Meat-biscuit.—­Meat-biscuit, which is used in American ships, is stated to be a thick soup, evaporated down to a syrup, kneaded with flour, and made into biscuits:  these are pricked with holes, dried and baked.  They can be eaten just as they are, or made into a porridge, with from twenty to thirty times their weight of water.  They were to be bought at Gamble’s, Leadenhall Street.

Dried Meat.—­When more game is shot than can be eaten before the party travel onwards, it is usual to jerk a part of it.  It is cut in long strips, and festooned about the bushes, under the full sun, in order to dry it.  After it has been sun-dried it will keep for long, before it becomes wholly putrid.  Dried meat is a poor substitute for fresh meat; it requires long steeping in water, to make it tender, and then it is tasteless, and comparatively innutritious.  “Four expert men slice up a full-grown buffalo in four hours and a-half.” (Leichhardt.) The American buccaneers acquired their name from boucan—­which means jerked meat, in an Indian dialect; for they provisioned their ships with the dried flesh of the wild cattle that they hunted down and killed.

Dried Fish.—­Fish may be pounded entire, just as they come from the river, dried in the sun in large lumps, and kept:  the negroes about the Niger do this.

Flour travels conveniently in strong canvas bags, each holding 50 lbs., and long enough to be lashed on to a pack-saddle. (See “Pack-gabs,” p. 71.)

Chollet’s preserved Vegetables relieve agreeably the monotony of a bush diet.  A single ration weighs less than an ounce, and a cubic yard contains 16,000 of these rations.  They are now to be bought at all provision merchants’—­as at Fortnum and Mason’s, etc.

Salted Meat.—­I have already said (see “Portable Food”) that salt meat cannot be depended upon to retain its nutritious qualities for a length of time.  When freshly made, it is sure to be good.  It is well to recollect that, for want of a salting-tub, animals can be salted in their own hide.  A hollow is scraped in the ground, the hide is laid over it and pegged down, and the meat, salt, and water put into it.  I know of an instance where this was one on a very large scale.

Condiments.—­The most portable and useful condiments for a traveller are—­salt, red pepper, Harvey’s sauce, lime-juice, dried onions, and curry-powder.  They should be bought at a first-rate shop; for red pepper, lime-juice, and curry-powder are often atrociously adulterated.

Salt..—­The craving for salt (chloride of sodium) is somewhat satisfied by the potash salts, and, perhaps, by other minerals:  thus we often hear of people reduced to the mixing of gun-powder with their food, on account of the saltpetre that it contains.  An impure salt is made widely in North Africa, from wood-ashes.  They are put into a pot, hot water is poured over them and allowed to stand and dissolve out the salts they contain; the