The Hobartown market is abundantly furnished with most excellent meat--the beef I never saw surpassed, and the mutton is excellent. The principal part of the beeves consumed here are brought from Port Phillip in small craft known as “bullockers,” and, despite their uncomfortable passage across the straits, land in excellent condition. We had plenty of such provender whilst we lay here--the cook, or steward, having orders to get abundant supplies each morning, except Sundays--and we did it justice. Although a seaman sighs for fresh meat, after a long cruise, when he has enjoyed it for several days his appetite becomes surfeited, and he gladly hunts up salt junk, and partakes of it with a relish. The consumption for the first and second days is treble that of the succeeding three. A vessel, several years ago, touched at a port on the western coast of South America, for a reason not assigned. There was no fresh meat furnished to the crew, in lieu of it poultry was substituted, which, for a short time, was partaken of with relish; but one day the captain was surprised at seeing his men come aft and complain of their chicken diet, asserting that they had had too much of it, and could not work upon it. Salt junk was served out in its place, and the difficulty settled. This is not an isolated case of the kind; I have read elsewhere, I think in one of J. Fennimore Cooper’s works, that the Scotch garrisons originally stationed on the various outposts of Great Britain, on the lakes, were accustomed to complain when an over supply of venison or salmon was meted out to them; these articles, to us luxuries, being so plentiful near their abode, and so often partaken of as to lose their novelty. At the present writing I have been but a few months without fresh provisions, and so long a dissertation on the coveted food, has conjured up to my imagination, visions of fresh and juicy meat, vegetables in profusion, and amongst other delicacies, last, though not least, a buckwheat or Johnny cake; neither would a piece of bread and cheese he out of the way, or any other of the little et ceteras grateful to the appetite, that the poorest person ashore can command at will, but which the wanderer on the sea must deny himself when engaged in a long voyage; the owners generally considering salt junk and hard bread as the staffs of life at sea.