ft words buttered no parsnips.
Onions were "off"--so we went on weeping. Everything in the garden but
some wizened carrots had withered away. Such carrots! small, cadaverous,
brick-coloured things, no bigger than a cork, as dry, as masticable,
and, still like a cork, with little save a _smell_ to commend their
indulgence. But like the donkeys that we were, we ate them every time!

Talking of corks reminds me of bottles, and the precious little that was
in _them_. We had no whiskey; think of that, ye Banks and Braes! There
were nice crystal brands in the hotel windows, but--I shall be dealing
later with _oils_. Sceptical tipplers, whose every feature spelled
whiskey, were reduced to the painful necessity of diluting their sodas
with lime juice; and so strongly did the "claret" taste of timber that
the beverage was adjudged a non-intoxicant with _extraordinary
unanimity_! Port and sherry, being beyond our reach, were despised, like
our neighbour's sour grapes. The publican, however, had good spirits
still; Cape brandy (or "Smoke," as it was called) found a market at
last, and swelled heads enormously. But if the signs and portents of a
drought in beer and stout were to be trusted, the unkindest cut of all
was yet to come. And it did come. In the thirsty clime of Kimberley the
consumption of the brewer's goods was large; and in the restaurants,
with bars attached, good meals were sold cheaply to facilitate the sale
of the beer which "washed" the food down. When the drought came the
proprietors of these delectable taverns promptly raised their charges by
fifty per cent., albeit the value and the variety of the victuals had
lessened. Men in receipt of good wages loved beer and indulged the
passion freely. The addition of the Imperial allowances to their incomes
had intensified their thirst. Then there were the unusual conditions
under which they lived, the paucity of provisions, the great heat--all
these things tended to damage temperance and to exalt the flowing bowl.
A multitude suffered when beer and stout gave out. The tipplers grew
pale and visibly thinner; nature made her exactions with unwonted
abruptness. A certain degree of sympathy was felt for the Bacchanals, by
none more sincerely than by the druggist--artful old quack! It was to
him the sufferers had to turn, to such straits were they reduced. Drugs
were booming, and the druggist, not satisfied with the normal hugeness
of his profits, slipped into the fashion and