we were speaking, and of living in the lonely forests. We pity with
tears many of the poor among us, whose life is one of luxury compared to
that which the Gipsy, who despises them, enjoys with a zest worth more
than riches.

"What a country America must be," quoth Pirengro, the Walker, to me, on
the occasion just referred to. "Why, my pal, who's just welled apopli
from dovo tem--(my brother, who has just returned from that country),
tells me that when a cow or anything dies there, they just chuck it away,
and nobody ask a word for any of it." "What would _you_ do," he
continued, "if you were in the fields and had nothing to eat?"

I replied, "that if any could be found, I should hunt for fern-roots."

"I could do better than that," he said. "I should hunt for a
_hotchewitchi_,--a hedge-hog,--and I should be sure to find one; there's
no better eating."

Whereupon assuming his left hand to be an imaginary hedge-hog, he
proceeded to score and turn and dress it for ideal cooking with a case-
knife.

"And what had you for dinner to-day?" I inquired.

"Some cocks' heads. They're very fine--very fine indeed!"

Now it is curious but true that there is no person in the world more
particular as to what he eats than the half-starved English or Irish
peasant, whose sufferings have so often been set forth for our
condolence. We may be equally foolish, you and I--in fact chemistry