It Is A Bird, Though Very Rare In This Country
About The Size Of A Pigeon; The Body Brown, And The Belly White:
By a wonderful instinct it makes its nest upon the surface of the
sea, and lays its eggs in the month of November, when the
Mediterranean is always calm and smooth as a mill-pond.
The
people about here call them martinets, because they begin to
hatch about Martinmass. Their nests are sometimes seen floating
near the shore, and generally become the prize of the boys, who
are very alert in catching them.
You know all sea-birds are allowed by the church of Rome to be
eaten on meagre days, as a kind of fish; and the monks especially
do not fail to make use of this permission. Sea turtle, or
tortoises, are often found at sea by the mariners, in these
latitudes: but they are not the green sort, so much in request
among the aldermen of London. All the Mediterranean turtle are of
the kind called loggerhead, which in the West-Indies are eaten by
none but hungry seamen, negroes, and the lowest class of people.
One of these, weighing about two hundred pounds, was lately
brought on shore by the fishermen of Nice, who found it floating
asleep on the surface of the sea. The whole town was alarmed at
sight of such a monster, the nature of which they could not
comprehend. However, the monks, called minims, of St. Francesco
di Paolo, guided by a sure instinct, marked it as their prey, and
surrounded it accordingly. The friars of other convents, not
quite so hungry, crowding down to the beach, declared it should
not be eaten; dropped some hints about the possibility of its
being something praeternatural and diabolical, and even proposed
exorcisms and aspersions with holy water. The populace were
divided according to their attachment to this, or that convent: a
mighty clamour arose; and the police, in order to remove the
cause of their contention, ordered the tortoise to be recommitted
to the waves; a sentence which the Franciscans saw executed, not
without sighs and lamentation. The land-turtle, or terrapin, is
much better known at Nice, as being a native of this country; yet
the best are brought from the island of Sardinia. The soup or
bouillon of this animal is always prescribed here as a great
restorative to consumptive patients. The bread of Nice is very
indifferent, and I am persuaded very unwholesome. The flour is
generally musty, and not quite free of sand. This is either owing
to the particles of the mill-stone rubbed off in grinding, or to
what adheres to the corn itself, in being threshed upon the
common ground; for there are no threshing-floors in this country.
I shall now take notice of the vegetables of Nice. In the winter,
we have green pease, asparagus, artichoaks, cauliflower, beans,
French beans, celery, and endive; cabbage, coleworts, radishes,
turnips, carrots, betteraves, sorrel lettuce, onions, garlic, and
chalot.
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