136 
“STRAY SCRAPS FROM ODD LARDERS.” 
[Nature and Art, May 1, 1867. 
Totara tree, and when sufficiently done ai’e placed 
in the natural bottles or basks formed on a species 
of sea-weed like a huge variety of the bladder- 
wrack ( Fucus vesiculosus) of our own coasts; the 
heated fat from the birds is then poured in and the 
sea-bottle securely tied up. Provisions treated in 
this manner remain perfectly good for a very long 
time, being completely excluded from both air and 
moisture. 
Eels and other fish are preserved in the 
same manner. The New Zealanders have some 
curious and superstitious notions regarding eels, 
their capture, and preparation ; they say : “You 
must wash your hands before going to catch them, 
and also on returning, and the bait must be prepared 
some distance from the house ; there must be a 
distinct fire for cooking the eel, for which you 
must have a special tinder-box ; your hands and 
mouth must be washed both before and after 
partaking of them, and should it be necessary to 
drink from the same stream from which the eels 
are caught, you must have two vessels of water, the 
one to drink from, the other to dip from the 
stream.” 
Among the hunters of Africa, an elephant’s 
loot, baked in a deep hole beneath the camp 
fire, is esteemed a great delicacy, as is a buffalo’s 
hump, with the skin on, prepared much in the 
same manner, by the hunters and trappers of 
North-West America. These hardy explorers and 
fur-hunters prepare a very portable and wholesome 
food, called Pemmican, which is thus made : — 
Buffalo’s flesh is cut into convenient flakes and 
flat layers, like long, thin steaks ; these are either 
hung in the sun or near a slow fire until dry, when 
the dried meat is ground between two stones until 
sufficiently fine ; a bag is then made of buffalo-hide 
with the hair side out, and pulverized flesh, after 
being thoroughly mixed with hot fat, well pressed 
in ; the bag is then securely stitched up and the 
Pemmican allowed to cool and harden. When re- 
quired for use, it is cut from the mass like hard 
sausage-meat, and either eaten cold, or, when 
mixed with flour or meal, a sort of thick porridge, 
called “ Itobiboo,” is made from it. 
The vast clouds of locusts, which in some 
countries both darken the air and devastate 
the land, are eaten greedily by nearly every- 
thing possessing life ; men, animals, birds, fish, 
and insects all join in the locust feast. The 
provident savage lays by a store nicely smoke- 
dried to consume at his leisure, with such tuberous 
roots or other underground productions as his sable 
spouse, armed with her sharp-pointed grubbing- 
stick, can procure for him. Manna, too, is a 
substance, the name of which has been rendered 
familiar to all by the mention made of it in the 
Scriptures. In the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, 
the fifteenth and following verses, reference is made 
to the miraculous supply of this food to the wander- 
ing Israelites. Josephus says: “The Hebrews 
called this food manna, for the particle man in our 
language is the asking of a question. What is this ? 
[Man hu .) The Persian writers often mention 
manna, and it appears to have been known to both 
them and the Arabs in very early ages ; one kind, 
called Guzunjbeen, is in pretty general use ; it is 
obtained from a shrub called Guz, a species of 
tamarisk. The same description of manna is in 
some disti'icts called Toofra. It is known by that 
name, and is common at many ports on the Arabian 
coasts, and throughout the tract of country sur- 
rounding Mount Sinai. The manna is usually 
collected during the months of June and July, 
amongst the tamarisk thickets, where it drains 
from the ends of the thorns, and falls on the dry 
leaves and small sticks which have fallen to the 
ground ; it then congeals into hard masses, and is in 
that condition gathered for use. The Arabs use it 
as a substitute for honey, eating it with their bread 
or other food. A thorny tree, known as the Camel 
thorn, growing in the north of India and Syria, is 
also manna-yielding, producing the description 
called A l haj, or Persian manna. Beiruk honey 
is in reality manna, and is obtained from the Ghrab 
tree, which is not unlike a stunted aspen. There is 
also a kind found in the country of Uzbecs, said to 
be procured from a small tree with a jointed trunk. 
The Ashur plant of the Arabs yields a kind of 
manna known as “ Arab sugar,” or Shukur el 
ashur. There is a description, also, in high repute 
throughout Persia as a medicine, obtained from a 
peculiar willow growing in low, moist valleys. 
A tree of the oak family, found in Mesopotamia, 
produces its manna, yielding the largest quantity 
where gall-nuts are most abundant, The Manna 
Brigantiaca is the produce of the larch, whilst the 
cedars of Lebanon furnish a kind of their own, 
These various descriptions are supposed to be the 
result of punctures made in the trees by an insect 
called Coccus manniparus. Large quantities of 
manna were at one time imported into this country 
from Sicily and the south of Italy ; but compara- 
tively little is now consumed. This is the produce 
of three varieties of the common ash ; two kinds 
are most common — Ornus Pur opera and Fraxinus 
rotundifolia. To obtain the manna from these, 
incisions are made in the bark of the stems with 
knives prepared for the purpose. The first cut is 
made near the ground, and others, at two inches 
apart, two inches long and half an inch deep, are 
proceeded with at the rate of one cut per day 
in each row of incisions, working gradually 
upwards. Immediately below these longitudinal 
wounds, T-shaped cuts are prepared for the reception 
of the ends of leaves, gathered from the tree, which 
act as conductors to carry the sap clear of the 
trunk, and admit of its dropping into Indian fig- 
leaves placed on the ground to receive it. These fig- 
leaves have the peculiar property of drying with 
their edges curled up, rendering them extremely 
useful for the reception of the sap, which soon 
hardens in the sun and air. We have often seen 
them used by the Indian devotees to place offer- 
ings of honey and native butter in, to lay before 
their idols. August is the month usually selected 
for tapping the trees, and dry, warm weather is 
most favourable for the operation, as rain dissolves 
