Goolin reward out a certain amount of money, if
anyone could make him wife talk, he would pay dem dat amount of money. Anansi hear about it an’ go
to take up de job from Mr. Goolin. Anansi says if he had a mountain groun’, an’ Mr. Goolin says yes.
An’ Mr. Anansi an’ Mr. Goolin go up to de mountain groun’ an’ Mr. Anansi tell Mr. Goolin he mus’ get a
coffin made an’ send get up some men to carry de coffin. An’ Mr. Anansi sen’ tell de wife dat Mr. Goolin
dead; an’ when de message reach Mrs. Goolin dat her husband dead, Mrs. Goolin commence to cry;
an’ when she look an’ see de amount of men goin’ up to de mountain fe gwine carry down Mr. Goolin,
de wife was crying but she couldn’t talk. An’ Anansi come down wid Mr. Goolin, an’ dey hev’ to come
down a high hill, an’ de house was upon a flat before de hill. Well, Mrs. Goolin da in de house, she hear
de great noise was coming down de hill an’ come jus’ at de [124]house door, she come an’ stan’ up an’
look out an’ see de majority of men comin’. Anansi gi’ out,

“Goolin gone, t’de-e-e,

Goolin gone, Goolin gone,
Goolin gone home t’de-e-e!”

An’ when de wife hear dat mournful singin’ de wife sing now very faintly,

“Goolin gone, t’de-e-e,

Goolin gone, Goolin gone,
Goolin gone home t’de-e-e!”

An’ when Goolin hear he say, “Sing up, man!” Anansi sing,

“Goolin gone t’de-e-e,

Goolin gone, Goolin gone,
Goolin gone home t’de-e-e!”

An’ wife sing now,

“Goolin gone, t’de-e-e,

Goolin gone, Goolin gone,
Goolin gone home t’dee-e-e!”

So Mr. Anansi tek out Mr. Goolin out of de coffin as a live man, an’ Mr. Goolin an’ him wife was talking
up to t’-day.

[Contents]
 97. Leap, Timber, Leap. [Note]

[Contents]

a. Old Conch.

Emanuel Johnson, Brownstown, St. Anne.

There was a king have a lumber to bring into the palace, an’ that lumber was one mile in length and
there was not one man could carry it except one old man name of Old Conch. The king sen’ for him;
him tek five days to do one mile. Anansi hear, an’ he can walk a little faster than him, an’ went to the
king an’ say he will go an’ the king say if he can carry it quicker than Old Conch, he can go. Anansi
mek a cotta an’ travel for the lumber, an’ when Old Conch ketch up the five days, fin’ Anansi beside the
lumber trying to lift it up and couldn’t lift it. Old Conch were beside the timber an’ commence a song,—

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

♩ = 96 ♩ = 78

Fol-low, timber, follow, fol-low ’long road, timber follow. Leap, timber, leap,
leap tim-ber, leap. Follow, timber, ’long road fol-low, fol-low, timber, follow. [125]

♩ = 76 ♩ = 96

Leap, tim-ber, leap, leap, tim-ber, leap.

♩ = 76

Fol-low, ’long road, timber fol-low,

fol-low, ’long road, tim-ber, fol-low. Leap, tim-ber, leap, leap tim-ber, leap.

Timber pick up himself an’ mek a leap in two mile.

Anansi went on before an’ stood beside the timber trying to help it on again. Now when Old Conch
went up and see Anansi by the timber again, Old Conch go beside the timber an’ say,

“Follow long road, timber, follow!

Follow long road, timber, follow!
Follow long road, timber, follow!
Leap, timber, leap! leap, timber, leap!
Leap, me timber, leap! leap, timber, leap!”

Timber pick up himself mek one jump two more mile; that’s four miles timber gone now. Now go on, an’
fin’ Anansi beside it again, an’ start him song say,

“Follow long road, timber, follow!

Follow long road, timber, follow!
Follow long road, timber, follow!
Leap; timber, leap! leap, timber, leap!
Leap, me timber, leap! leap, timber, leap!”

The timber pick up himself two more miles an’ drop in the king yard now.

Then Old Conch go on, an’ Anansi run ahead an’ say, “King, I brought de timber!” King were very glad
to see the timber come an’ say, “You done well, Anansi!” an’ say, “I wan’ de timber in dat corner.”
Anansi go beside the timber an’ couldn’t fix it in; were trying an’ frying an’ couldn’t fix it in. Now Old
Conch come, says, “King, I brought de timber.” King says, “No! Anansi brought it; but, however, I wan’
de timber to go in dat corner, an’ I’ll prove out of de two of you which bring it!” Anansi first go to the
timber, an’ couldn’t manage it. Now Old Conch start an’ say,

“Follow long road, timber, follow!

Follow long road, timber, follow!
Follow long road, timber, follow!
Leap, timber, leap! leap, timber, leap!
Leap, me timber, leap! leap, timber, leap!”

The timber pick up himself an’ fall in the corner. Now the king [126]tek after Anansi was to kill him,
couldn’t catch him, run under a stone an’ by the time they get up the stone, slip beneath the door
crevice!

Jack man dora!

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b. Grass-quit (fragment).

Howard Robinson, Retirement, Cock-pit country.

Grass-quit went to the bottom place an’ he haul a little grass-straw an’ tak a knife an’ slit the timber-
head like this an’ he fix the grass-straw into it, an’ he say, 1
 [MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

♩ = 88

a) Come, lit-tle tim-ber, fol-low me, hur-rah me a lay.

♩ = 88

b) Come, lit-tle tim-ber, fol-low me, hur-rah me a lay,

Big tim-ber, fol-low me, hur-rah me a lay. Lit-tle tim-ber,
fol-low me, hur-rah me a lay. Big tim-ber, fol-low me.

An’ the timber follow him right into man yard, an’ as it catch into the yard, the daughter marry Grass-
quit same time. An’ he sen’ for a police an’ tak up Anansi same time. When Anansi come out of prison,
he make Grass-quit ride grass-straw until to-day.

1 The song appears twice in the story, the first time only four measures; it was explained that the second time the song
must stop as given because that is how the Anansi Story ends. ↑

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 98. The Boy fools Anansi. [Note]

Richard Morgan, Santa Cruz Mountains.

One boy went to Hanansi yard, an’ Hanansi an’ he mudder made up to kill de boy. Me’while, de boy
hear what dem say. Hanansi went away fe one of his country-men help him to kill de boy. As Hanansi
gone, de boy kill Hanansi mamma, tek off de coat an’ de sucker, put it on an’ cook up de ol’ lady. When
Hanansi come, de ol’ lady gi’ dem deh dinner. An’ he say, “Ma, [127]wha yo’ got stren’t te kill a big big
boy?” De boy said, “Yes, me pickney.”—“Ma, a wan’ water.” De ol’ lady gi’ him de water. An’ said,
“Lawd, dis fellah fat!” De boy tek time an’ tek off de coat an’ de sucker, t’row it down an’ run, went
away. Hanansi tumbled down,—“Lawd! a me mamma been nyam!” An’ run after de boy but couldn’t
catch him. So it’s only de boy ever fool Hanansi!

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 99. The Water Crayfish. [Note]

Moses Hendricks, Mandeville.

There was a wealthy woman, but she had no children. She was always wishful of adopting a child. So
she went down to the river to bathe one morning as usual and she saw a pretty baby. She was so glad
she took it home and she made a pet of it. She employed a girl called Tamanty to care for the child,
and Anansi to be the watchman to watch and see if the girl cared for the child.

So it happened one day she had to go out, so she left them to take care of the child. Anansi wanted all
along to get rid of this girl Tamanty. Tamanty was sweeping the house and the little child was playing
with the broom. Anansi winked to the girl and said, “Lick him wi’ the broomstick! lick him wi’ the
broomstick!” The girl took the broomstick and hit the child. The child started running for the river.
Anansi and Tamanty started after her, calling out, “Come back, Miss Nancy, come back!” The child
said,

“No na no, Tamanty! no na no, Anansi!

Me a river craw-fish, me no have a mu-ma,
Poor me, river craw-fish! river a me mu-ma.”

The child ran right into the river and became a cray-fish.

[129]
 MODERN EUROPEAN STORIES.

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 100. Ali Baba and Kissem. [Note]

Alexander Townsend, Flamstead, St. Andrew.

Ali Baba was the brother of Kissem, but Ali Baba was a poor man and
Kissem was a rich man. Ali Baba had two donkeys and an ox,—all his
living. Ali Baba was cutting wood one day, he heard a company of
horse coming afar. Took his donkeys and hid them in the bush, hid
himself in a tree. Forty men were coming on; the head man came right
to the cave where he was. Name of the cave was “Sesame.” This cave
was shut, would open by the word “Open, Sesame.” And they brought
forty bags of gold an’ put in. Shut without word. Ali Baba saw them from
the tree-top. When gone, Ali Baba came down to the cave, said, “Open,
Sesame, open!” Ali Baba took all the money he could, loaded it on the
donkey.

Must measure the money, but didn’t have any measure. Brother said,
“What Ali Baba got to measure?” Took stuck the measure. Ali Baba
measure, measure, measure, measure thousands of dollars. One piece
stuck on the bottom. Brother aska; Ali Baba tells all about it, teaches
brother, “Open, Sesame, open.” Next day, Kissem took wagon, oxen,
servants, went to the place, said, “Open, Sesame, open!”. When he
went inside, cave shut. When he went on, saw all the money, he forgot
the word, said, “Open, kem! Open, wem! Open, rim! Open, sim!” Forgot
that word entirely, can’t get out. The men came back; “Open, Sesame,
open!” Find Kissem. “How came you here?” No answer. Cut Kissem up
in five pieces, hung them up in the cave.

Kissem’s wife went to Ali Baba, said, “Kissem no come here yet!” Ali
Baba went next day to the place. “Open, Sesame, open!” Finds the five
pieces, takes them down, gets a cobbler to sew the five pieces up into
a body. Robber comes back, finds body gone. Who took away that
body, signifies some one knows the place; must find out who that is.
Goes about town, finds a cobbler [130]who said he joined five pieces
into a body. Cobbler shows the house. He gets jars, puts a robber in
each jar; one jar has oil. Takes the jars to Ali Baba, says will he buy oil.
Ali Baba says yes.

He makes sport for the great governor. Ali Baba had a maid by the
name of Margiana, and she was very wittified,—discovered the whole
thing, but she didn’t say anything. She danced so well, danced up to
the governor to give her something. He put his hand in his pocket to get
her something; Margiana get one dagger, killed the governor dead.
Margiana got the oil red-hot, poured into all the jars that got men. Ali
Baba said, “Well, Margiana, you saved my life and you shall have my
son and as much money as you want, and as much money as will put
you in heaven!”

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