This letter, for example, with its accompanying photograph (see Plate XXII) leads one to the study of history, art, and literature. The subject of the picture, aside from its supposed origin, is of interest. The Scythians were Aryans much mixed with Mongol blood; they disappear from history about 100 B. C. Cyrus the younger, after subduing the eastern parts of Asia, was defeated by Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae in Scythia. Tomyris cut off his head and threw it into a vessel filled with human blood, saying, as she did so, "There, drink thy fill." Dante refers to this incident in his _Purgatory_, xii; and Sackville, in his _Mirrour for Magistrates_, 1587, says: Consyder Cyrus-- He whose huge power no man might overthrowe, Tomyris Queen, with great despite hath slowe, His head dismembered from his mangled corpse Herself she cast into a vessel fraught With clotted blood of them that felt her force, And with these words a just reward she taught: "Drynke now thy fyll of thy desired draught." Here seems to be the place to speak more fully of the small scenes placed regularly at intervals. There is a great variety of pretty medallion pictures of this sort, as, alternating figures of a shepherdess with her crook reclining on a bank near a flock of sheep, and a boy studying at a desk, with a teacher standing near by. Mr. Frank B. Sanborn writes: "The oldest paper I ever saw was in the parlor of President Weare, of Hampton Falls--a simple hunting scene, with three compartments; a deer above, a dog below, and a hunter with his horn below that. It was put on in 1737, when the house was built, and, I think, is there still. Colonel Whiting's house had a more elaborate and extensive scene--what the French called 'Montagnes Russe'--artificial hills in a park, for sliding down, toboggan fashion, and a score of people enjoying them or looking on." A good authority asserts that rolls of paper did not appear in this country until 1790, so that all these now mentioned must have been imported in square sheets. Notice the step forward--from white walls, through a clay wash, to hand painting, stencilling, small imported sheets, and, at last, to rolls of paper. [Illustration] _PLATE VI._ Fragment of the famous old racing paper from the Timothy Dexter house. This is too broken and stained to admit of the reproduction of its original colors--blue sky, gray clouds, green turf, brown horses and black, and jockeys in various colors. The scene here given fills the width of the paper, about eighteen inches. [Illustration] IV WALL PAPERS IN HISTORIC HOMES [Illustration] IV WALL PAPERS IN HISTORIC HOMES