With regard to food, he was very fond of what some people would call common things; but no man understood better how to order a dinner, or what to order, and how to enjoy it, especially in Paris. He used to say that French cooking and English materials and a good cellar ought to keep any man alive for a hundred years; but when he could not get these luxuries he preferred, not the demi-semi sort of table with sham _entrées_, but whatever food of the country the natives ate. For instance, in West Africa on the coast, everything was turtle, which abounds. In Brazil it was _fejão_ and _farinha_, which _fejoada_ was brown beans, covered with a very savoury sauce, and coarse flour (the two mixed up together are delicious); and also a kind of hot-pot, which was kept continually going. In Damascus and all Eastern places it would be _kous-kous_, of which he never tired, and _kabábs_; and in Trieste, _risotto_ (a savoury rice dish with lumps of meat thrown about in it), _polenta_ (yellow meal made something like a pudding with little birds in it), _ravioli_ (Genoese paste), and so on. But, in fact, in each place that we went to, he used native dishes, native wine, and native smoke, cigars or otherwise, because, as he argued, they were adapted to the climate. So when we came to a pretentious hotel, and he asked for common things--let us say the little black olives--the proprietor would say, "Oh dear, no, Sir; we don't keep such common things as that;" and he used to say, "Then send out sharp and get them." He loved _bácalá_ (dried codfish) and _sauerkraut_, but they have both such a horrid smell that I bargained to have them on Saturday, the day _after_ my reception day (Friday). One thing he could not bear, and that was honey. As some people know that there is a cat in a room, he also could not sit in the room with honey, and knew even if it was kept in the most secret drawer or cupboard. Sometimes after a dinner or lunch I have said to him, "What made you look so uncomfortable?" And he would say, "There was honey in the room, and I thought they would think I was mad if I asked to have it removed; but I felt quite faint." His great treat of all was a sucking-pig, three weeks old, roasted well with the crackle, stuffing, and apple-sauce; and this was always ordered on our wedding-day and on his birthday.