70 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



M. du Chaillu informs us was done for Southern 

 Africa by the terrible gorilla-haunted chain of central 

 mountains. Yet, gentle reader, being informed how 

 thus a kingdom's destiny was changed, imagine not 

 that there intervened some vo$ xPW a peyurrov, such 

 as of old laid waste the Mysian Olympus and robbed 

 Crcesus of his heir ; nor, again, a prophetic Lavinian 

 sow ; nor such a brute as that of Erymanthus, that 

 gave the convict Hercules so hard a day's work ; nor 

 such as slew Adonis, but simply the united interest 

 of a standing army that country maintains of those 

 dear dumpling-like porci bimestres, which Juvenal 

 so aptly terms animal propter convivia natum ; 

 the like of which Horace was wont to suck his 

 fingers over at his Genius's " gaudy ; " the dis- 

 covery by John Chinaman, of the exquisite de- 

 liciousness of whose " crackling " has been so 

 humorously depicted by Elia's pen, and which was, 

 consequently, not to be resigned for all the Mahomets 

 that ever drew sword. 



Lastly, I may admonish you that as a rule it will 

 scarcely pay to keep a pig for racing purposes. I 

 refer not to those immortal pairs which Captain Cook 

 benevolently turned out to multiply and reform the 

 New Zealander's larder, but which the reckless 

 people mounted at a sort of Pacific wake or revel, 

 and galloped right to death, but to one that I re- 

 member in the possession of a certain Highland 

 widow which she backed to beat any pony in the 

 country. She bargained only for choice of ground. 

 The challenge was accepted, the day appointed, and 

 a crowd gathered to behold. At the last moment 



