Luncheons.
The cold joints of yesterday, with hot potatoes, piquant sauces, and chutney; washed down with a cup of delicious chocolate or new milk.
Dinners.
I. Fried cutlets of fish; roast fowls; brown sauce, potatoes, greens, and bread; rice or golden pudding.
II. Spatch c.o.c.k; minced meat, baked potatoes, green peas; custard.
III. Roast mutton, mashed turnips, potatoes; and fruit pudding.
IV. Rabbit stewed, game in season, vegetables; and sago pudding.
V. Beefsteak and onions, boiled potatoes, cauliflower; pudding.
VI. Salmon _a la Reine_; cold meat and salad; La Belle pudding.
And so on _ad libitum_, with wine or beer to suit the taste.
Suppers.
I. If required, a snack of anything handy.
II. Tomatoes forces (tinned tomatoes if fresh cannot be had), cocoa, toast.
III. Macaroni cheese and toast.
IV. Eggs _a la Soyer_, toast; or a poached egg on toast. Salad, especially of lettuce, with a modic.u.m of good beer or stout.
A cleverer cook than I could devise a hundred simple dishes for caravan cookery, but I do not think my _menu_ is altogether prison fare.
Ailments Likely to be Benefited by Caravan Life.
I can, of course, only mention a few of these, and it must be distinctly understood that I am not trying to enforce the merits of a new cure. I am but giving my own impressions from my own experience, and if anyone likes to profit by these he may, and welcome.
I. Ennui.
II. Dyspepsia.
III. Debility and enfeeblement of health from overwork, or from worry or grief.
IV. Insomnia.
V. Chronic bronchitis and consumption in its earliest stages.
VI. Bilious habit of system.
VII. Acidity of secretions of stomach, etc.
VIII. All kinds of stomachic ailments.
IX. Giddiness or vertigo.
X. Hysteria.
XI. Headaches and wearying backaches.
XII. Constipated state of system.
XIII. Tendency to _embonpoint_.
XIV. Neuralgia of certain kinds.
XV. Liver complaints of a chronic kind.
XVI. Threatened kidney mischief.
XVII. Hay fever.
XVIII. Failure of brain power.
XIX. Anaemia or poverty of blood.
XX. Nervousness.
Some of the great factors in the cure of such complaints as the above by life in a caravan for a series of months would be, that perfect rest and freedom from all care which is so calming to shattered nerves, weary brains, and aching hearts. The constant and pleasurable change of scene and change of faces, the regularity of the mode of life, and the delightfully refreshing sleep, born of the fresh air and exercise, which is nearly always obtainable at night.
In concluding this chapter, let me just add that of all modes of enjoying life in summer and autumn I consider--speaking after a somewhat lengthy experience--caravan travelling the healthiest and the best.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
THE CYCLE AS TENDER TO THE CARAVAN.
"When the spring stirs my blood With the instincts of travel, I can get enough gravel On the old Marlborough road."
Th.o.r.eau.
I begin to think, reader, that the plan of putting headlines or verses to chapters, although a very ancient, time-honoured custom, is not such a very excellent one after all.
The verses are written subsequently, of course, after you have finished the chapter, and the difficulty is to get them to fit; you may have some glimmering notion that, once upon a time, some poet or other did say something that would be _apropos_, but who was it? You get off your easy-chair and yawn and stretch yourself, then lazily make your way to the bookshelf and commence the search among your favourite poets. It is for all the world like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, and when you do find it, it isn"t half so bright as you thought it would be, only down you jot it in a semi-reckless kind of a way, feeling all the while as if you were a humbug, or committing some sort of a deadly sin.
If this good poet Th.o.r.eau had said,--