Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/191

 the milk in it till it turns sour and mixes thoroughly with the hair, and then take it for sale. Six of us who were in partnership, having sold the gloves and stockings which we had made, bought a tolerably large piece of this cheese mixed with hair, which certainly came to us very acceptably, and tasted to us then better than macaroons; for we made soup of it, crumbled our mouldy biscuit into it, and eat it with remarkable appetite, paying no attention to and feeling no disgust at the circumstance that there were hairs in it. Ah! how many times, and indeed times out of number, did I remember, how in Bohemia they make soup of fine and good cheese even for useless greedy dogs, crumble fine bread into it, and give it them to eat; whereas, I, poor wretch, must thankfully receive such miserable hairy cheese and mouldy biscuit, and suffer hunger! Often did I wish, that, in point of food, I might be a companion to those dogs! But for our sins it pleased the Lord God worthily and righteously to bring all this upon us; for previously, while we were living in freedom, and enjoying all manner of pleasures at Constantinople, we would not believe the statements of other captives that their life was so miserable and afflicted, until we were obliged to experience and digest it ourselves. And, in sooth, whilst a man is living in pleasure he will not believe how the poor and needy feels about the heart, and he has no compassion on him, until he experiences similar misery himself. Oh, were such a one fettered for only a fortnight to the oars!

There were also amongst our comrades several effemi-