THE COOKERY OF THE RABBIT 227 



goatherds and mendicants, he could possess his soul 

 in patience and the savoury steam of the stew where 

 his rabbit was slowly simmering in the pipkin. The 

 pleasures of hope were tryingly prolonged, but tliere 

 was ample reward in the rich fruition. As we shall 

 remark, the rabbit is conspicuous in our literature by 

 its absence, but we have always marvelled that we 

 hear little or nothing of it either in ' Don Quixote ' or 

 ' Gil Bias.' We know that the Governor of Barataria 

 was a gourmand, and the worthy Squire of the Knight- 

 errant, with the scent of an old dog fox, was the very 

 prince of foragers. What gastronomist can fail to 

 sympathise with his raptures when he exultingly 

 marked the cowheels for his own ? It was like coming 

 on a water spring in the wastes of the Sahara. And 

 as it is inconceivable that he never picked up rabbits 

 en roiifc, we can only suppose that Cervantes had a 

 prejudice on the subject. Possibly he was surfeited 

 with rabbits when chained to the galley oars in Bar- 

 bary ; but we confess that that theory is on the face 

 of it improbable. 



Borrow, although a militant envoy of the Bible 

 Society, inured to hard fare and rough quarters, had 

 a strong dash of the gourmet in the natural man. 

 We always remember with pleasure the unfeigned 

 enjoyment of Lavengro over the round of beef at the 



