174

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

the night. Necessity hath no law, so to work we went uponthe hard cake and onions. Smirke , whose consciencesmote him as being the main cause of our privation, affectedto munch the food with great gusto,—making as muchnoise with his jaws, as Bruce attributes to the fashionablelive beef eaters in Abyssinia; only interrupting liis mastica-tory labour to exclaim “ Very good onions!” — “ Very nicebread !” The onions are not bad, said I somewhat despond-ingly —“ Not bad!” vociferated Smirke, —“Why —I thinkthey are delicious.” The vinegar and brackish water was thenext thing praised by the contented architect, and he finallyobserved, that the bare table and wooden bench whichformed our beds, were any how, much softer than thelimestone of the temple pavement.

My first shooting expedition to Patria, was in companywith Mr. Steuart and Captain Atcherly of the British RoyalMarines. Another time I introduced Lieutenant Horner tothe mysteries and wild sports, and living, of the same part ofthe Maremme . Many of the Neapolitan nobility and gentryhave shooting boxes at Patria and its district, which extendsabout twenty miles along the coast, beginning at Misenum ,and the Elysian fields, and interrupted on the north west bythe Promontory of Gaeta. I borrowed the shooting house,in Italian, Pagliara, of the Duke of Lusciano. Our planwas to take a store of hams, maccaroni, parmesan, rounds ofbeef and all etceteras, not forgetting a barrel of Falernianwine and a few bottles of native brandy, to give as presentsto the professional gun-men, under the name of rum, ofwhich they have a high opinion. Each party was providedwith half a dozen guns of different kinds for different uses.On these matters I shall for the benefit of my sporting readers,enter more fully at a subsequent period, when I became initi-ated into all inodes and varieties of shooting and fishing inthese places, which offer to my taste, advantages over all the