I am a creature of low habits, a man sodden with self-indulgence.
And when I am in drink, no slaver can be more cruel and ruthless.
Yet I am moderate in eating. The meals that people devour here
almost revolt me. They eat like cormorants and drink like dry
ground; but at my table I am careful, save with the bottle. This
is a land of wonderful fruits, and I eat in quantities pineapple,
tamarind, papaw, guava, sweet-sop, star-apple, granadilla, hog-plum,
Spanish-gooseberry, and pindal-nut. These are native, but there are
also the orange, lemon, lime, shaddock, melon, fig, pomegranate,
cinnamon, and mango, brought chiefly from the Spanish lands of South
America. The fruit-market here is good, Heaven knows, and I have my
run of it. Perhaps that is why my drink does not fatten me greatly.
Yes, I am thin--thinner even than when you saw me last. How
wonderful a day it was! You remember it, I'm sure.
We stood on the high hills, you and I, looking to the west. It was
a true Irish day. A little in front of us, in the sky, were great
clusters of clouds, and beyond them, as far as eye could see, were
hills so delicately green, so spotted with settlements, so misty and
full of glamour, and so cheerful with the western light.
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