156 THE LAND OF THE LION 



meat, will make it like that, such treatment can, and does, 

 greatly improve it. 



On my first trip I had so much to learn and so short a 

 time to learn it in, I never was able to tackle satisfactorily 

 the larder question, though I came away convinced that 

 it was not necessary always to eat such stuff as I had been 

 obliged to put up with. Then, too, I was misled, as who 

 has not been before me, by the confident assertion of those 

 who professed to know what they spoke and wrote about, 

 that such and such parts of such and such animals were 

 dainties. Even in the United States my experience in that 

 line had not been satisfactory, and I had learned to cherish 

 the sad doubt of the disillusioned. I had heard, for instance, 

 of the deliciousness of beaver tail, and believed till one sad, 

 hungry day I made an experiment on a goodly beaver tail, 

 and I found that more nauseous, uneatable stuff a hungry 

 man never tackled. One night I could not get back to 

 camp, but had to make my foodless fire by the side of a big 

 grizzly I had killed. Water was good, but I had not even 

 a biscuit, and many a long mile I had gone that day. A 

 sudden inspiration seized me. Who had not often heard 

 of the deliciousness of soup made from bear's paws ? So 

 one of the big skinned, humanlike paws was cut up, and 

 part of it set to stew in my drinking cup. As it slowly, 

 so slowly, stewed, there was a suspicious odour about it. 

 But when it was done well, one sip was enough, even for 

 so keen set an appetite as mine. Then my cup needed 

 double rinsing. One by one I sadly tried all those famous 

 fabled dainties. Found moose moufle about the only part 

 of a moose that was not good to eat. I make, I say one 

 exception, and that is a good, strong one. It is in favour 

 of buffalo hump. Buffalo hump is alas, rather was 

 undeniably good. 



Well, here noted hunters spin the same unaccountably 

 ridiculous yarns. Elephant trunk! Why you had better 



