CHAPTER L.
FOOD--THE MEAGERNESS, INFERIOR QUALITY, AND TERRIBLE SAMENESS -- REBEL TESTIMONY ON THE SUBJECT--FUTILITY OF SUCCESSFUL EXPLANATION.
I have in other places dwelt upon the insufficiency and the nauseousness of the food.

No words that I can use, no insistence upon this theme, can give the reader any idea of its mortal importance to us.
Let the reader consider for a moment the quantity, quality, and variety of food that he now holds to be necessary for the maintenance of life and health.

I trust that every one who peruses this book--that every one in fact over whom the Stars and Stripes wave--has his cup of coffee, his biscuits and his beefsteak for breakfast--a substantial dinner of roast or boiled--and a lighter, but still sufficient meal in the evening.
In all, certainly not less than fifty different articles are set before him during the day, for his choice as elements of nourishment.

Let him scan this extended bill-of-fare, which long custom has made so common-place as to be uninteresting--perhaps even wearisome to think about -- and see what he could omit from it, if necessity compelled him.

After a reluctant farewell to fish, butter, eggs, milk, sugar, green and preserved fruits, etc., he thinks that perhaps under extraordinary circumstances he might be able to merely sustain life for a limited period on a diet of bread and meat three times a day, washed down with creamless, unsweetened coffee, and varied occasionally with additions of potatos, onions, beans, etc.