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In this confinement, I began to be straitened for food: but venturing out twice, I one day killed a goat; and the last day, which was the 26th, found a very large tortoise, which was a treat to me, and my food was regulated thus: I ate a bunch of raisins for my breakfast; a piece of the goat’s flesh, or of the turtle, for my dinner, broiled—for, to my great misfortune, I had no vessel to boil or stew anything; and two or three of the turtle’s eggs for my supper.
I had on a broad belt of goat’s skin dried, which I drew together with two thongs of the same instead of buckles, and in a kind of a frog on either side of this, instead of a sword and dagger, hung a little saw and a hatchet, one on one side and one on the other.
And here I was at a full stop for many months; nor did I really know what to do. Linen I had none left but what was mere rags; I had goat’s hair, but neither knew how to weave it or spin it; and had I known how, here were no tools to work it with.
It is no flimsy cane to startle flies with, but a stout stem some six feet long, duly peeled, scraped and polished, and mounted with a chased head of massive silver. Close by his side an effeminate leather-dresser from Carlsruhe sits stroking his yellow goat’s beard.
Now it is evening again, and he has come up to a village grove, where the rustics were holding a feast in honour of Pan. The hideous brutal god, with yawning mouth, horned head, and goat’s feet, was placed in a rude shed, and a slaughtered lamb, decked with flowers, lay at his feet.
Lysander sailed away, with the Athenian fleet pursuing him up to the Hellespont, where he took the city of Lampsacus and plundered it before they came up, and anchored at a place called Ægos Potami, or the Goat’s River, about two miles from Sestos. In the morning Lysander made all his men eat their first meal and then go on board, but gave orders that no ship should stir from its place.
Frau Kurt’s ardent sympathy is aroused for a goat drawing a wagon, and driven by a peasant. She endeavors to interpret the sighs of the beast and finally insists upon the release of the animal, which she asserts is calling to her for aid. The poor goat’s parting bleat after its departing owner is construed as a curse on the latter’s hardheartedness. Frau Kurt embraces and kisses the animal.
I had a great high shapeless cap, made of a goat’s skin, with a flap hanging down behind, as well to keep the sun from me as to shoot the rain off from running into my neck, nothing being so hurtful in these climates as the rain upon the flesh under the clothes.
In the morning, finding his way out of the woods, he espied a lonely hut, to which he made up, and making signs of hunger and thirst, they gave him some rusk bread and cabereta, or goat’s flesh, to eat, and some goat’s milk to drink, which is the usual fare amongst those people, who are most of them Lutherans by religion, and lead very sober lives; of some of them he got small bits of money, which they call campekes, and are of silver, something larger than a barley-corn, being of a penny value; he likewise frequently got drams of excellent brandy amongst them, and his shoes being worn-out by travelling, they gave him a pair of good wooden ones, which sat very awkwardly on his English feet.
Afterwards I came up with another of these goatherds, whose helpmate was with him. They gave us some goat’s milk, a welcome present. I pitied the poor devil of a goatherd for having such a very plain wife. I spend an enormous quantity of pity upon that particular form of human misery.
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