THE COOKERY OF THE PHEASANT 235 



never greeted the early woodman on the Alban Hills. 

 But the pheasants figured conspicuously all the same 

 at Roman feasts ; they were probably imported from 

 Pontus or Cappadocia. No doubt they came in coops, 

 and were hand-crammed on the voyage. We can 

 imagine the condition in which the unlucky fowls 

 were delivered to the poulterers at Ostia, after a 

 sad experience of shaking and sea-sickness. Nowa- 

 days our most lavish gourmands are wise enough to 

 avoid such follies. Mohammed travels to the moun- 

 tains in place of demanding impossible miracles, and 

 if connoisseurs desire foreign delicacies in perfection, 

 they go to eat them on the spot. There are not many 

 enthusiasts like the Creoles in ' Tom Cringle's Log,' 

 who came all the way from Jamaica to Biggleswade 

 for the sake of the Bedfordshire eels, and whose pil- 

 grimage ended in melancholy disappointment. But 

 we have known travellers who have gone to Nijni- 

 Novgorod, that they might try the sterlet in the 

 famous Volga restaurants ; and we have heard of globe- 

 trotters who have missed a steamer at Singapore, that 

 they might get over a first disappointment and acquire 

 a taste for the mangosteen. The financiers and the 

 farmers of the French revenues did a great work in 

 their day, and their selfish and ostentatious profusion 

 has been of lasting service to cuhnary science. But 



