SALT FOOD. 
431 
d' oeuvre. It is talked of, in village parlance, as tlie ham-and-egg 
season, because at this time butchers are not to be depended on. 
A few years since such was the case here, but at present we 
are better supplied. As for country taverns, it may be doubt- 
ed if they ever set a table without ham, broiled or fried, with 
eggs also, if possible. During an excursion of ten days, the sum- 
mer before last, in the southern counties, we had but one meal 
without ham, and frequently it was the only meat on table. The 
Wandering Jew would have fared badly in this part of the world, 
especially if he moved out of sight of the railroads. 
There are said to be more hogs in the United States than in 
all the difierent countries of Europe together, so that a traveller 
ought not to be surprised when he meets these animals in the 
handsomest streets of our largest towns, as he may do any day. 
Probably we should be a more healthy nation if we were to eat 
beef and mutton, where we now eat pork. 
It is not improbable that this taste for salt and smoked food 
generally, may be owing to the early colonial habits, when the 
supply of fresh meats, with the exception of game, must have 
been small ; and the habit once formed, may have become hered- 
itary, as it were. 
Monday, \8th, 1 o’clock, a. m. — Lovely, soft morning. The 
valley lies cool and brown in the dawning light, a beautiful sky 
hanging over it, with delicate, rosy, sun-rise clouds floating here 
and there amid the limpid blue. It will be an hour yet before the 
sun comes over the hill ; at this season its rays scarcely touch the 
vUlage roofs before eight, leaving them in shadow again a little 
after four. 
How beautiful are the larger pines which croAvn the eastern hill at 
