The advantages derived from the breeding of swine are very great. Their flesh, which has the appellation of _pork_, is in universal request; and is of peculiar importance in a commercial view, as it takes salt better, and is capable of being kept longer, than any other kind of meat that we are acquainted with. Pork, after having been salted, is sometimes hung up to dry in the open air; but, generally, it is smoked by being hung in a chimney. In this state it has the general name of _bacon_. What are called _hams_, are the thighs preserved in a similar manner. _Westphalia hams_ are generally made from such animals as have been well fed, and allowed to range at pleasure in the extensive moorlands of that province; and they have a singular flavour, not so much from any great difference that there is in the salting of them, as from their being smoked in chimneys where only wood fires are burnt. The time of fumigation is from three to six months, according to their size. Pork, though a wholesome food, requires a strong stomach to digest it properly; and ham and bacon are highly improper for persons of weak and languid habits. _Brawn_ is the flesh of the boar pickled in a peculiar manner, and is always better tasted according to the greater age of the animal of which it is made. After the boar is killed, the head and legs are cut off, and the bones are carefully taken from the remaining part. This, after having been properly salted, is rolled together as hard as possible. It is then boiled till it becomes so tender as to be pierced with a straw. It is afterwards set by till quite cold, and lastly is immersed in a pickle formed of salt and bran boiled together. The usual mode of curing pork is with common salt, or bay salt; but some persons add saltpetre or nitre, juniper berries, pepper, and other antiseptic substances. The Jews and Mahometans abstain from this species of food from a religious principle, and even consider themselves defiled by touching it. The inhabitants of China, on the contrary, are so excessively fond of pork, that multitudes, from this partiality alone, are said to have been prevented from conversion to Mahometanism.