When the famine had actually come, and all the country was aghast, when supplies from all parts were poured in,—what was done with these supplies? Why, the best that these inefficient housekeepers could do. The rice and Indian meal, both of which are excellent articles of food, were cooked in such a manner that, in most cases, they were actually unhealthy, and in all cases unpalatable. So unused were they to the use of that common article, rice, that they steeped it the night before, then poured the water off, without rubbing, and for three and four hours they boiled, stirred, and simmered this, till it became a watery jelly, disgusting to the eye and unsavory to the taste, for they never salted it; besides unwholesome for the stomachs of those who had always used a dry potato for food. The poor complained that it made them sick; they were, accused of being ungrateful, and sometimes told they should not have any more; and the difficulty, if possible, was increased, by giving it out uncooked,—for the starving ones in the towns had no fuel and they could not keep up a fire to stew it for hours, and many of them ate it raw, which was certainly better, when they had good teeth, than cooked in this unsavory way.
But the Indian meal! Who shall attempt a description of this frightful formidable? When it first landed, the rich, who had no occasion for using it, hailed it with joy, and some actually condescended to say, "They believed they could eat it themselves." But the poor, who had not yet slid down the precipice so far as to feel that they were actually dying, could be
