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formed a kind of thin striated substance of the
crispness of a poor pye-crust, free from greasiness,
and in this last form it suited my palate
best. Bulgarian Pilaw instead of rice, is made
with of wheat, soften'd by boiling, and enriched
with some kind of unctuous substance, whether
caymac or some kind of fat I could not tell:
hardly butter, for at this place I saw none of the
implements necessary to such a kind of manufacture.
I believe this kind of pilaw or something
like it is called in England firmity
from the Latin frumentum or the French froment
Here as elsewhere among my Bulgarian hosts The fowls and the bread were equally
extemporaneous: the one passing from the barn-door
to the pot or spit, the other from the flour-bag
to the oven, in the interval between the
guest's first appearance and his sitting down
to table. — Pardon me, my dear Father, for whose
amusement this scrawl is principally designed, pardon
me, I am sure you will, for entering this minutely
into the details of my bills of fare but off almost
entirely, during the course of this tedious
peregrination, from every opportunity of intellectual
intercourse, my relations must be proportionally
confined to the little incidents that have come
within the cognizance of the senses. As a father
no incidents that have been connected in a manner
however trifling and transient with my bien etre,
can fail to interest you: and as a man of
speculation, you will be the less disposed to condemn
these seeming trifles, when you consider
that, in a political view, amongst the most important
of the features by which the condition
of a people can be depicted are those which
relate to their subsistence and the arts by which
it is supplied; and that, from knowing how
a
a traveller like myself has fared for a few
weeks, some conception may be formed of
the manner in which a considerable part of
the subjects of this vast empire fare for their
whole lives.
Friday Dec.r 15. We left behind Cijatarla this
morning at 15 minutes after 7: in exactly
an 1 1/2 we reached Canara which is called
a 2 hours journey. Yet our pace, excluding
of stops is not more than a very
moderate horse-walk: and so that from the
best judgement I can form I should not
suppose that a Turkish hour's journey can
exceed 3 miles. It may be set down,
I think, as equivalent to a French great
league. Here I observed a number of buffalo
calves living in great friendship with a flock of
Magpies, who we sat perched 5 or 6 at a
time upon their backs. The alliance had I believe,
like most others a mutual interest for
its basis: for the birds seemed to be picking
something, vermin I suppose of some kind or other, from
the hides of the beasts: if this conjecture be
well founded, the principles of attraction on
the birds part is evident enough: but by
what means the calf could be made sufficiently
sensible of the interest he had in the connection
to submit with the patience he did
to such close visits from so numerous a
company, I must leave to the corps diplomatique
of Constantinople, with the assistance
of some of the learned Dervises who, according
to the Arabian nights entertainments, are
skilled in the language of birds and beasts,
to determine. Similar alliances may, for ought
I know subsist in England: but if they do, they
have never happen'd to fall within the sphere
of my observation.
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Identifier: | JB/540/228/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 540.
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1785-12-10 |
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540 |
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228 |
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001 |
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Journal |
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Jeremy Bentham |
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