8UPPEE. 251 



wood tree. Oh, dear beyond all cafes, and green when 

 Verey's shall be forgotten, is that spreading blanket- 

 cloth, those bark platters, and flashing fires, by which so 

 many meals have been cooked and heartily eaten. Don't 

 laugh, Epicurean, who reads these lines in a big city, 

 where for years fancy cooks have manufactured spiced 

 dinners at Midas prices, and do not say it was only the 

 appetite, and not the dinner, that was marvellously good. 

 Though it is easy to cook when you have skillet and spi- 

 der, bake oven and basting spoon, griddle, pan, sauce- 

 dish, pot, skewers, rotary jacks, earthen dishes, and a 

 double acting patent kitchen range, yet still there are 

 more good meals cooked in this world without them 

 than with them, and this reminds me of the last dinner 

 we had at our camp on Bonda Key. 



There had been a long hunt that had lasted from day- 

 break till almost sunset, and we were tired and hungry, 

 and a certain feeling of approaching separation had come 

 over us that made exertion necessary, and so we went to 

 work with a will to cook a good meal. It is true, our 

 utensils for cooking were few and simple ; they consisted 

 of one iron kettle, one tin coffee pot, and a dozen tin 

 cups a small batterie de cuisine for a legitimate cook, 

 but they were ample for us. The fire had been burning 

 for a week, and thus there were plenty of hard coals. 

 The material consisted of some Indian meal, bear's meat, 

 venison, wild ducks, wild turkey, red-fish, turtle eggs, and 

 Bnipe. The cooks were Mike, the Doctor, Lou Jackson, 

 and myself ; the scullions were all the negroes of the island. 



