Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851Various
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
"This is my Paradise, Tiernay, only wanting an Eve to be perfect," said
Latrobe, as he set me down beneath a spreading lime-tree. "Yonder are
your English friends; there they stretch away for miles beyond that
point. That's the Monte Creto, you may have heard of; and there's the
Bochetta. In that valley, to the left, the Austrian outposts are
stationed; and from those two heights closer to the shore, they are
gracious enough to salute us every evening after sunset, and even
prolong the attention sometimes the whole night through. Turn your eyes
in this direction, and you'll see the 'cornice' road, that leads to La
Belle France, but of which we see as much from this spot as we are ever
like to do. So much for the geography of our position, and now to look
after your breakfast. You have, of course, heard that we do not revel in
superfluities. Never was the boasted excellence of our national cookery
more severely tested, for we have successively descended from cows and
sheep to goats, horses, donkeys, dogs, occasionally experimenting on
hides and shoe leather, till we ended by regarding a rat as a rarity,
and deeming a mouse a delicacy of the season. As for vegetables, there
would not have been a flowering plant in all Genoa, if tulip and
ranunculus roots had not been bitter as aloes. These seem very
inhospitable confessions, but I make them the more freely since I am
about to treat you 'en Gourmet.' Come in now, and acknowledge that
juniper-bark isn't bad coffee, and that commissary bread is not to be
thought of 'lightly.'"
In this fashion did my comrade invite me to a meal, which, even with
this preface, was far more miserable and scanty than I looked for.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
MORBID IMPULSES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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