Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/181

Rh "This is not such bread as the children usually eat." She answered, "They have had it for some weeks." It was sour, black, and of the consistency of liver; but thinking that the baker had been mostly to blame, this bread did not make such an impression on me as that which I saw for weeks afterward.

A few days after this, a gentleman, at whose house I stopped, brought into the room a loaf of the genuine "black bread." "Here," said he, "is the reward of a day's labor of a poor man, who has been sitting on the ground this cold day to break stones." Not one present could have told what it was, till taking it in the hand; and even then it was quite doubtful whether men would provide such a material to reward a laboring man for a day's work; but it was indeed, so. The man who had come into possession of this boon was one among many, some of whom had walked three, four and even five miles, and had labored through a cold day in March without eating, and this bread weighed a pound. But the material and the color! The material could not have been analyzed but by a chemist, but the color was precisely that of dry turf, so much so that when a piece was placed upon a table by the side of a bit of turf, no eye could detect the difference, and it was very difficult to do so when taking it in hand. The next day, calling on a gentleman of respectability and a friend to his country, he inquired if in my excursions I had met with the bread that the relief officers were giving the poor, adding, "I will procure you a piece." He then sent to the shop where it was kept and bought