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PRESENCE OF MIND.—ENGS.
293
ticable, be continually rehearsed. By such means,
presence of mind may be acquired as an art. If passengers
of an emigrant, or any other ship, on a long voyage, were
put through a course of daily drill, by which, on the
signal of danger being given, each should mechanically
run to his proper place, in readiness to take his turn in
getting into the boat pre-assigned to him, the terrible
confusion, the overcrowding and sinking of the first
boat, and most of the fatal results of blind terror, so
apt to prevail on such occasions, might be prevented;
for though there are but very few who are capable in
the moment of extreme peril of thinking calmly upon
what is best to be done, most people are capable of doing
what is best if they know what that is,—more especially
if they have had some practice in the doing of it.
On arriving at Synderland, I found several houses,
but no inhabitants; they were all absent at the
sae-ters, or " engs."’ These latter are distant pasturages,
usually on high, flat ground: small table-lands. They
differ from the saeters, inasmuch as the grass is mowed
and made into hay at the engs, while the saeter
pasturages are rocky regions, where mowing with a scythe
or sickle would be impossible; and therefore the grass
is cut by the teeth of the cows and goats, and
harvested in the form of cheese. Mr. Laing very
ingeniously supposes that the name of England is derived
from these, as the old sea-kings who visited our shores
used the land as " engs," or detached supplementary
farms; and thus it was their land of’ engs, or England.
I passed over several engs on my way this morning:
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