custom for the village
girls to go out into the open air and to beseech the "stars, stars,
dear little stars," to be so benignant as to

"Send forth through the christened world
Arrangers of weddings."

W. R. S. Ralston, in _Notes and Queries_, Dec. 21, 1878.

CHRISTMAS-KEEPING IN AFRICA.

"A certain young man about town" (says _Chambers's Journal_, December
25, 1869), "once forsook the sweet shady side of Pall Mall for the
sake of smoking his cigar in savage Africa; but when Christmas came,
he was seized with a desire to spend it in Christian company, and this
is how he did spend it: 'We English once possessed the Senegal; and
there, every Christmas Eve, the Feast of Lanterns used to be held. The
native women picked up the words and airs of the carols; the custom
had descended to the Gambia, and even to the Casemanche, where it is
still preserved. A few minutes after I had ridden up, sounds of music
were heard, and a crowd of blacks came to the door, carrying the model
of a ship made of paper, and illuminated within; and hollowed pumpkins
also lighted up for the occasion. Then they sang some of our dear old
Christmas carols, and among others, one which I had heard years ago
on Christmas Eve at Oxford:

Nowel, Nowel, the angels did say,
To certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay--
In fields as they lay keeping their sheep,
One cold winter's night, which was so deep.
Nowel, Nowel, Nowel, Nowel,
Born is the King of Israel.

You can imagine with what feelings I listened to those simple words,
sung by negresses who knew not a phrase of English besides. You can
imagine what recollections they called up, as I sat under an African
sky, the palm-trees rustling above my head, and the crocodiles moaning
in the river beyond. I thought of the snow lying thick upon the
ground; of the keen, clear, frosty air. I thought of the ruddy fire
which would be blazing in a room I knew; and of those young faces
which would be beaming still more brightly by its side; I thought
of--oh, of a hundred things, which I can laugh at now, because I am in
England, but which, in Africa, made me more wretched than I can well
express.'

"Next day, sadness and sentiment gave way, for a while at least, to
more prosaical feelings. When Mr. Reade sat down to his Christmas
dinner, he must have wished, with Macbeth, 'May good digestion wait on
appetite,' as he contemplated the fare awaiting discussion, and to
wh