Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/192

 nate Austrians, who had never eaten any cheese from the day of their birth, and who, whilst in freedom, if anybody smeared their knife or bread with cheese, made a terrible fuss, and could not help bringing up everything they had eaten or drunk. When these unfortunate Austrians came on board the vessel, and saw us buying the hairy Wallachian cheeses, at first they boldly declared that they would rather die of hunger than eat anything so nasty; but very soon their taste altered. For having nothing but the mouldy biscuit, and never a sufficiency of that, and seeing us willingly and with a good appetite eating soup made of the cheese, while they could scarcely see out of their eyes for hunger, they begged us to let them taste our food. After this they would have been heartily glad to breakfast, not only on the soup, but even on the hairy bag that contained the cheese, if it had only been possible to procure it always. Thus the stomach, especially when hungry, is a very good cook; it digests everything, gets used to everything, however disagreeable it appears at first sight, and rejects nothing when it wants food. Indeed, necessity is a master that teaches a man everything.

Once, too, a Turk brought a bag-full of boiled sheep’s heads for sale, and we bought the heads from him and thanked him besides. When he was about to leave the vessel, our superintendent met him, and asked him who gave him leave to enter it and sell sheep’s heads to the captives without his permission? The Turk made an angry answer to the superintendent, and received in return a blow from his fist. Retiring back again into the vessel he was seized by him, but struggled out of his hands, and ran through us and escaped, to our