Another misconception is the familiar saying, "Raining cats and dogs." Such a meteorologico-zoological phenomenon never really takes place; no instance of it has ever been known, and yet people go on using the expression as though the experience was of very ordinary occurrence. The word we want is "catadupe"--καΤα δοῦπος. Δοῦπος is a word used by Homer to express the crash of falling trees, and it is applied, too, to certain falls of the Nile. Thus Pliny writes: "Here and there, and ever and anon, hitting upon islands, and stirred as it were with so many provocations, and at last inclosed and shut within mountaines, and in no place carrieth he (the Nile) a rougher and swifter streame, while the water that he beareth hasteneth to a place of the Æthiopians, called Catadupa, where in the last fall amongst the rockes that stand in his way he rusheth downe with a mightie noise."[126:A] Catadoupe is also a French word for waterfall, though it is now obsolete; and Ralph Thoresby, is his "Diary," describes Coldwarth Force in the Lake District as "a remarkable catadupa." When, then, we say that it is "raining cats and dogs" we mean that there is a tremendous downpour, a perfect catadoupe. Another old country proverb, "Hurry no man's cattle, you may have a horse of your own some day," appears on the face of it a protest against over-driving, but the first word is a corruption of harry or steal. To carry a thing through "to the bitter end" seems to imply that, come what may of opposition, the matter shall be forced through, no matter whose heart breaks in the process, but nothing so terrible as this is involved. The expression is a nautical one. Bite is a turn of a cable, and the bitter end is that part of the cable which is wound round the bitt. The bitter end is therefore the extreme end. We read, for instance, in "Robinson Crusoe," that during the storm his vessel encountered, the cables were "veered out to the bitter end"; and, if we turn to Admiral Smyth's "Sailors' Word Book," we find the bitter end defined as "that part of the cable which is abaft the bitts, and therefore within board when the ship rides at anchor. When a chain or rope is paid out to the bitter end no more remains to let go." The popular expression, therefore, that we are considering implies a determination to carry a thing through to a finish, but no bitterness of feeling is a necessary element in the process. The expression "By hook or by crook" has grown into the idea of a dogged determination to effect a certain purpose--honestly, it may be--but at all events to effect it; but its origin carries no such idea, the most that is involved being a choice of alternatives. Those who by ancient manorial privilege had the right to collect wood for burning were allowed a hook and a crook, the former cutting the green wood, and the latter breaking off the dry; hence, one way or the other, by hook or by crook, they effected their purpose.