n, though they seem to make a good
deal of fuss washing and cleaning their feathers. Certain flies and ants
I see are in a fix, entangled and sealed up in the sugar-wax we threw
away, like some of their ancestors in amber. Our stomachs, like tired
muscles, are sore with long squirming. Once I was very hungry in the
Bonaventure graveyard near Savannah, Georgia, having fasted for several
days; then the empty stomach seemed to chafe in much the same way as
now, and a somewhat similar tenderness and aching was produced, hard to
bear, though the pain was not acute. We dream of bread, a sure sign we
need it. Like the Indians, we ought to know how to get the starch out of
fern and saxifrage stalks, lily bulbs, pine bark, etc. Our education has
been sadly neglected for many generations. Wild rice would be good. I
noticed a leersia in wet meadow edges, but the seeds are small. Acorns
are not ripe, nor pine nuts, nor filberts. The inner bark of pine or
spruce might be tried. Drank tea until half intoxicated. Man seems to
crave a stimulant when anything extraordinary is going on, and this is
the only one I use. Billy chews great quantities of tobacco, which I
suppose helps to stupefy and moderate his misery. We look and listen for
the Don every hour. How beautiful upon the mountains his big feet would
be!

In the warm, hospitable Sierra, shepherds and mountain men in general,
as far as I have seen, are easily satisfied as to food supplies and
bedding. Most of them are heartily content to "rough it," ignoring
Nature's fineness as bothersome or unmanly. The shepherd's bed is often
only the bare ground and a pair of blankets, with a stone, a piece of
wood, or a pack-saddle for a pillow. In choosing the spot, he shows less
care than the dogs, for they usually deliberate before making up their
minds in so important an affair, going from place to place, scraping
away loose sticks and pebbles, and trying for comfort by making many
changes, while the shepherd casts himself down anywhere, seemingly the
least skilled of all rest seekers. His food, too, even when he has all
he wants, is usually far from delicate, either in kind or cooking.
Beans, bread of any sort, bacon, mutton, dried peaches, and sometimes
potatoes and onions, make up his bill-of-fare, the two latter articles
being regarded as luxuries on account of their weight as compared with
the nourishment they contain; a half-sack or so of each may be put into
the pack in setting out