The Sea-Swallow.
Among the ancients, the swallow—joyous herald of spring—possessed little attraction for those men whom their gluttony has rendered so justly celebrated. Alas! they knew not the “Salangan swallow,” hirundo esculenta; they never tasted those birds’ nests which Europe still envies the East.
The inhabitants of the Philippine Islands give the designation of salangan swallow to a little coast bird (the halcyon, or kingfisher), celebrated for the singular construction of its nest. These nests have been compared to those which the Greeks and Romans called halcyon’s nests; but this comparison is false, since the marine productions to which they gave this name are not birds’ nests but polypus’s, or the cylindrical covering of the polypi—the halcyonium—a kind of medicament, of which there were several varieties.[XX_103]
All travellers agree that the Chinese, and other eastern nations, have an extreme partiality for the salangan’s nest, as a delicious seasoning for their viands, and that they value it excessively; but they differ strangely as to its nature, its form, and the places where it is found.
According to some, the material of these nests is a froth of the sea, or the spawn of fish, and strongly aromatic. Others say it has no taste. Some pretend that it is a juice gathered by the salangans from the tree called salambouc; some maintain that it is a viscous humour that they give out from the beak at a certain period of the year; and, lastly, many affirm that these birds compose it entirely from the remains of fish-zoophytes.
With respect to the form, some say that it is hemispherical; others that it resembles a shell valve.
As to the places where the salangans build their nests, some observers assure us that it is fixed on the rocks a little above the level of the sea; in the hollows of those same rocks; and, lastly, that they conceal them in holes which they burrow under ground. According to Kœmpfer, these nests, so far as they are known to us, are nothing more than a preparation concocted from the flesh of the polypi.
The celebrated traveller Poivre, while occupied one day in picking up shells and coral near Java, penetrated a rather deep cavern at a short distance from the sea shore, and found the sides of it covered with little nests, in the form of a deep shell, firmly fixed to the rock. These nests were taken on board, and several persons who had been in China immediately recognised them as being identical with those that the Chinese seek with such avidity. The birds which had built them were true swallows, of about the size of the humming bird. Poivre adds that, in the months of March and April, the sea from Java to Cochin China is covered with spawn, which has the appearance of half-dissolved glue, and that he had learned from the Malays and the Cochin Chinese that the salangan builds its nest with this spawn. All agreed on this point. The bird picks it up as he skims the water, or from the rocks where the spawn coagulates. It is at the end of July and the commencement of August that the Cochin Chinese collect the nests, and, as the young birds are hatched in March and April, the species do not suffer by it.
By the subsequent examination of these nests it was found that they presented the form of the half of a hollow, lengthened ellipsoid. They are composed, externally, of very thin laminæ, nearly concentric, and laid one over the other. The interior presents several layers of irregular net-work, superposed one over another, and formed of a multitude of threads of the same matter as the external laminæ, and which cross and re-cross in every direction.
Their composition, which has a slight taste of salt, is of a yellowish white and demi-transparent; it softens in warm water without dissolving, and increases in volume. It is a substantial food, and would be excellent for persons suffering from exhaustion, whose debile stomachs ill perform their functions. Poivre declares that he never eat anything more fortifying than a pottage made with these nests and some good meat.
The salangan nests are of two sorts—the white and the black. It appears that the white nests are those of the same year, and that the black ones belong to an epoch less recent. The birds are engaged about two months in preparing them, and the Chinese do not take them away until the young ones are feathered, and begin to be pretty strong on the wing.[XX_104]
This nomenclature would be incomplete, did we not briefly mention some kinds of game which appeared with more or less favour on the tables of the ancients.
The Wood-Hen, dear to the Greeks,[XX_84] was not common at Rome in the time of Varro. The curious reared them in aviaries with other rare birds.[XX_85]
The Bustard, the Water-Hen, and the Teal, found many admirers.[XX_86]
The Romans reared the last-named,[XX_87] and judged it worthy of notice among the most delicate morsels of the feast.
The Woodcock, which is thought to be the rustica perdix of Martial,[XX_88] and the Snipe do not appear to have obtained from the gastrophilists of antiquity that attention they deserved. This delicious game was ill-appreciated in Italy and at Athens. History, that “conscience of posterity,” reproaches them with this oversight, and is astonished that the Curlew should have usurped, particularly in Greece,[XX_89] a pre-eminence which it certainly does not deserve.
“The fat of the snipe is of a most delicate savour, which it acquires only after the first appearance of the frosty season. It is cooked like the woodcock, without being drawn.”—Vieillot.
The gourmets have a way of knowing when the flesh of the woodcock is arrived at the degree of flavour required to be sought after: the bird is suspended by the beam-feather of the middle of its tail; when the body gets loose and full, then is the time to eat it.
“The woodcock is cooked with the entrails in, which, being pounded with what they contain, form its own and best seasoning.”—Sonnini.
The Crow, an object of superstitious worship among the Egyptians,[XX_90] offered to the less scrupulous inhabitants of Alexandria a dish unequalled in delicacy;[XX_91] but which never seems to have tempted the nations of the west.
The Turtle Dove,[XX_92] whose timid innocence caused it to be revered in Assyria,[XX_93] had a less glorious destiny at Rome. It was roasted, and epicures greedily devoured the legs.[XX_94]
The Lark joined to the delicate flavour of its flesh a more precious quality; either roast or boiled, it infallibly cured persons attacked with the colic.[XX_95] We cannot say whether it possesses this useful property at the present day.
“The common lark, which is called at Paris mauviette, is generally looked upon as a wholesome, delicate, and light game. It is dressed in various ways; and the gourmets appreciate the value of the excellent lark pies which have established the reputation of the town of Pithiviers in France.”—Sonnini.
The Romans went to almost fabulous expenses in order to procure game. What enormous sums, may we not imagine, were given for those dishes of flamingoes’ tongues and ostriches’ brains already mentioned! What must have been the cost of the seven thousand birds which the brother of Vitellius served to the voracious emperor![XX_96] And yet all these follies fall far short of those they committed through their love of fish.
The inventive genius of the Greeks discovered in ichthyophagy strange refinements, though always impressed with we know not what kind of propriety, which seems to palliate their excesses. The Romans at first imitated, and soon afterwards surpassed them. Their frightful gluttony was revived by crime, and exulted in barbarity. The sea eels (conger, or muræna helena) will not eat; let a slave be thrown to them, young and healthy, his flesh will be more tempting and alive, that his struggle against unspeakable tortures may the better irritate the devouring ardour of these beloved fish. And a few days afterwards, the grave patrician, or the noble knight, again offered them this human food; and no remorse, no doubt, no gloom, ever clouded his brow; no thrill of horror crossed his mind, while he feasted on those sea eels he had fattened so well.
More than two-thirds of the inhabitants of the most civilised countries were plunged in slavery, and employed solely to gratify the sensuality of the other third. That alone gives a terrifying idea of the contempt in which man was held by his fellow-man, of the power of egotism, and of the vast corruption resulting from it. And what cruelties were committed in the face of heaven, sanctioned by the law, and by the manners and customs of society! The masters had absolute power over their slaves, and could punish them with blows or death at their own will and pleasure.[XX_97] If an unfortunate servant happened to taste a sauce, or the remains of a fish, this unpardonable crime was often punished by crucifixion.[XX_98] The virtuous Cato sold his old slaves at whatever price they would fetch, rather than feed useless beings.[XX_99] The senator, Q. Flaminius, put one of his domestics to death as a new spectacle for one of his friends, who had never enjoyed the pleasure of seeing a man killed.[XX_100] If the father of a family was assassinated in his house, and the murderer was not discovered, all the slaves were subject to the capital punishment. One of the grandees of Rome, who possessed four hundred of them, having been killed by one of the number, they were all put to death.[XX_101] At the funeral of rich persons, a certain number of slaves were often slain as victims agreeable to their manes.
And what is remarkable is, that these things, which we can hardly believe, were not viewed as excesses, not even as an abuse of power, but simply as the exercise of a natural right. Such scenes were witnessed daily, without exciting the least censure, or the slightest protestation, on the part of those numerous writers and sophists, who passed their whole lives in declaiming against the manners of the age. It is true that legislation had taken the lead by applying to slaves this dreadful aphorism: “They are still more null than vile;”—Non tam viles quam nulli sunt.[XX_102]
Such were the conquerors of the world! Such were those Romans who invented dreadful crimes through love of good living!