GARIBALDI A T HOME. 151 



lently are they being harvested. A good deal has already been 

 secured in barn and stackyard, and in such condition, too, as is but 

 rarely possible under the weeping skies of the west coast. The 

 weather is stiU so favourable that our people are working with a 

 will, and making every exertion to have their harvesting concluded 

 while it lasts. Potatoes still continue sound and untainted, 

 although an occasional spottiness of the leaf in some fields shows 

 that our old enemy the " blight " has not yet forgot the time of his 

 coming. The crop is now, however, about ripe, and may be con- 

 sidered very much out of danger for the season. In our last, we had 

 a good deal to say about this invaluable root, and how it should be 

 brought to table ; and to show that such a subject-matter is not quite 

 so infra dig. as some of our readers might suppose, listen to what 

 the Times says of Garibaldi's doings at Caprera. After recounting 

 the General's failures in connection with his orchard, the acclimation 

 of the silk-worm, &e., the Times proceeds : — " Garibaldi, however, 

 points with exultation to hLs potato fields. No species of the 

 favourite root is neglected, and there is no treat he so heartily enjoys 

 as a dish of his own potatoes, baked with his own hand under 

 embers, in the open air — a treat which calls up reminiscences of his 

 camp Hfe on the Tonale or the Stelvis, or of his pioneer's experience 

 in the backwoods of the Mississippi or the Plate." We wonder if 

 this " hero in an unheroic age," who ytet disdains not to exult in 

 his potato fields, or to cook his delicious " earth apples," as the 

 French so happily term them, in the embers with his own hand — 

 we wonder if he eats his fish vrith his fingers 1 We could lay a 

 wager that he does ; that in eating his ember-roasted potatoes in the 

 open air, with some broiled tunny, let us suppose, as a fitting 

 accompaniment — (the Thynnus vulgaris, in highest esteem with the 

 ancients as with the modems, abundant about Caprera and all the 

 shores of Provenge, Sardinia, and Sicily, and than which, indeed, 

 there is hardly any better fish) — wo could lay a wager, we say, that 



