the pilgrim carried relics of saints, small
crucifixes, or other humble but cherished
treasures. There are records of other articles
stored away in these staff receptacles; the
first head of saffron is said to have been
brought to England from Greece in a pilgrim's
staff at a time when it was death to take the
living plant out of the country; the silk-worm
first found its way into Europe by a similar
piece of cunning; and pilgrims sometimes
contrived to lay aside a store of gold coin in
this hiding-place.

The staff, or alpenstock, of the Swiss
and Tyrolese is an unquestionable walking-
stick, of a formidable and invaluable kind.
Exceeding in length the height of the user,
and tipped with iron, it renders important
assistance to all Alpine pedestrians. With
its chamois-horn as a surmounting crook, it
makes some pretension to ornament. All
who have read narratives, or seen pictures, or
heard lectures, concerning the ascent of Mont
Blanc, will readily call to mind the claim
which these alpenstocks have to be called
life-preservers.

One of the earliest kinds of walking-stick
adopted as a support by elderly persons, was
the ferula, or staff of fennel-wood. Being long,
tough, and light, it is well fitted for this
purpose, and it seems to have given name to a
certain castigatory weapon but too well known
to school-boys. In Oriental countries, the
hollow or pithy-stalked palms and bamboos
naturally became the material for walking-
sticks, and it is to such countries that we
owe the designation of cane, so much given to
these pedestrian accompaniments. Ancient
Egyptian walking-sticks have been discovered,
made of cherry-wood, and having carved
knobs. Henry the Eighth had "a cane
garnyshed with sylver and gilte, with Astronomie
upon it;" and "a cane garnyshed with golde,
having a perfume in the toppe."

Of the Clouded Cane, of whose nice conduct
Pope's Sir Plume was justly vain; of Jambees
at ten guineas per joint, and plain Dragons
described in the Tatler; of the strong cane
and the amber-tipped cane, sung by Gay;
of the long and elegant sticks used by elderly
ladies in the second half of the last century,
and by footmen of the present day; of the stout
knotted sticks and the slender bamboos in
fashion half a century ago; of the enormous
grotesque heads carved upon sticks to suit
certain abnormal tastes; of comic canes with
Tim Bobbins and Punch and Merry Andrews
and Toby Fillpots grinning from their heads;
of rough sticks and smooth sticks; of straight
sticks and crooked sticks; of all sorts of
sticks, from rattans to bludgeons, it is not
our present purpose to indite:—the reader
will find an amusing account of most of them
in the Report of the Exhibition Jury on
Miscellaneous Articles—a jury which worked
most indefatigably in their miscellaneous
duties. We pass all this to say a little
respecting the commerce in walking-sticks;
which is much more extensive than most
persons would imagine.

It appears that there is scarcely a grass
or a tree which has not been made available
for this purpose. The varieties most usually
selected, among the growths of Europe,
are blackthorn, crab, maple, ash, oak, beech,
orange-tree, cherry-tree, furze-bush, and
Spanish reed; from the West Indies there
come vine-stems, cabbage-stalks, orange-stalks,
lemon-stalks, coffee-stalks, briar-stalks; while
from other countries in the warm regions are
brought rattans, calamus-stems, bamboos,
Malaccas, and Manilla canes. Whatever is
the kind employed, the wood is usually cut
towards the end of autumn, especially if it be
wished to preserve the bark.

A walking-stick of moderate pretensions,
made of ordinary wood, and to be sold at a
moderate price, passes through almost as
many processes as a needle, and is, to all
intents and purposes, a manufactured article.
Let us look on, while such a stick is being
made.

First, then, shall it have the bark on or
not? Most of the better kinds have lost
their bark, and ours shall accordingly. Only
one halfpenny is paid for stripping the bark
from a branch of the warted-crab, which is a
favourite wood for sticks; but has a bark
obstinately clinging to the protuberances on
the side of the branch. The peelers boil
the branch for a couple of hours, and the bark
then readily yields to any simple instrument.
In straighter and smoother branches, the
difficulty is less; and, consequently, the rate
of pay is lower.

Then comes the straightening of the stick,
and the fashioning of the crook, which so
often forms its upper termination. The upper
end is immersed in hot, damp sand; it
becomes soft and non-elastic, and readily
assumes and maintains any curvature which
may be given to it. For every kind of wood,
there is a temperature and a dampness best
fitted for this process; and thus the stickmaker
has to store his memory with a body
of practical rules on the subject. Then, for
the straightening, the stick is immersed in
hot, dry sand, which gives it a kind of
pliability different from that requisite for the
crooking; and by bending and humouring it
in a groove in a board, the stick becomes
straight and symmetrical. But if our walking-
stick contemns this Quaker-like straightness,
and has a yearning for the knobby
and crooked, it comes under the operation of
the rasp and the file—unless, indeed, the knobs
are such as Nature gave.

The external adornment is even more
varied than the original form. Many walking-sticks
appear in such masquerade costumes,
that their brother-branches would not
know them again; they are sand-papered,
or emeried, or rotten-stoned, and are further
smoothed with fish-fin or fish-skin; then
they are stained by liquid dyes, the chemical