+ ~ -
 
Please report pronunciation problems here. Select and sample other voices. Options Pause Play
 
Report an Error
Go!
 
Go!
 
TOC
 

the opposite direction, mountain ridges fill
up all the scene. About fifteen square stones,
laid together without mortar, are the sole
remains, or supposed remains, of the walls of
Troy. We sat on them and talked moralities.
A little further on, the sides of the ravine
become precipitous, and at one spot almost
perpendicular. Down that abyss, tradition
says, the Trojans threw the wooden horse.
Nothing more was to be seen, and we
departed. The descent is steep beneath the
tomb of Hector, and we led our horses down
to cross the river at a ford about a mile
below. Then we made for a farm, called
Chiflik, or the Marsh farm, which is occupied
by Mr. Calvert. Near this farm is a tumulus
which popular tradition holds to be the
burial-place of the Greeks killed at the
siege of Troy. Mr. Calvert had it opened
lately, and did really find in it a thick
stratum of burnt bones, but nothing else of
interest. He was not scholar enough to
know whether the bones were Greek. The
farm buildings at this place are extensive,
and it is probable that the plain will yield
rich harvests of corn. In winter the shooting
both of woodcock, snipe, water-fowl, and hares,
is excellent. After a couple of hours' rest,
and a luncheon of melon, cheese, and barley
bread, the sole provision of the farm people,
we rode on to the village of Ranqui, where
Mr. Calvert has a country house and a large
storehouse for vallonia. We arrived at sunset,
having been eight hours on horseback,
much riding for sailors. On our way, in a
narrow path, we had met another party.
First came a horse laden with two large
travelling trunks, then another carrying a
guide armed to the teeth; then the traveller,
an Englishman, with a straw hat and
umbrella; lastly, his travelling servant; and
though in passing we even had to touch each
other in the midst of a wild, desolate
country, not a word, or smile, or bow was
exchanged between the children of Britannia.
We behaved at Troy as well as we should
have behaved in Piccadilly.

Mr. Calvert's house at Ranqui is situated
on a hill that overlooks the Dardanelles from
the entrance up to the inner castles. The
vallonia warehouse there established is a
large building, used not only as a storehouse,
but as a sort of factory, for there they
separate the acorn from the cup; a process
which provides employment for some fifty
women and children. About three thousand
tons are shipped annually from this
warehouse. The price per ton varies between
twelve and seventeen pounds, and the freight
to England costs about two pounds per ton.
It is principally shipped to Liverpool by
schooners and small brigs, carrying from one
hundred to one hundred and fifty tons. Thus
our tanners find bread for the Trojans of
to-day. From Ranqui no very long ride
brought us, the next morning, back to the
Tillage of the Dardanelles. We were well
pleased with our excursion. We had thought
about the past and seen the present; the
deeds of Achilles, and the trade in acorn-cups.

POT AND KETTLE PHILOSOPHY.

There are two branches of philosophy
connected with pots and kettles; the one
gastronomic, and the other pyrotechnic; the
one relating to the food to be cooked, and the
other to the arrangements for cooking. It
is the latter of these on which the reader is
about to be addressed. In our first volume,
a few gentle hints were given on the
imperfections of popular cookery; on the
desirableness of young ladies learning to boil
potatoes and broil chops as well as to
embroider slippers and crochet anti-macassars.
Here, however, we do not intend to find
fault with any one. We would rather
discourse on the numerous and ingenious
contrivances for applying heat economically in
cooking processes, and for doing many things
at once in a small space. There are not only
improved forms of grates, stoves, and ovens,
heated by ordinary coal; but there are
contrivances for obtaining fuel-like action from
wood, from charcoal, from artificial fuel, from
hot water, from steam, from spirit, and from
gas; and there are kitchens portable, and
kitchens club-like, such as the old school of
cooks knew nothing about. It is not through
want of coal that these novelties appear; but
economy in coal is itself one of the producing
causes of a very essential and desirable
condition of thingscleanliness.

Do you doubt that we are making
improvements in stoves, and grates, and cooking
apparatus, by economising the heat of
ordinary fuel? Read the ironmongers' bills,
and look into their shops, and remove your
doubt. Here is the Cottagers' stove, standing
upon four legs. It has a square iron case,
within and near one end of which is a firepot,
the top of which opens into a flue to
carry off the smoke; the rest of the vacant
space constitutes an oven, while there is a
boiler attached to the end nearest to the
fire, and a hot plate and open cavity at the
top for stewing, and frying, and boiling, and
sundry other processes in cookery. Here is
an assemblage of grate, oven, boiler, hot-
plate, hobs and trivets, so set in a frame-
work that it may be fixed into any sized
fireplace, large or small, without setting; for
the throat, or opening to the flue, is formed
in the iron-work of the range itself, and is thus
at once determinate in size and shape. Here
is the Kitchener, in which one oven will roast
while another bakes; in which the hot
closets may do duty as pastry ovens; in
which the back is formed by a boiler capable
of containing fifty gallons of water; in which
the top is so adapted, that the cook may
attend to a dozen or so of little cookeries at
one time; and in which every vagrant atom