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One hundred walnuts, six ounces of shallots, one head of garlic, half a pound of salt, two quarts of vinegar, two ounces of anchovies, two ounces of pepper, a quarter of an ounce of mace, half an ounce of cloves; beat in a large mortar a hundred green walnuts until they are thoroughly broken; then put them into a jar with six ounces of shallots cut into pieces, a head of garlic, two quarts of vinegar and the half pound of salt; let them stand for a fortnight, stirring them twice a day.
The radical of the germinating seed is no more persevering in its efforts to descend into the cool earth than is the Anthrax grub in creeping into the lump of mortar. What inspiration urges it towards its food at the bottom of the clod, what compass guides it? What does it know of those depths, of what lies therein or where? Nothing. What does the root know of the earth's fruitfulness?
We talk of fire-proof buildings nowadays, which are mere shells of iron and brick and stone that shrivel up like writing-paper in a great fire. The only really fire-proof buildings were those of the Middle Age, which consisted of nothing but stone and mortar throughout, stone walls, stone vaults, stone floors, and often stone tables and stone seats.
Two small heaps of dust lay at the foot of the wall, but the impression on the hard mortar or cement had been but slight, and I was appalled to think of the weeks that must elapse before we had cut completely round the stone. But I professed myself well satisfied with the start we had made, and we handed over our tools to Dilly and Tolliday, the next couple, with encouraging words.
"You speak well," said Burley, dragging him aside, "but not wisely; your own ears have heard this night in council how this scattered remnant are broken and divided, and would ye now make a veil of separation between them? Would ye build a wall with unslaked mortar? if a fox go up, it will breach it."
Each, before delivering a blow with her pestle, gives an upward jerk of the body, so as to put strength into the stroke, and they keep exact time, so that two pestles are never in the mortar at the same moment. The measured thud, thud, thud, and the women standing at their vigorous work, are associations inseparable from a prosperous African village.
Groping about with my fingers, I spelled out an Arabic inscription on the wall. The author of the work informed those to come after him that he had loosed two stones in the lowest course of masonry and hollowed out eleven feet beyond underground. As he went on with his excavations, it became necessary to spread the fragments of stone and mortar over the floor of his cell.
I could hear the muffled sound of steps above, and the opening and closing of doors. Once the rattle of crockery reached me, and I believed my captors were at lunch. I tried the bars at the windows, and endeavored to dig my knife-blade into the mortar, but it was as hard as the stone. Discouraged, feeling utterly helpless, I threw myself on the bunk in despair.
My mortar was a jam tin, without top or bottom, placed on an anvil; the pestle a short steel drill. The blacksmith at Mundi Mundi Station made me a small wrought iron crucible, also a pair of bent tongs from a piece of fencing-wire.
I, who am a great man for receipts, gave it her immediately: 'One hod of mortar to one bottle of Noyau." "And did she thank you?" "Thank me! ay, truly; and pushed a card into my hand, so thick and sharp that it cut through my glove. I wore my arm in a sling for a month afterwards," "And what was the card?" "Oh, you need not look so arch. The old lady was not even a faithless duenna.
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