ory managers, are made from the same
material.

DRINKING VESSELS.[1] The use of special vessels for drinking purposes
may fairly be assumed to have had a natural origin and development. From
a practical point of view it would soon be found desirable to provide
vessels for liquids in addition to those serving to hold food. As in
many other commonplace details of modern life, we must turn to the
primitive races to understand how our present conditions were reached.
In almost all parts of the world many of the products of nature are
capable of serving such purposes, with little or no change at the hands
of man; in tropical and sub-tropical climates the coco-nut and the gourd
or calabash require but little change to adapt them as the most
convenient of drinking utensils; the eggs of the larger birds, such as
the ostrich or the emu, shells, like the nautilus and other univalves,
as well as the deeper bivalves, are equally convenient. Such natural
objects are in fact used by the uncivilized tribes of Africa, America
and Polynesia, as well as, in some cases, by the white races who have
intruded into those parts of the world, and adopted some of the native
habits. In Paraguay, for example, the so-called "Paraguay tea," an
infusion of the _yerba mate_ (_Ilex paraguayensis_), is drunk through a
tube from a small gourd held in the hand, and often handsomely mounted
in silver or even gold. In the same way, as we shall see, civilized man
has adopted nearly all the natural forms that were found convenient by
the savage, altering and adorning them in accordance with the taste of
the time or country where they were used.

Another line of development, however, has been found to be the natural
outcome of the human mind. Nothing could form a more practical drinking
cup than the half of a coco-nut shell or part of a gourd. Such cups,
however, in the countries where the plants producing them are common,
would be easily obtained, and every one, rich or poor, could possess one
or more. In order, therefore, to distinguish the chief's possessions
from those of his inferiors, his cup is often made with great labour,
from some more intractable material, wood or stone, though in
practically the same form as that of the natural object.

Early drinking cups.

Among European races in medieval times the same lines have been
followed, though for different reasons. Human ingenuity, though perhaps
originally inspired by natural forms, is ap