SYMPTOMS OF INEBRIETY. 205 



Let him, whose jaded palate a club-house cook connot accom- 

 modate, try the cuisinerie of our cabin. He shall walk to the 

 mountain lake, and on his return, the Colonel will compose a 

 soup, and the Priest supply a salmon : if eating like a plough- 

 man be to him a pleasure 



" If these won't make him, 

 The devil take him !" 



But lest my theories be mistaken, I must say, that I hold 

 cooking and " creature comforts" as very secondary indeed 

 to sport. If all can be had, so much the better ; and when 

 I recommend the tyro to learn the art and mysteries of the 

 broiling iron, it is precisely on the principle that the know- 

 ledge how to cook a dinner may, at times, be as necessary 

 for him, as to know how to wash a gun. No man, I pre- 

 sume, will do either, who can manage to have them done 

 by a deputy. But a sportsman, a keen straightforward 

 sportsman, will of necessity be often left dependant upon 

 his own resources, and hence he should be prepared for the 

 contingency. It is the abuse I cry out against. A man 

 who on the mountains counts the minutes until dinner- 

 hour shall come, who is seeking an appetite rather than 

 amusement, and instead of game is dreaming of gourman- 

 derie him I totally reject, and implore to lay aside his gun 

 for ever, and exchange the powder-flask for the pepper- 

 box. The latter he will find more useful, and not half so 

 dangerous. 



It was clear, from the very start, that this was to be among 

 the wettest nights of the season. The Colonel settled himself 

 for a comfortable carouse ; the Priest was not the man to 

 desert his buon camarado ; and Antony declared that there was 

 good cause for a general jollification, as he properly observed, 

 that " it was not every day that Manus kills a bullock," by 

 which old saw, I presume the defunct deer and ourselves are 

 typified. No wonder, then, that the revel commenced with all 

 the members of the body politic ; and whilst the contents of 

 the "four-gallon keg" were invaded in the kitchen, the wine 

 circulated rapidly in the chamber of state. In truth, during 

 my short but chequered life, civil and military, I never saw a 

 party evince an honester disposition to drink fair. No 

 coquetry about filling ; no remonstrances touching " heeltaps 

 and skyliehts ;" round went the bottle, until the juice of 



