United States or Venezuela ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Of course our first need was to secure a supply of food, of which we had only a little originally laid up for our use in the chambers of the old temple, tinned meats that we had brought from London and so forth, now nearly all consumed.
"Looks like tinned stuff, Doc. Open it, and I'll look over here." The doctor smashed the box with his foot, and found, as the other had thought, that it contained cylindrical cans; but the labels were faded with age. Opening one with his jack-knife, he tasted the contents.
I congratulated Tom, and asked what time he went to bed: "Oh, about seven o'clock!" He was, in fact, a lonely old bachelor, and, being "no scholard," it saved lights and firing to be early to bed. This man, like many villagers, had very vague ideas of geography. To save the trouble of cooking, he lived largely on American tinned beef, and got chaffed about it by his fellow-workers.
Think what it would have been to me when I was tramping around with my tin-types to find a column and a half of real, cultured conversation an artist, in his studio abroad, talking of his art and to know how he looked as he did it, and what the room was like, and what he had for breakfast; and to tell myself, eating tinned beans beside a creek, that if all went well, the same sort of thing would, sooner or later, happen to myself: why, Loudon, it would have been like a peephole into heaven!"
Later on Fritz would come out and get these luxuries. The next night Tommy would go out to see what Fritz had put into his stocking. The donation generally consisted of a paper from Berlin, telling who was winning the war, some tinned sausages, cigars, and occasionally a little beer, but a funny thing, Tommy never returned with the beer unless it was inside of him.
Attention should, of course, be paid to having a good vegetable garden, in which a good supply of lettuces and tomatoes should form a principal feature, and during the wet weather months, when vegetables cannot be procured on the spot, tinned vegetables should be used. I have found the French tinned vegetables to be the best.
Godfrey excelled himself in the cooking department, and our usual diet of "tinned dog" was agreeably varied by small pigeons, which came in numbers to drink pretty little slate-grey birds with tufts on their heads, common enough in Australia. Of these we shot over fifty, and, as well, a few of the larger bronzewing pigeons.
Whether it was the result of the nervous, excitable temperament which had brought them together in this feverish hunt for gold; whether it was the quality of the tinned meats or half-cooked provisions they hastily bolted, begrudging the time it took to prepare and to consume them; whether they too often supplanted their meals by tobacco or whiskey, the singular physiological truth remained that these young, finely selected adventurers, living the lives of the natural, aboriginal man, and looking the picture of health and strength, actually suffered more from indigestion than the pampered dwellers of the cities.
I took with me a gun, fishing rods and tackle, a mosquito net, plenty of cigars and a hamper of tinned meats, tea, coffee and biscuits. My journey was nearly altogether by water and I enjoyed every inch of the beautiful river.
But I know their tricks." A summons to tea below interrupted him. "Hungry, my word! Hardly dared eat in that dining-coach. Tinned stuff all about one. Appendicitis! American journal some Colonel chap found it out. Hunting sort. Looked a fool beside his silly horse, but seemed to know. Took no chances. Said the tin-opener slays its thousands. Rot, no doubt. Perhaps not."
Word Of The Day