the
vessels in constant movement, changing scene, and thereby maintaining
expectation of something exciting turning up. "Our men's minds," he
said, "are always kept up with the daily hopes of meeting the enemy."
As the Confederacy had practically no navy, this particular
distraction was debarred our blockaders; but in the matter of food, we
in the early sixties had not got beyond his prescription for the
opening years of the century. The primitive methods then still in
vogue, for preserving meats and vegetables fresh, accomplished chiefly
the making them perfectly tasteless, and to the eye uninviting; the
palate, accustomed to the constant stimulant of salt, turned from
"bully" (bouilli) beef and "desecrated" (dessicated) potatoes, jaded
before exercise. Like liquor, salt, long used in large measures, at
last becomes a craving. I have heard old seamen more than once say, "I
must have my salt;" and I have even known one to express his utter
weariness of the fresh butter France sends up with its morning coffee
and rolls. So we on the blockade depended more upon the good offices
of salt than upon those of tin cans, for giving us acceptable food;
the consequence being, with us as with our British forebears, a keen
physical demand for "cattle and onions." In one principal respect our
supplies differed from theirs--in the profusion of ice afforded by
our country. Our beef, therefore, came to us already butchered, while
theirs was received on the hoof. Many of my readers doubtless will
recall the adventures of Mr. Midshipman Easy, when in charge of the
transport from Tetuan with bullocks for the fleet off Toulon.
Onions--blessings on their heads, if they have any--came to both us
and our predecessors as easily as they were welcome. I have sometimes
heard the plea, that Nature is the best guide in matters of appetite,
advanced for indulgences which, so construed, seemed to reflect upon
her parental character; but there can be no such doubt concerning
onions to a system well saturated with salt. When you see them you
know what you want; and a half-dozen raw, with a simple salad
dressing, were little more than a whetter on the blockade. Would it be
possible now to manage a single one?

VIII

INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE--CONTINUED

1863-1865

The _Pocahontas_ came North for repairs in the late summer of 1862,
and after a brief leave I was ordered to the Naval Academy. Under the
stress of the war, this had b