Most of the men were suffering from tired feet, and they prefaced the
meal by removing their shoes and unbinding the filthy rags with which
their feet were wrapped. This added to the general noisomeness, while it
took away from my appetite.
In fact, I found that I had made a mistake. I had eaten a hearty dinner
five hours before, and to have done justice to the fare before me I
should have fasted for a couple of days. The pannikin contained skilly,
three-quarters of a pint, a mixture of Indian corn and hot water. The
men were dipping their bread into heaps of salt scattered over the dirty
tables. I attempted the same, but the bread seemed to stick in my mouth,
and I remembered the words of the Carpenter, "You need a pint of water to
eat the bread nicely."
I went over into a dark corner where I had observed other men going and
found the water. Then I returned and attacked the skilly. It was coarse
of texture, unseasoned, gross, and bitter. This bitterness which
lingered persistently in the mouth after the skilly had passed on, I
found especially repulsive. I struggled manfully, but was mastered by my
qualms, and half-a-dozen mouthfuls of skilly and bread was the measure of
my success.
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