Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 67, No. 416, June 1850Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 67, No. 416, June 1850
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Amongst all my reminiscences of campaigning, none are more vividly
impressed upon my mind, than the reminiscence of a campaigning
appetite, which I am persuaded is altogether extraordinary, and a
thing _per se_. Did you ever visit Cintra? Now there's the Cintra
appetite, and a very good one it is, too. This, also, has its
distinguishing feature--namely, that on the one hand, while you are
riding about (or, if a sensible person, going on foot, exploring,
climbing, scrambling) amongst rocks, and peaks, and splendid scenery,
the pleasing idea of the dinner that will be ready for you, on
returning to your hotel, blends itself, by a gentle amalgamation,
with every discovery, with every prospect; and while, on the other
hand, the said dinner is actually on the table before you, and under
discussion, the splendid scenes you have been witnessing, like
dissolving views, pass in procession before your mind. Thus your
dinners are romantic, while your rambles are appetising.
Then, again, there's the nautical appetite, which comes on you like
a giant, when you have mastered the qualms of the first few days at
sea. The nautical appetite, also, has its peculiar feature, which is
this--that the intervals of time between one meal and another appear
so awfully long. That's because you've nothing to do. But--
The campaigning appetite, I say, differing from both these, has
also its characteristic proper to itself--namely, that there never
is a moment when you are unprepared to eat; the instant you have
done, you are ready to begin again. You sit down, at headquarters,
to a breakfast where the table groans with various and abundant
provender--tea, coffee, chocolate, bread, eggs, cold meat, ham,
tongue, sausages sublimed with garlic, enormous rashers of bacon,
beefsteaks, not to name knick-knackeries innumerable, and something
short as a calker. You do ample justice--oh, haven't you made a
famous breakfast? and in half-an-hour you are ready for another! If,
having stowed away breakfast for two, you happen to pop in upon a
friend who is taking his, you join him as a matter of course. And,
my dear madam, what makes it so peculiar in my case is, I was always
such a very small eater. The only exception to this perpetuity of a
campaigning appetite, is when something extraordinary is going on in
front--a battle, or what looks just like it, a skirmish. Then, for a
while, you forget that you are hungry. The stomach is still equally
in a state of preparation to receive and digest food. But, for the
nonce, you ignore the fact; the wolf lies dormant. Oh, how savage
he wakes up, though, when the fighting is over, and you all at once
remember that you haven't dined. In short, with plenty always at
command, with no real want unsupplied, I never suffered so much from
hunger as when campaigning, and I never ate so often. Your only plan
is this: Whenever the opportunity presents itself, _take in stock_.
Breakfast, as if you had no prospect of a dinner; dine, as if you had
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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