The Physiology of Taste Part 18

This is the time to shoot them; because in a small number of acres, are found all the birds which a few months before were strewn through a whole commune and are at that time fat as possible.

I went with some friends for the purpose of shooting to a mountain in the arrondissiment of Nantua, in the canton known as plan d'Hotonne, where we were about to commence the day's work under a brighter sun than any Parisian badaud ever saw.

While we were at breakfast a violent north wind arose which was much in the way of our sport: we however continued.

We had scarcely been out a quarter of an hour, when the most effeminate of the party said he was thirsty. We now, doubtless, would have laughed at him, had we not all experienced the same sensation.

We all drank, for an a.s.s loaded with refreshments followed us, but the relief afforded was of brief duration. The thirst soon appeared with increased intensity, so that some fancied themselves sick, and others were becoming so, and all talked of returning. To do so was to have travelled ten leagues for no purpose.

I had time to collect my ideas, and saw the reason of this strange thirst; and told them we suffered from the effects of three causes. The dimunition of atmospheric pressure made our circulation more rapid. The sun heated us, and walking had increased transpiration. More than all these--the wind dried up this transpiration, and prevented all moistness of the skin.

I told them that there was no danger, that the enemy was known, and that we must oppose it.

Precaution however was ineffectual, for their thirst was quenchless. Water, wine and water, and brandy, all were powerless.

We suffered from thirst even while we drank, and were uncomfortable all day.

We got through the day, however; the owner of the domain of Latour entertaining us, joining the provisions we had, to his own stores.

We dined very well and got into the hay-loft, where we slept soundly.

The next day's experience showed my theory to be true. The wind lulled, the sun was not so warm, and we experienced no inconvenience from thirst.

But a great misfortune had befallen us. We had very prudently filled our canteens, but they had not been able to resist the many a.s.saults made on them. They were bodies without souls, and we all fell into the hands of the cabaret-keepers.

We had to come to that point, not however without murmuring. I addressed an allocution full of reproaches to the wind, when I saw a dish fit to be set before a king, "D'epinards a la graisse de cailles," destined to be eaten with a wine scarcely as good as that of Surene. [Footnote: A village two leagues from Paris, famous for its bad wine. There is a proverb which says that to get rid of a gla.s.s of Surene, three things are needed, "a drinker and two men to hold him in case his courage fail." The same may be said of Perieux, which people however will drink.]

MEDITATION IX.

ON DRINKS. [Footnote: This chapter is purely philosophical: a description of different kinds of wine does not enter into the plan I have marked out for myself. If it was, I would never have finished my book.]

By drinks we mean all liquids which mingle with food.

Water seems to be the natural drink. Wherever there is animal life it is found, and replaces milk. For adults it is as necessary as air. WATER. Water is the only fluid which really appeases thirst, and for that reason only a small quant.i.ty of it can be drank. The majority of other fluids that man drinks are only palliatives, and had he drank nothing else he never would have said that he drank without being thirsty. QUICK EFFECT OF DRINKS. Drinks are absorbed by the animal economy with the most extreme facility. Their effect is prompt and the relief they furnish is almost instantaneous.

Give the most hungry man you can meet with the richest possible food, he will eat with difficulty. Give him a gla.s.s of wine or of brandy, and at once he will find himself better.

I can establish this theory by a very remarkable circ.u.mstance I received from my nephew, Colonel Guigard, a man not disposed to tell long stories. All may rely upon the accuracy of what he has said.

He was at the head of a detachment returning from the siege of Jaffa, and was but a few hundred paces from the place where he expected to find water, and where he met many of the advanced guard already dead with heat.

Among the victims of this burning climate was a carabinier who was known to many persons of the detachment.

Many of his comrades who approached him for the last time, either to inherit what he had left, or to bid him adieu, were amazed to find his limbs flexible and something flexible around his heart.

"Give him a drop of sacre chien" said the l.u.s.tig of the troupe.

"If he is not too far gone into the other world, he will come back to taste it."

At the reception of the first spoonful of spirits he opened his eyes: they then rubbed his temples and gave him a drop or two.

After about an hour he was able to sit up in the saddle.

He was taken to a fountain, nursed during the night, and carefully attended to. On the next day he reached Cairo.

STRONG DRINKS.

There is one thing very worthy of attention; the instinct which leads us to look for intoxicating drinks.

Wine, the most pleasant of all drinks, whether due to Noah who planted the vine, or to Bacchus who expressed the juice of the grape, dates back to the infancy of the world. Beer, which is attributed to Osiris, dates to an age far beyond history.

All men, even those we call savages, have been so tormented by the pa.s.sion for strong drinks, that limited as their capacities were, they were yet able to manufacture them.

They made the milk of their domestic animals sour: they extracted the juice of many animals and many fruits in which they suspected the idea of fermentation to exist. Wherever men are found, strong liquors are met with, and are used in festivities, sacrifices, marriages, funeral rites, and on all solemn occasions.

For many centuries wine was drank and sung before any persons had an idea that it was possible to extract the spirituous portion, which is the essence of its power. The Arabs, however, taught us the art of distillation, invented by them to extract the perfume of flowers, and especially of the rose, so celebrated in their poems. Then persons began to fancy that in wine a source of excitement might be found to give taste a peculiar exaltation. By gradual experiments alcohol, spirits of wine, and brandy were discovered.

Alcohol is the monarch of liquids, and takes possession of the extreme tastes of the palate. Its various preparations offer us countless new flavors, and to certain medicinal remedies, it gives an energy they could not well do without. It has even become a formidable weapon: the natives of the new world having been more utterly destroyed by brandy than by gunpowder.

The method by which alcohol was discovered, has led to yet more important results, as it consisted in the separation and exhibition of the const.i.tuent parts of a body, it became a guide to those engaged in a.n.a.logous pursuits, and made us acquainted with new substances, such as quinine, morphine, strychnine and other similar ones.

Be this as it may, the thirst for a liquid which nature has shrouded in veils, the extraordinary appet.i.te acting on all races of men, under all climates and temperatures, is well calculated to attract the attention of the observer.

I have often been inclined to place the pa.s.sion for spirituous liquors, utterly unknown to animals, side by side with anxiety for the future, equally strange to them, and to look on the one and the other as distinctive attributes of the last sublunary revolution.

MEDITATION X.

AN EPISODE ON THE END OF THE WORLD.

I said--last sublunary revolution, and this idea awakened many strange ideas.

Many things demonstrate to us that our globe has undergone many changes, each of which was, so to say, "an end of the world." Some instinct tells us many other changes are to follow.

More than once, we have thought these revolutions likely to come, and the comet of Jerome Lalande has sent many persons to the confessional.

The effect of all this has been that every one is disposed to surround this catastrophe with vengeance, exterminating angels, trumps and other accessories.

Alas! there is no use to take so much trouble to ruin us. We are not worth so much display, and if G.o.d please, he can change the surface of the globe without any trouble.

Let us for a moment suppose that one of those wandering stars, the route and mission of which none know, and the appearance of which is always accompanied by some traditional terror; let us suppose that it pa.s.ses near enough to the sun, to be charged with a superabundance of caloric, and approach near enough to us to create a heat of sixty degrees Reaumur over the whole earth (as hot again as the temperature caused by the comet of 1811.)

All vegetation would die, all sounds would cease. The earth would revolve in silence until other circ.u.mstances had evolved other germs: yet the cause of this disaster would have remained lost in the vast fields of air, and would never have approached us nearer than some millions of leagues.

This event, which in the main, has ever seemed to me a fit subject for reverie, and I never ceased for a moment to dwell on it.

This ascending heat is curious to be looked after, and it is not uninteresting to follow its effects, expansion, action, and to ask:

How great it was during the first, second, and subsequent days.

What effect it had on the earth, and water, and on the formation and mingling, and detonation of ga.s.ses.

What influence it had on men, as far as age, s.e.x, strength and weakness are concerned.