Lest we should contract habits too exclusively carnivorous, we resolved to introduce the vegetable kingdom into our quotidian alimentation. In the desert, this was no easy matter. However, by dint of industry, combined with experience, we ultimately discovered some wild plants, which, dressed in a particular manner, were by no means to be despised. We may be permitted to enter into some details on this subject. The matter in itself is of slight interest; but it may have its use, in relation to travellers who at any future time may have to traverse the deserts of Thibet. When the first signs of germination begin to manifest themselves, if you scratch up the ground to the depth of about an inch, you will find quantities of creeping roots, long and thin like dog-grass. This root is entirely covered with little tubercles, filled with a very sweet liquid. In order to make an extremely nice dish of this vegetable, you have only to wash it carefully and then fry it in butter. Another dish, not less distinguished in our esteem than the preceding, was furnished by a plant very common in France, and the merit of which has never yet been adequately appreciated: we refer to the young stems of fern; when these are gathered quite tender, before they are covered with down, and while the first leaves are bent and rolled up in themselves, you have only to boil them in pure water to realize a dish of delicious asparagus. If our words were of any effect, we would earnestly recommend to the attention of the Minister of Agriculture this precious vegetable, which abounds, as yet to no purpose, on our mountains and in our forests. We would also recommend to him the nettle (_urtica urens_), which, in our opinion, might be made an advantageous substitute for spinage; indeed, more than once, we proved this by our own experience. The nettle should be gathered quite young when the leaves are perfectly tender. The plant should be pulled up whole, with a portion of the root. In order to preserve your hands from the sharp biting liquid which issues from the points, you should wrap them in linen of close texture. When once the nettle is boiled, it is perfectly innocuous, and this vegetable, so rough in its exterior, then becomes a very delicate dish.