DINING BY STRATAGEM. 1!»7 



extremity which, in a zoologist, would have been only a milder 

 form of cannibalism. Standing thus at the point of inter- 

 section of two such paths, the pangs of prosjDective hunger 

 developed in me new resources and new impudences. 1 

 went boldly to Mrs Tregarthen (observe she is not a ividow), 

 and to her pathetically unfolded the case, on the supposi- 

 tion that she might not be utterly meatless, in which cir- 

 cumstance the loan of a chop or steak might gracefully be 

 accorded. Meatless the gentle and generous woman was 

 not. A piece of beef, killed eight days ago, and now kept 

 fresh in salt against emergencies, would furnish me with 

 a steak sufficient for two days, and there was a rumour that 

 on the third day beef would be killed, when I could stock 

 myself till next killing-time. Beef, at sevenpence a-pound, 

 as I said, is the only meat you can reckon on, even with 

 forethought. In the time of Borlase it was just the con- 

 trary, mutton being then the meat, and beef a rarity. 

 " About twenty years since," he says, " the inhabitants 

 generally lived on salt victuals, which they had from Eng- 

 land or Ireland ; and if they killed a bullock here, it was so 

 seldom, that in one of the best houses in the islands they 

 have kept part of a bullock killed in September to roast for 

 their Christmas dinner." He adds, that in his time mutton 

 was abundant enough, but beef unattainable. 



Spiritual-minded persons, indifferent to mutton, may dis- 

 regard this carnal inconvenience, and take refuge in the 

 more ideal elements of picturesqueness, solitude, and simpli- 

 city. I cannot say that the inconvenience weighed heavily 

 in the scale against the charms of Scilly ; the more so, as an 



