AULD YULE; OR, CHRISTMAS IN

SCOTLAND.

IN our part of the country-a lowland county far north-we fix our Christmas according to the Old Style of computing time, viz. on the 6th of January, the English Twelfth-Day. The same day is observed in most of the rural districts of Scotland. In the large towns, it is becoming the fashion to observe Christmas on the 25th of December, as in England; but in the country that day is passed over without notice, except, perhaps, by the lairds and gentry, who, having "been south," think it rather a fine thing to affect English customs. It is not, however, the disposition of the Scotch generally to prefer the customs of England, or of any other country, to those which have been endeared to them by the traditions of their own loved land; and in spite of all attempts at innovation, Auld Yule still holds its ground bravely.

ends knocked out. But perhaps I had better explain the sowans as well as the bowie. Well, sowans are made from the husks of the oats. A quantity of these husks, having a considerable portion of meal adhering to them, are placed in a cask with several gallons of water, and are there left for a week or so to ferment. When the liquor begins to froth and become sour, it is ready for use. It is then run off, and boiled until it assumes the consistence of gruel; when it is sweetened with sugar or treacle, and then drank out of bowls, or bickers. There is another kind of sowans, which is made much thicker, and is eaten with milk, like porridge. The "drinking sowans," however, is specially reserved for Yule morning. It is the custom for the cook to wake everybody in the house about four or five o'clock, and call them to drink sowans. All the young people dress, and assemble round the kitchen-fire, each with his bicker in hand waiting to be served. If there be any old or infirm persons in the house, basons of sowans are taken to them in their bede; for every one must taste sowans on Yule morning. It would be considered as much a reproach in Scotland for a person to pass his Yule without drinking sowans, as it is in England for any one not to have a plumpudding on Christmas Day; and as people in England taste each other's plum-puddings, so in Scotland neighbours exchange "tastes" of their sowans. There is a good deal of rivalry, too, among the sowansmakers; and some Eppy or Jesse will become the talk of the country-side on account of the superiority of her sowans.

The Scotch reviewers, who boasted that the intellectual strength which they brought to the demolition of English bards was sustained simply upon oatmeal, confessed a truth which has a wider and deeper significance than they would, perhaps, have been willing to admit. Oats, which Johnson described with so much unworthy bitterness as "the food of horses in England and of men in Scotland," really play a most important part in all that relates to the social habits and observances of the Scotch. Oatmeal may be said to pervade the social life of Scotland much in the same way that beef pervades that of England, or potatoes that of Ireland. Like beef, too, it comes in as In some parts of the Highlands it is the the characteristic fare of Christmas. Oat-custom, after the sowans-bickers have been meal makes cakes, and bannocks, and brose, and porridge, all the year round; and when Yule comes in his mantle of snow, it makes Sowans. With what lively anticipations of delight we used to look forward through weary weeks and weeks to the sowansdrinking on Auld Yule morning! Not that any of us were immoderately fond of sowans, any more than the southerners are of beef; but because the making and the drinking of the beverage at early morn was a grand "ploy," to be followed next day by the assembling of the whole household to the Yule breakfast, and all the doings peculiar to the season. Well do I remember with what anxious solicitude we used to inquire of Eppy (Elspet), the cook, "Hoo the Sowans were getting on." This would be perhaps a week beforehand, when the sowans had just been steeped in the bowie, which, may explain, is a cask with one of the

emptied, to rush away to a swing, in which the various members of the family are swung in turn, the youngest having the preference. As the person in the swing approaches the swinger, he calls out, Ei mi tu chal ("I'll eat your kail"); to which the swinger replies, Cha ni u mu chal ("You shan't eat my kail"). This sport passes away the time until daylight, when the players all rush to the door to see what kind of weather Yule has brought. The proverb runs, "A green (or black) Yule makes a fat kirkyard;" meaning, that mild weather at Christmas is not favourable to health. In the northern parts of Scotland, however, it is not often that the earth is seen without a thick robe of snow on Yule morning. I remember, on more than one occasion, going to the door on Yule morning to mark the signs of the weather, and finding the whole side of the house snowed up

to the first-floor windows. On one memorable Yule morning, the snow-drift was so dense that we were obliged to use fireshovels in cutting our way out. The low outhouses, where the cattle and horses were stabled, were completely hid in the huge mountain of drift; and it took the farming men nearly a whole day to dig a passage to the doors through which to carry the poor beasts their food.

of a tender nature.

butions of meal or money, if they can get it,
for some "auld wife" whose scanty means
are inadequate to the supply of her humble
wants during the rigours of winter. The
sons of well-to-do farmers do not think it
beneath them to perform this charitable
office, particularly as it affords them an op-
portunity of calling upon and kissing all the
bonnie lasses of the neighbourhood. Fine
strapping chiels are those beggars, and
smartly dressed too; and Eppy, as she drops
a handful of meal in their sacks, like the
Saxon lef-day, is by no means unwilling to
take a good honest kiss in reward of her
charity. The song with which the beggars
herald their approach is generally a descrip-
tion of the case of the auld wife whose cause
they have come to plead. I have a recollec-
tion of hearing on a Yule morning some-
thing like the following:-

"Ye ken auld Tibbie Cruikshank,
That lives doon by the muir;
An honest cra-tur Tibbie is,
But lanesome, auld, and puir.

Then let us beg for Tibbie

A puckle o' your meal,
Or maybe twa or three bawbees,
Or claes will dee as weel."

And then comes a refrain, which is peculiar to many of the northern districts of Scotland, but the meaning of which I have never been able to learn. It recites the various farm-houses which have been visited, and ends with

"And awa' by Soothin toon,"

In farmhouses, it is the custom on Yule morning for the master to entertain all his servants, together with the members of his own family, to what is termed in the vernacular a "tae brackfast," in contradistinction to the usual matutinal meal of porridge and milk. This meal is greatly enjoyed by the farming men and boys, to whom tea, wheaten bread, and dried haddocks are a rare treat. When the wheaten bread and the haddocks have been demolished, and the tea-pot has been drained of the last drop that can possibly lay any claim to the name of tea, there immediately begins a general reading of fortunes in the tea-grouts left in the cups. The lasses never fail to divine that strangers will arrive during the day; and Jessy the housemaid and Eppy the cook fall into fits of laughter as their fancy is struck by some configuration of tea-grouts resembling a certain Willie or Jamie towards whom they are not unwilling to own that they cherish feelings The fortune-telling over, a scene occurs something not unlike that which ensued upon Romulus's entertainment to the Sabines; with this difference, that the Sabine lasses were not prepared for it, whereas the Scotch lasses always are. Every lad seizes a lass, and kisses her on the spot without license of mistletoe; nor is any lad content with kiss- I may state, however, that the word “toon," ing one lass, but kisses them all round in farm-house and its buildings. Several sets toun," is generally used to signify a succession, as fast as he can catch them and of beggars will visit the house during the overcome their well-feigned resistance. the morning advances, the lasses begin to be morning, and they all get meal or bawbees, on the qui vive for the "beggars," the first and kisses to boot; and they all sing, that sound of whose voices singing their Yule in gathering meal for Auld Tibbie, or Lizzie, song brings all the inmates scampering to they have been up and down, and here and the doors. The "beggars" who visit the there, farmhouses of Scotland on a Yule morning may be said to correspond to the English In the country the sports peculiar to Yule 66 waits," so far as they introduce them- are chiefly shooting at a target for prizes; selves with songs and music. Here, how- cards (the popular game being "catch the ever, the comparison ends. The Scotch ten"); and amongst the bairns, playing at Yule beggars do not seek alms on their own teetotum for pins. Every Scotch farming. account. They are, in fact, respectable man possesses a gun, in which he takes as young men belonging to the farm-houses of much pride as the Swiss mountaineer of a the neighbourhood, who agree among them- past age took in his bow. He is equally selves to go round the country with sacks fond of showing his skill in its use at the slung over their shoulders to collect contri-shooting-matches on Auld-Yule day. The

As

thus:

or

66

"We've been up by Muiryfauld,

To Seggyburn been doon,
And ower to the minister's hoose,
And awa' by Soothin toon."

"And awa' by Soothin toon."

cause I have seen the amphitheatre, and have also dug up nearly 400 coins, many of which confirm the supposition-nay, I will even add, the fact. Josephus mentions it as being one of the chief cities of Phoenicia, where Titus stayed a considerable time after the taking of Jerusalem. He says that Titus made a grand and solemn show there on his father's birthday, exhibiting to the people splendid shows, and scenes in the arena with the wild beasts and captives. Agrippa, also, laid out a vast sum of money in building a theatre, bestowed corn and oil upon the people, and erected several beautiful statues in and about the city. Herod the Great condemned his two sons here upon the charge of conspiring against his life.

Ibrahim Pacha in 1832. On the 10th of October, 1840, Beyrout was evacuated by the Egyptians, with the loss of 7,000 men, and 20 pieces of cannon.

Beyrout is, without exception, one of the prettiest looking towns on the whole coast of Syria, when viewed from the sea; but the internal economy does not warrant me in bestowing too much praise either upon its beauty or cleanliness. Be this as it may, there is no doubt that any one, with even less philosophy in their composition than Mark Tapley, may make themselves jolly there; in fact, you cannot help yourself, unless terribly devoid of that reciprocity of good humour which all travellers should consider as part and parcel of their stock-in-trade. Those that like such things, may have no It has been said that Berytus was so end of dinner invites, from the Khan ancient a town, that no other than Satan mess to the Consul-General's grand turncould have built it. Be this as it may, out of silver, glass, and French cooking. there cannot be a doubt in my mind of Then you can get capital horses for its antiquity. History asserts, and an- about four shillings a day; though, to tique remains confirm it. In Justinian's be sure, they do ask the simpler kind of time, it became celebrated for its school individuals three times as much, and of law, which was probably established generally get it. If you have a fancy by Alexander Severus in the beginning of for billiards, dominoes, rouge et noir, the third century, and was in a flourish-backgammon, &c. &c., there are plenty of ing condition at the time of Constantine players, and plenty of places to suit your the Great. After a course of instruction, which lasted five years, the students from this place scattered themselves over the Roman empire, where they soon found employment for their talents. The emperor Claudius bestowed the kingdom of Judea upon Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, and his jurisdiction extended as far as Beyrout.

By whom the academy of law was really instituted it is impossible to say; but there is little doubt that it was established before the reign of Diocletian, and that it lasted from the third to the middle of the sixth century.

It has undergone various changes, from the effects of war and convulsions of nature. It was destroyed by an earthquake, A.D. 551; was rebuilt, and alternately possessed by the Chaldeans and Saracens, and after a change of masters, fell into the power of Amurath IV.; since when, it remained in the Ottoman empire up to the revolt of

self-and very many that will not suit you. Sometimes a company of strolling players and circus-people make their appearance; and upon certain occasions there are miniature Greenwich Fairs got up, with the usual accompaniments of shows, whirligigs, go-carts, hobby-horses, &c. Then there is the Pacha's band, which performs very fairly just outside the town; so that, what with all these, a few picnics, a murder or two in the mountains, a storm which destroys a fleet of small boats, and damages one or two merchant-vessels, the arrival and departure of the packet for England, and a few trips to the neighbouring towns, you are always in a state of excitement and bustle; somthing to think of, and plenty to do.

The houses are high, built of solid stone masonry, with Saracenic arched passages and corridors branching off in all directions; they have flat roofs, covered with cement; are generally well