32 TfATTJEAL HISTOET SKETCHES. 



bara is not so well. Soak the bams in tbe brine for five 

 days, occasionally turning tbem : when properly soaked, 

 bang tbem out to dry. If they are smoked, which adds 

 much to their flavour, a proper smoking-bouse should 

 be knocked up : a tent chimney will do. But you must 

 only use green wood, and keep damping it, so that it 

 does not blaze. I am sure I do not know what is the 

 best wood to use here in smoking, for the juniper-bush 

 does not grow in these forests: we used honeysuckle 

 for what few we smoked. A hole dug in the ground, in 

 which a fire of honeysuckle-cones and other rubbish 

 is lighted, built over with a cone-shaped hut of tea-tree 

 scrub, in which the hams should smoke for three or four 

 days, will answer the purpose. It is always as well to 

 have a tub of brine in every bush tent on the kangaroo- 

 ground ; for the meat is much improved by lying in it 

 for only a night, and in the summer, when meat will not 

 keep, a slice of kangaroo ham and a little bit of bacon 

 is no bad relish. 



To dry the meat without salt, cut it into long thin 

 slices, light a large fire, and near this erect a frame of 

 tea-tree poles. Place the flesh upon this frame, at such 

 a distance from the fire that it will only dry up the 

 juice : in about twenty-four hours the strips become hard 

 and stiff, and will keep for months. This is the American 

 mode of drying venison or buffalo. 



"We could, I dare say, have sold a good many hams at 

 a much better profit than selling the carcasses whole as 

 we did. Curing hams and drying skins requires a great 



