with the "curd" between the flakes, placed within a coat of virgin-white paper (oiled) and grilled for 15 minutes or so, is an excellent breakfast dish. A fry of small troutlets, a ditto of the deer's interior economy--_Mem._ When up at the death of a hunted stag, always beg or annex a portion of his liver--are also common dishes at the first meal served by the "gudewife"; and I once met a cold haggis at 9.30 A.M. But this, I rather fancy, was "a wee bit joke" at my expense. Anyhow I shall have plenty to say about the "great chieftain o' the puddin' race" in a later chapter. _Off to Gold-land!_ Those that go down to the sea in ships, and can summon up sufficient presence of mind to go down to the saloon at meal times, have far from a bad time of it. Living was certainly better on the ocean wave in the days when livestock was kept on board, and slaughtered as required; for the effect of keeping beef, pork, and mutton in a refrigerating chamber for any length of time is to destroy the flavour, and to render beef indistinguishable from the flesh of the hog, and mutton as tasteless as infantine pap. But the ship's galley does its little utmost; and the saloon passenger, on his way to the other side of the equator, may regale himself with such a breakfast as the following, which is taken from the steward's book of a vessel belonging to the Union Line:-- Porridge, fillets of haddock with fine herbs, mutton chops and chip potatoes, savoury omelet, bacon on toast, minced collops, curry and rice, fruit, rolls, toast, etc., tea and coffee. Cannot my readers imagine a steward entering the state-room of the voyager who has succumbed to the wiles and eccentricities of the Bay of Biscay, with the observation: "Won't you get up to breakfast, sir?--I've reserved a _beautiful_ fat chop, with chips, o' purpose for you, sir." And the lot of the third-class passenger who is conveyed from his native land to the Cape of Good Hope, for what Mr. Montague Tigg would have called "the ridiculous sum of" £16: 16s., is no such hard one, seeing that he is allotted a "bunk" in a compact, though comfortable cabin, and may break his fast on the following substantial meal:-- Porridge, Yarmouth bloaters, potatoes, American hash, grilled mutton, bread and butter, tea or coffee.