and the curdy particles, which are mixed
more or less with all butter, have fallen to
the bottom. The butter is then, poured out,
like clear virgin honey, into earthen jars,
which are filled to the brim and thoroughly
closed as soon as the butter is cold. This is
one way of preserving butter, and salting it,
as the Dutch and Irish do, is another. The
choice is between too little flavour and too
much salt; and most people who want the
butter for culinary purposes, prefer the more
insipid to the over salted.

In India, the people can no more do without
butter than elsewhere; indeed they want
more than most other people, from the
evaporation of the liquids of the human frame by
the heat. They are a thin race. The sun of
India makes war against fat. How, then,
can there be butter? There is no butter to
eat; but there is plenty to drink, and the
people drink it by the coffee-cup full at a
time. Are you grimacing, reader? Are you
saying, like the child who was reading to
mamma about a land flowing with milk and
honey— " La! how nasty! " Just hear what
this butter is, which the natives call ghee,
and then judge whether you could drink
it. If not, there is an alternative which may
save your manners; if anybody should offer
you a cup full of ghee, you can anoint your
body with it, and pour it over your hair, to
preserve you from a coup-de-soleil, or prevent
your being shrivelled up like an autumn leaf
thrown with the log on one's Christmas fire.
The ghee is not purified from curd; quite
the contrary. After the milk has been boiled
it is artificially curdled. It is the curd that
is churned, and the churning is done simply
by turning a split bamboo in both hands, as
if it were a chocolate mill. The cry is not
for coolness, but for more heat. Hot water
is added, and on goes the milling till the
butter comes. The hope is next that the
butter will become rancid; a hope which is
justified in a day or two. Then it is boiled
again to get rid of the water, and a little
more sour curd is shut up with it, and also a
little salt, in jars which go all over India,
spreading a horrid smell wherever they are
opened, but commanding a constant sale, and
a good one, from all who can indulge in the
luxury of reclining in shed or verandah,
quaffing ghee.

And how is it with the other great, continent
—America? Why, in South America
there are those vast plains, the Llanas and
Pampas, stretching from the base of the
Andes to the sea, and from the Orinoco to
the Straits of Magellan, on which uncountable
millions of cattle are for ever grazing. There
can be no want of butter there, surely? So
thought people in England till thirty years
ago, when it became known, on inquiry, that
there was no butter in Buenos Ayres. In
the season of universal mad speculation which
followed, it was resolved to supply the
destitution of the Spanish Americans. Science
had not then taught us that if any people had
not butter like ours, they must have some
other sort of their own. So a company was
formed, and a ship-load of Scotch dairymaids
was sent out to manage those fine cows that
grazed in that noble pasture. But the poor
women were sadly puzzled when they wanted
to go to work, as were their employers. Those
fine cows were wild. They were caught by
violence, and tied neck and legs, in which
the milk must have become considerably
curdled. The perplexed damsels churned
very diligently, but the butter disgraced
them sadly, and would not keep; and if it had
been as good as at home, it would not have
sold, for alas! the natives like oil better.
They take olive oil almost as profusely as the
Hindoos take ghee. As for our brethren in
the United States and the West India Islands,
they have the true Anglo-Saxon liking for
butter. But it has not yet suited their
convenience to graze much, or to set up dairies
to any extent, even where the climate is
favourable. They import largely from
Europe, especially from Holland and from
Ireland. The West Indies rank third among
the customers of Ireland for butter— Portugal
being the first, and Brazil the second.

Here, then, are we brought round to so
near home as the Kerry Hills and the pastures
of Cork and Limerick. Let us take a run
over those hills, and see what is doing.

We suppose we shall find the cows tenderly
cared for, judging by the solicitude shown for
yonder pig. His owner's dwelling is a mud
cabin, dark except where the decayed thatch
lets in the light, and all going to melt
into a slough, apparently, with the first rain:
whereas, the pig's house is a truly comfortable
affair. It is built against the cabin— in the
very middle—for show. Its stone walls are
whitewashed; its roof is slated; its entrance
is arched. Piggie himself is allowed great
liberty. He may roam where he will, with
the one condition that he will wear a man's
hat— not on his head, but over his face—the
crown being out to allow him to feed. Thus
veiled below the eyes, he may wander where
he will, unable as he is to root up the potatoes
or poke his snout in where he has no business.
If such is the care taken of the pig, what may
we not look for in regard to the cows? On
we go to see. Who is this that wants us
to stop? Why does he leave his flock of
sheep, and hang upon our car, and rain a
shower of brogue upon us passing travellers?
—for he is no beggar. He entreats us, and
will not take a refusal, to buy, then and there,
on our car and on the instant, thirty-four
lambs, which he declares we shall have cheap.
We have refused, in our time, to purchase
and carry away, in the High Street of a town,
a barrel of red herrings; also, a mattrass. It
seems to us even more inconvenient to carry
away thirty-four sheep on an Irish car,
especially as we want no sheep, and live across
the Channel; but the farmer does not agree