SUFFERINGS OF THE ARMIES. 169 they would call it — they had to tight, and to chap. ,. ■^ ^ VIII. live. One of the many evils resulting from the Defective
- cookcrv
overtasked soldier's weariness was his indisposi- tion to exert himself in collecting fuel, and cook- ing the meat supplied. Sometimes, if he had fuel ready, he boiled the salt meat in a mess- tin — a vessel not holding water enough for the due extraction of salt — and the product of his feeble cookery was — not simply unwholesome, its effect or . . 1 , • !• the health but, m a sense, almost poisonous; tor a man of the men. taking such food constantly, without counter- acting it by lime-juice, fresh vegetables, or some other fitting antidote, was too surely mingling with his blood the germs of scurvy. Very often indeed the weary soldier omitted the task of cookery altogether, throwing away his salt beef, or making it a subject of barter with the French, and eating his salt pork raw ; but his health all this while was so constantly assailed by exposure to cold and wet that, for his life's sake, as a means of counteraction, he needed a generous diet ; and accordingly, whether depriving him- self of nourishment or taking food in an un- cooked or ill-cooked state, he in either case made his body an easy prey to disease. If the failure of our land-transport power impossibii impeded the supply of provisions, it caused a ingupthe load of evils yet greater by arresting the com- huts, pletion of Lord Eaglan's measures for hutting his troops, and by even for some time obstruct- ing him in his endeavours to furnish the men with new blank-ets and means of warm clothing
