tender: but of upwards of twenty greens which I thus dressed, only one
proved eatable, all the rest becoming more stringy, tough, and
insipid for the cooking. The one I have excepted was a round, thick,
woolly-leafed plant, which boiled tender and tasted as well as spinach;
I therefore preserved some leaves of this to know it again by; and for
distinction called it by the name of that herb.

I then began upon my fruits of the pear and quince kind, at least eight
different sorts; but I found I could make nothing of them, for they were
most of them as rough and crabbed after stewing as before, so I laid
them all aside. Lastly, I boiled my ram's-horn and cream-cheese, as I
called them, together. Upon tasting the latter of these, it was become
so watery and insipid, I laid it aside as useless. I then cut the other
and tasted the juice, which proved so exceeding pleasant that I took a
large gulp or two of it, and tossed it into the kettle again.

Having now gone through the several kinds of my exotics, I had a mind
to re-examine them after cooling, but could make nothing of any of my
greens but the spinach. I tried several berries and nuts too, but, save
a few sort of nuts, they were all very tasteless. Then I began to review
the fruits, and could find but two sorts that I had any the least hopes
from. I then laid the best by and threw the others away. After this
process, which took me up near a whole day, and clearing my house of
good-for-nothings, I returned to reexamine my cheese, that was grown
cold, and was now so dry and hard I could not get my teeth into it; upon
which I was going to skim it away out of my grotto, saying, "Go, thou
worthless!" (for I always spoke aloud my thoughts to myself)--I say I
was just despatching it when I checked my hands, and as I could make
no impression with my teeth, had a mind to try what my knife would do.
Accordingly I began at the edge of the quarter, for I had boiled but a
quarter of it, but the rind was grown so hard and brittle that my knife
slipping and raking along the cut edge of it, scratched off some powder
as white as possible; I then scraped it backward and forward some time,
till I found it would all scrape away in this powder, except the rind,
upon which I laid it aside again for farther experiment.

During this review my kettle and ram's-horn had been boiling, till
hearing it blubber very loud, and seeing there was but little liquor in
it, I whipped it off the fire, fo