Amongst all my reminiscences of campaigning, none are more vividly impressed upon my mind, than the reminiscence of a campaigning appetite, which I am persuaded is altogether extraordinary, and a thing _per se_. Did you ever visit Cintra? Now there's the Cintra appetite, and a very good one it is, too. This, also, has its distinguishing feature--namely, that on the one hand, while you are riding about (or, if a sensible person, going on foot, exploring, climbing, scrambling) amongst rocks, and peaks, and splendid scenery, the pleasing idea of the dinner that will be ready for you, on returning to your hotel, blends itself, by a gentle amalgamation, with every discovery, with every prospect; and while, on the other hand, the said dinner is actually on the table before you, and under discussion, the splendid scenes you have been witnessing, like dissolving views, pass in procession before your mind. Thus your dinners are romantic, while your rambles are appetising.
Then, again, there's the nautical appetite, which comes on you like a giant, when you have mastered the qualms of the first few days at sea. The nautical appetite, also, has its peculiar feature, which is this--that the intervals of time between one meal and another appear so awfully long. That's because you've nothing to do. But--
The campaigning appetite, I say, differing from both these, has also its characteristic proper to itself--namely, that there never is a moment when you are unprepared to eat; the instant you have done, you are ready to begin again. You sit down, at headquarters, to a breakfast where the table groans with various and abundant provender--tea, coffee, chocolate, bread, eggs, cold meat, ham, tongue, sausages sublimed with garlic, enormous rashers of bacon, beefsteaks, not to name knick-knackeries innumerable, and something short as a calker. You do ample justice--oh, haven't you made a famous breakfast? and in half-an-hour you are ready for another! If, having stowed away breakfast for two, you happen to pop in upon a friend who is taking his, you join him as a matter of course. And, my dear madam, what makes it so peculiar in my case is, I was always such a very small eater. The only exception to this perpetuity of a campaigning appetite, is when something extraordinary is going on in front--a battle, or what looks just like it, a skirmish. Then, for a while, you forget that you are hungry. The stomach is still equally in a state of preparation to receive and digest food. But, for the nonce, you ignore the fact; the wolf lies dormant. Oh, how savage he wakes up, though, when the fighting is over, and you all at once remember that you haven't dined. In short, with plenty always at command, with no real want unsupplied, I never suffered so much from hunger as when campaigning, and I never ate so often. Your only plan is this: Whenever the opportunity presents itself, _take in stock_. Breakfast, as if you had no prospect of a dinner; dine, as if you had not breakfasted.