Speaking of breakfast reminds me of eating, and eating of diet, and diet of health; and this again of my diet on Jethou. Two years ago I used to laugh at vegetarians and call them "pap-eaters," "milk-and-water men," and other pretty names; but while I was in Jethou I had cause to think there was not only something in their theory but much.
When the weather was too rough for me to fish, I have often lived for a week or ten days on vegetarian diet, for although I had tinned meat I got tired of it in warm weather, and only ate it occasionally when the days were cold. The pig I killed was more than three-parts thrown away, as I did not properly salt it; so my pork store did not last long.
I used frequently to cut several slices of bread and stroll about the garden and eat my breakfast direct from the bushes, while sometimes I would cook a fish and eat, finishing up with three or four apples or tomatoes with biscuits. Dinner would perhaps consist of a saucepan of potatoes with a fish of some kind, then a rice pudding, or something equally simple, and some cooked fruit eaten with it. I used invariably to stroll through the garden daily and pluck a little of whatever fruit was ripe. I had no meal which corresponded to a tea, but after work took supper, which usually consisted of a scrap of meat or fish, bread and jam, biscuits and fruit. Oatmeal porridge, with fruit and fish, formed my breakfast throughout the winter. It must be remembered that I had a splendid assortment of fruit, and as I ate it freshly gathered I had the full benefit of its medicinal worth, for I had not a day's real sickness while on the island. Excepting the ten days I was laid by with my fall I did not have a single day's real illness. I had raspberries, currants—black, red, and white—tomatoes, apples, pears, walnuts, mulberries, gooseberries, etc., beside wild blackberries; also several vegetables, such as onions, carrots, lettuces, cauliflowers, peas, beans, potatoes, beet, and others.
When I landed on the island I weighed twelve stone six pounds. When I was weighed at Dover, on my voyage home, I drew the beam at thirteen stone eight pounds; so I was not starved. I was as tough as whit-leather, and as strong as a horse, as we say in Norfolk. With this experience, therefore, I must certainly affirm that a diet of farinaceous food, fruit, vegetables, and fish, will not only give a man good health, but a clear brain, a strong body to perform heavy work, and staying power whenever anything unusual has to be endured or undertaken. More than this, no man can wish for; and even if he is maintained from his youth up on mutton cutlets, or choice rump steaks, he cannot be more than healthy, strong, and happy.
Englishmen having for centuries been a meat-eating nation, are naturally reluctant to give up a habit that is almost part and parcel of their nature; but probably if less meat were eaten and more fruit consumed, especially in the warm weather, doctors would be less numerous, and the hospitals be crying out less frequently for increased funds to provide a greater number of beds.
But where are we? Oh, yes, of course, they were Dovercourt lighthouses we have just passed, which seemed to me like two more mile-stones on my voyage home.
The "Happy Return" behaved handsomely, and our cabin was quite dry all the voyage, thanks, perhaps to an extra washboard strake we ran round the bows before starting.
We hoped on the 7th, by evening, to reach Yarmouth, but were doomed to disappointment, as upon night closing in, we were only off Kessingland, a mile or two south of Lowestoft. As we did not want to enter the Bure before daylight, I decided to run into Lowestoft Harbour for the night, which we did, and had a good night's rest. If I had not been so eager to get home I should have passed under the bridge into Lake Lothing, and so through Oulton Broad into the Waveney on my way, but now I was as eager as a schoolboy, and could not bear the loss of even an hour.
On the 8th we slipped out of harbour at dawn, which was about five o'clock, and by seven a.m. crossed Yarmouth Bar, at which my heart thumped so much that I looked round to see if Alec noticed it; probably if he heard it he took it for the bump of the paddles on the water, as a tug passed us towing a couple of fishing boats into the offing.
At breakfast time, eight o'clock, we moored in the mouth of the Bure, just alongside the quay by the ancient North Gate, which has looked down upon the muddy old river for the past five centuries, its head held high in the air, as if wishing to avoid the assortment of smells which accompany the floating garbage sailing slowly towards the sea.