WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 311 



after simmering all day, imparted a most delicious gamy flavour 

 to the whole concoction. On Friday, what remained of the shin 

 of beef at the bottom was fished out, and a couple of rabbits 

 substituted for stock, water added if required : this, too, was 

 a soup than which no better was ever set before a London 

 alderman. Then on Saturday, the concoction assumed again a 

 totally changed colour and flavour : a fresh hare, with a handful 

 of peppercorns, was added to the ingredients, which, as they 

 now nearly filled the pot-au-fen with a variety of game, produced 

 a hare soup of the finest and most delicate character. The 

 amalgamation of the whole on Sunday was positively perfect ; but 

 as the debris of bone and meat accumulated upwards, Annette 

 at the last found some difficulty in expressing the liquor from 

 the mass below, although, as the palmer of old was wont to use 

 his scallop-shell when expressing water from the bibulous sand, 

 she managed with an iron ladle to squeeze up enough the very 

 essence of game to supply our wants. This ended the week. 

 The pot-au-feu was then emptied, and its contents fetched every 

 Monday morning by some poor peasant 'women occupying a 

 hamlet about a league from the Hermitage, to whom, doubtless, 

 the food must have proved little less than a God-send. 



Having now given a long list of the most stirring events 

 connected with forest life in Brittany, I dare not inflict on the 

 reader a more minute detail of our daily adventures ; although, 

 among ourselves, sundry incidents were never wanting to mark 

 one day's sport from another, and to create an ever-varying 

 interest in the wild scenes by which we were surrounded in 

 that primitive country. But as there is one description of sport 

 to which hitherto no allusion has been made, namely, that of 

 wrestling a sport ancient and popular among the Bretons of 

 Cornouaille I propose in the next chapter to describe a meeting 

 that took place at Pleyben, where the athletes had assembled 

 in great force to compete for prizes and establish their prowess 



