I've been doing a bit of research on relations between the various British North American colonies, and the results are hilarious. About the beginning of the French and Indian War (AKA: Seven Years War to those lacking Texans), circa mid to late 1700s, a number of them were involved in a series of pier 6 brawls with each other occasionally to the point gunfire was exchanged. Most of the ill feeling was due to dueling charters and the fact that some British royals had the lifespan of a fruit fly or a Hollywood marriage.
Some of the causes of the merriment were:
1. Virginia operating under a grant from James I had all the lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from somewhere around the North Carolina border to the North Pole (generous guy, James).
2. Charles I granted Lord Baltimore everything from the Atlantic to the western end of the Potomac River and from the Potomac north to Latitude 40 for his Catholic colony.
3. William Penn's charter from Charles II granted him and his family the land west of the Delaware River to somewhere and from Latitude 40 to the New york border--wherever that was to end up (unlike his father, Charles didn't lose his head over the matter). There is the opinion that Penn apparently hired non-union surveyors because Pennsylvania's Latitude 40 happened to be 28 miles south of Maryland's Latitude 40. Revisionists on the other hand suggest that Penn's city of Philadelphia--already built at the time of the grant--awkwardly lying south of Maryland's Latitude 40 may have had something to do with the error in navigation (which is why one always puts the fence at least six inches in from the property line). This small discrepancy led to Cresap's War (1736-1738) between the Maryland and Pennsylvania militias. George II was forced to knock heads together and ordered a proper survey ("Paging Mr. Mason, Mr. Dixon. The Royal governors would like to speak to you about a job.").
4. At the same time, Connecticut claimed the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania (what would become the three counties around Wilkes-Barre--Scanton). That there were only two other colonies between the two halves of what might become the "Nutmeg State" seems to have slowed these enterprising Yankees not at all (shades of the Danzig Corridor--not to mention East and West Pakistan). Connecticut also claimed the Ohio county, Great Lakes, western New York, Michigan, Texas, and the Canadian Prairie provinces ("Worst case of MPD I've seen in all my years of practice.").
5. Adding to the fun, the Iroquois Confederation--suffering a bad bout of imperialism--and the various Indians of the Ohio country, Great Lakes, and southeastern Canada were on the edge of their very own version of a world war (though this didn't stop the Iroquois from spending their vacations in the Carolinas and eastern Tennessee visiting Rock City and beating up on the Cherokees and Catawbas--as it turns out, the Shenandoah Valley was their favorite freeway back and forth--"Look, Flitting Bird, I like North Carolina. It's the sitting in traffic four hours because some clown jacked-knifed a canoe that drives me nuts. And it's always between the Stucky's!").
6. And of course, to the north and west the wily French lurked waiting to flail good honest English men with baguettes and rosary beads.
Sometime in the future, I'll give Jacques' side of things and take a look at why American convenience stores tend to stock beer and occasionally questionable pre-made sandwiches rather than good wine and brie.
11 September 2010: Feast of St. Ambrose Edward Barlow. Battle of the Teutoburg Forest 9 AD, Battle of Stirling Bridge 1297, Battle of Brandywine 1777, Mountain Meadows Massacre 1857, September 11, 2001--need I say more?
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Sweetening the pot (okay, baiting the hook).
From time to time, I'll be posting bits and pieces of works in progress. This one is from Chained Dogs:
On Heinzelmannchen
The Heinzelmannchen is a house spirit that oversees such things as household and barn cats properly controlling the local mouse population, the farm 's dogs keeping rabbits out of the garden and protecting the chicken coop, and keeping matches out of the hands of children. He is generally described as a small, fat man with brown or gray hair and may or may not have a beard. He accomplishes large amounts of work without appearing to seriously labor. He is generally friendly and very fond of beer (as one folklorist from Potsdam put it, "He's a damned Bavarian!"). He is one of the few such creatures to marry. The Heinzelfrau is a buxom female version of her spouse. Interestingly neither the Catholic nor Protestant Churches have taken a stand on the Heinzelmannchen.
Dr. Wolfgang Adalbert Murtz. Folklore of the Germanys: An exploration in rural belief. trans. Maria von Kurtz-Gunther. Munich: University Press, 1954. 397-398.
A number of characters in the Conrad Ritter cycle, of which Chained Dogs is a part, describe the sleuth from Upper Bavaria as a "Heinzelmannchen." (In my own case, a number of people, who should know better, have also referred to me as such.)
Review: (Note to FTC: I bought my own dang copy!)
Quest for Kim. Peter Hopkirk. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.
Peter Hopkirk is one of the premier writers on the Great Game during the period of the Raj. For those unacquainted with this subject, this was the period roughly between 1830 and 1914 when Great Britain worried about Czarist Russia's encroachment on Central Asia. The fear that kept the lights burning late in White Hall and Simla (in the dry season) and Calcutta (in the rainy season) was that Russia would conquer Central Asia (the "Stans"), then conquer Afghanistan, build a railroad across them, and invade British India. The Great Game was the term for the intelligence war (a lukewarm one) played by both sides.
In his book, Quest for Kim, Hopkirk attempts to follow the path of Kipling's beloved hero ("protagonist" is much too weak a word for this adolescent) as depicted in Kim. He finds that while somethings, such as the people and the countryside are much the same, others such as the railroads and telecommunications have changed greatly. As a small example, in Lahore the gun, Zam-Zammah, on which we first meet Kim is still on its pedestal across from the "Wonder House," as the museum was called in the vernacular, to which Kim and the lama go (the lama to view the art treasures and Kim to eavesdrop). A fragment of the horse market where Kim takes the lama to meet Mahbub Ali, the Afghan horse dealer and master spy, still exists. On the other hand, Hopkirk discovers, in Pakistan, no one from president (or general) down to station master knows when the train leaves for the border or even if one runs there at all. Only one man in Lahore actually knows--the single ticket seller. This worthy is also able to tell Hopkirk why the phones in 1995 only ring but never answer in the Lahore railroad station--the phone bill wasn't paid by the railroad (a part of government) so service was turned off by the telecommunications system (also part of the government).
Quest for Kim is a wonderful mix of travel writing, history, and geography laced through with Hopkirk's general good humor. This is one Englishman who joins the mad dogs out in the noonday sun and provides great entertainment.
1 December 2009: Feast of St. Edmund Campion, actual bear Winnie the Pooh was named after by Milne donated to London Zoo 1919, opening day for Tundra Swan east of I 95 & south of Prince William/Stafford County lines.
On Heinzelmannchen
The Heinzelmannchen is a house spirit that oversees such things as household and barn cats properly controlling the local mouse population, the farm 's dogs keeping rabbits out of the garden and protecting the chicken coop, and keeping matches out of the hands of children. He is generally described as a small, fat man with brown or gray hair and may or may not have a beard. He accomplishes large amounts of work without appearing to seriously labor. He is generally friendly and very fond of beer (as one folklorist from Potsdam put it, "He's a damned Bavarian!"). He is one of the few such creatures to marry. The Heinzelfrau is a buxom female version of her spouse. Interestingly neither the Catholic nor Protestant Churches have taken a stand on the Heinzelmannchen.
Dr. Wolfgang Adalbert Murtz. Folklore of the Germanys: An exploration in rural belief. trans. Maria von Kurtz-Gunther. Munich: University Press, 1954. 397-398.
A number of characters in the Conrad Ritter cycle, of which Chained Dogs is a part, describe the sleuth from Upper Bavaria as a "Heinzelmannchen." (In my own case, a number of people, who should know better, have also referred to me as such.)
Review: (Note to FTC: I bought my own dang copy!)
Quest for Kim. Peter Hopkirk. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.
Peter Hopkirk is one of the premier writers on the Great Game during the period of the Raj. For those unacquainted with this subject, this was the period roughly between 1830 and 1914 when Great Britain worried about Czarist Russia's encroachment on Central Asia. The fear that kept the lights burning late in White Hall and Simla (in the dry season) and Calcutta (in the rainy season) was that Russia would conquer Central Asia (the "Stans"), then conquer Afghanistan, build a railroad across them, and invade British India. The Great Game was the term for the intelligence war (a lukewarm one) played by both sides.
In his book, Quest for Kim, Hopkirk attempts to follow the path of Kipling's beloved hero ("protagonist" is much too weak a word for this adolescent) as depicted in Kim. He finds that while somethings, such as the people and the countryside are much the same, others such as the railroads and telecommunications have changed greatly. As a small example, in Lahore the gun, Zam-Zammah, on which we first meet Kim is still on its pedestal across from the "Wonder House," as the museum was called in the vernacular, to which Kim and the lama go (the lama to view the art treasures and Kim to eavesdrop). A fragment of the horse market where Kim takes the lama to meet Mahbub Ali, the Afghan horse dealer and master spy, still exists. On the other hand, Hopkirk discovers, in Pakistan, no one from president (or general) down to station master knows when the train leaves for the border or even if one runs there at all. Only one man in Lahore actually knows--the single ticket seller. This worthy is also able to tell Hopkirk why the phones in 1995 only ring but never answer in the Lahore railroad station--the phone bill wasn't paid by the railroad (a part of government) so service was turned off by the telecommunications system (also part of the government).
Quest for Kim is a wonderful mix of travel writing, history, and geography laced through with Hopkirk's general good humor. This is one Englishman who joins the mad dogs out in the noonday sun and provides great entertainment.
1 December 2009: Feast of St. Edmund Campion, actual bear Winnie the Pooh was named after by Milne donated to London Zoo 1919, opening day for Tundra Swan east of I 95 & south of Prince William/Stafford County lines.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
