There was some coffee in Camp Groce, when we arrived—not much—and a little was bought afterward for “morning coffee,” with some tea for the sick, at fifteen dollars per pound. It was poor stuff, and not worth the price. The messes that I found there used corn; or, as they called it, corn coffee. This was made from the meal. Burnt in a frying-pan upon the stove, by a sailor-cook, some particles in charcoal and some not singed at all, it formed a grayish compound, and made as horrible a beverage as any one could be supposed willing to drink. I thought at first that I would go back, for my own part, to an old habit of cold water; and if we had possessed pure water I might have done so. But our well-water had a sulphurous taste; and then, in this southern climate, there is an insatiable appetite for nervine food. Thus those who never touched pepper, nor cared a fig for seasoning, and spices at home (not because they disliked them, but because they thought it wisest not to eat what they did not want), have had a constant craving in the army for coffee, tea, and spices, and for the bad catsups, 120and worse imitation sauces, that sutlers sell and soldiers buy. So I drank these slops, and, like the others, called them coffee.
A little mess, indeed, as I have hinted, applied the Louisiana lesson we had learnt, and made their “morning coffee.” Turning out with the first glimmer of dawn, we ground and re-ground exactly twenty of the precious berries, watchful that not one should be lost, nor a speck of the priceless dust spilt. An old tin cylinder, with a piece of flannel bound tightly round the end, formed the strainer, and a large-sized tin mug our coffee-pot; and by keeping a week’s grounds, at least, in the strainer, it was wonderful what strength this ingenious apparatus did extract.
But the enterprising Yankee mind, never long contented with any thing, quarrelled with the corn-meal coffee and proposed a change. A hardy sailor, of New England origin, objected to the meal, and insisted that it would be better to make the coffee directly out of corn—we should, he said, get all the flavor then. There was a furious debate over this, of course, for the enterprising Yankee mind much prefers a theory to a fact. It was argued on the one side, that the flavor was just what you did not want; that corn was corn, and it made no difference if it was also meal; and that it was much wiser to use the meal and thereby make the enemy grind our coffee, than to burn the corn and grind it ourselves. These arguments were met by others equally strong, and the debate continued till some stupid person 121of Dutch descent, suggested that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that if any one wanted to try corn for coffee, he might.
We traded some of our meal ration for corn; the corn was burnt and ground and tried, and found far preferable to meal and all other substitutes. Its opponents drank it, and our little coffee-mill creaked and rattled at all hours under the load which the discovery threw upon it.
A further improvement was effected, for it was discovered one day, that the outside of the kernel would be well parched, while the inside would have a yellow, undone appearance. The fact is, it was impossible to roast it through, and this gave to the coffee a raw, mealy taste. The remedy was simple, and consisted merely in not grinding the corn, and thus using only the outside of the kernel.
“We thought then that we had reached the perfection of corn, and the last of substitutes.”
There was, however, a tea made by the Texans from the leaves of a half bush, half tree, called yapon, which was said to taste wonderfully like the real. They drank it three times a day, at Captain Buster’s head-quarters, and many of the sailors followed the fashion. Yet it had a bad name. It was said, that it caused certain unpleasant medical effects, and one young gentleman, who had once taken a mug full, averred that he shortly thereafter felt a burning sensation in that part of his body where he supposed (erroneously) was his stomach.
122I never could find the men whom it was said to have made sick, and I had little belief in the rumor. Yet, as I do not like tea except when ill, there was little inducement to experiment with this unknown, untried plant. Still I meant to test it, some time or other, as a matter of scientific curiosity, and if it were like the Chinese plant, to carry a handful home for the edification of tea drinkers there.
This “some time or other” did not come, probably because the material was always close at hand. The yapon grew thickly along the brook and up to the borders of the camp. It was generally from ten to twenty feet high, and as thick as a man’s arm; it had furnished us with nearly all the poles for a rustic arbor, that ran along the sunny side of the barracks, and helped to shade and cool the sick-bunks. Its branches, too, had been used to fill up in roofing the arbor, and there were leaves enough there to furnish an army with bohea.
Thus time glided away under the influence of corn coffee, till one day it was said, that the commanding officer had proclaimed corn coffee unhealthy, nay, dangerous. There were then numerous medical symptoms, all pointing forward to intermittent fever and backward to corn coffee. When a dozen men compare notes, and find that they are all afflicted in the same way, and never in their lives have been so before, it alarms them.
The surgeon was informed of this, and he thought 123there must be something in it, the intermittent cases had increased so unaccountably. As we thus deliberated, Colonel Sayles came up and we consulted him. The Colonel gave his facts and recommended sweet potatoes as a substitute for corn and coffee.
“Let us look at the analysis,” said the surgeon, walking into his office and taking down a big book.
“‘Corn or maize, sometimes called Indian corn. This grain is cultivated throughout the United States.’” “Yes, we know that.” “‘Its analysis shows starch, sugar, sulphate of lime.’ That must be the agent (if any) which is doing us all the damage. I really think you had better follow the Colonel’s advice and take up the sweet potatoes.”
“Let us see what the potato has in it. Doctor, who knows but that there’s some other atom to be roasted into poison there?”
“Batata, yes, ‘batata, or common potato,’ ‘seed poisonous,’ and so forth. Analysis sugar, and so forth. It has the sulphate again and more of it than there is in corn. That will never do, to say nothing of costing ten dollars a bushel.”
October was drawing toward its end when there came a “wet norther,” and with it a sharp frost, ice thick as a pane of glass—much suffering—some agues and countless colds.
The “norther” found me ill with a periodical return of my Louisiana malarial, and brought me a cold of the severest kind. It blew through the cracks and crannies 124of the barracks, through my blankets and through me. I felt as though my blood had ceased to circulate and I should never be warm again.
“Try some of Mr. Fowler’s sumach,” suggested some one; “it cured my cold.”
“I have tried everything,” I said, “and find the only thing is prevention—nothing cures these colds with me when they have come.”
“And I never got any help from medicine,” said my friend. “But this stuff of Fowler’s cured mine in a night. I never knew any thing like it.”
I went to Mr. Fowler and got the sumach berries. A cluster or two thrown in a quart mug of boiling water made the remedy. It was fearfully acid, and it took fearful quantities of sugar to make it palatable, but it then had quite a pleasant taste and worked (let me say for the benefit of the victims of violent catarrh) a miraculous cure.
I had not paid much attention to the Acting Master’s simples, having no great faith in medicine and less in herbs—but this with the dread of another bilious attack aroused me so far that I walked round the barracks and asked after the livers of all the patients who had been treated with his wild peach bark. These livers were found to be in a highly improved condition, and thinking it fair that mine should have a share in all the medical advantages afforded by a residence in Texas, I determined to treat it also to wild peach bark.
The “norther” broke on the second day, and in the 125after noon the weather was much like the last part of one of our cold nor’-easters. The rain had ceased, but the clouds floated gloomily overhead and the wind blew coldly from the north.
“Come, Stratford,” I said, “I am a convert to the Fowler treatment, and shall feel the better for a little exercise. Let us go out and get some bark.”
“Oh, it’s too cold and the ground will be muddy; you had better wait till to-morrow; it will be fine weather then.”
“No, no, to-morrow you will be at work on the chimney, and this is a broken day; let us go now.”
“Well, if you will get the patrol we will go.”
I walked down to the guard-house and represented to the sergeant of the guard the importance of having wild peach bark and the necessity of going out to get it.
The sergeant first raised the usual difficulties and then gave the usual order. A stout gentleman, who helped himself to a double-barrelled gun, informed us that he would go as Pat Roll. He sketched briefly his life for us by stating that he was born in South Carolina, raised in Alabama, druv stage in Florida, and sogered it in Texas. He also expressed the opinion that Texas was an easy country to live in, “because the hogs run in the woods and the horses run out,” and he intimated that he looked with great contempt on those parts of the world where the hogs eat corn, and the horses live in the stable.
As I was still weak I handed my axe over to one of 126the others. We crossed the brook and near by found a wild peach. It was soon cut down, and we proceeded as usual to shave off the bark from the trunk of the tree, and then pull up such roots as would come. When this was done each of my companions loaded himself with an unpeeled log, while I took the axe and basket of bark. Thus laden, we started to return.
“Since we are working for the Herb Department,” said I, “let us take up some yapon and try the tea. I wonder if I can cut off this branch with one hand?”
A well-leaved branch of the yapon hung over the road, bright with red berries, and against it I raised the axe. A couple of blows brought it down. Mr. Stratford added it to his load, and with it we went back to our quarters.
A day or two passed, during which the weather moderated. It was Saturday afternoon, and I was sitting in the sun, still languid, while Mr. Stratford was trying to heat red-hot an old shovel he had found, in order that he might cut off its rivets and fit in it a new handle, when the thought of the yapon came into my head, I took up the branch and began to pluck off the leaves.
“Are you going to try the yapon?” said Lieutenant Sherman, who casually came in.
“Yes, and I want you to go up to the galley and dry the leaves.”
“Oh, why don’t you take them green? That’s the way the sailors do.”
“True! but the sailors are not remarkable for skill in 127scientific cookery, and I think a decoction of any green plant must differ a good deal from that of a dry one.”
“Then why don’t you take some of the leaves from the arbor?”
“They are all bleached and washed to pieces. A horse would not eat hay that had been hung up in the rain and dew as they have. Go into the doctor’s office and get his Dispensatory, and we will prepare them as the Chinese do. The book must give the process for tea, for I was looking at ‘sweet potatoes’ the other day, and found accidentally that it is very full on the making of sugar.”
The lieutenant brought the book, turned to the article, and read:
“‘Tea.—The plant which furnishes tea. Thea Chinensis is an evergreen shrub, belonging to’”——
“Never mind the botany, we do not mean to grow tea, but cure it. Go over to the manufacture.”
He skipped over a page or two and proceeded:
“‘It is propagated from the seeds. In three years the plant yields leaves for collection, and in six attains the height of a man. When from seven to ten years old, it is cut down, in order that the numerous shoots which issue from the stumps may afford a large product of leaves. These are picked separately by the hand. Three harvests, according to Koempfer, are made during the year. As the youngest leaves are the best, the product of the first collection is most valuable, while that of the third, consisting of the oldest leaves, is comparatively 128little esteemed. After having been gathered, the leaves are dried by artificial heat in a shallow iron pan.’”
“That’s a shovel,” said Mr. Stratford, who generally manufactured the most of our small-wit, and who had just come in to take his shovel from the fire. “That’s a shovel—a shovel is a shallow iron pan.”
“‘From which,’” pursued Lieutenant Sherman, reading, “‘they are removed while still hot, and rolled with the fingers on the palm of the hands, to be brought into the form in which they are found in commerce.’”
“All right,” said Mr. Stratford. “You have picked the leaves separately by the hand. I’ll dry them artificially by heat in a shallow iron pan, and Sherman can roll them with the finger or in the palm of his hand, to bring them into the right shape.”
He drew his shovel from the fire as he spoke, and after knocking off the loose ashes, threw a handful of the yapon leaves upon it.
“These leaves won’t roll up,” said Lieutenant Sherman, after they had been drying a few minutes on the shovel. “They crack and unroll themselves.”
“Yes, but they are old leaves, see how thick they are, and the berries are red and ripe. Here by chance is a young one; the book says, you know, that they value the young leaves most. What better shape could you have than that—just the roll of a tea-leaf.”
“And now,” said Mr. Stratford, “that they are artificially dried in a shallow iron pan, Sherman, put the coffee-pot on, and let’s all take tea.”
129The turn affairs had taken roused in me rather more than usual curiosity, and as my mug was filled, I examined the tea with rather more than customary care. The aroma was that of poor tea, and the resemblance was quite striking, making me more curious as to the taste. I cooled it down as rapidly as possible and took a sip. There was a woody taste, but through this came the unmistakable flavor of the tea. “Who knows but this is a discovery?” I thought, and so I said emphatically:
“This is TEA.”
“It is amazingly like it, though not very good.”
“It is the tea-plant itself. Sherman, turn back to the article and read the botany.”
The lieutenant re-opened the book and again read.
“‘The plant which furnishes tea, Thea Chinensis, is an evergreen shrub.’”
“This is an evergreen shrub. See how bright the leaves are, though we are near November.”
“‘Belonging to the class and order Monadelphia Polyandria, of the sexual system, and to the natural order Ternstromiace?.’”
“I think this is Poly—what do you call it?” said Mr. Stratford, encouragingly; “and I’m sure it belongs to the natural order.”
“‘It is usually from four to eight feet high, though capable, in a favorable situation, of attaining the height of thirty feet.’”
“Texas is a favorable situation,” said Lieutenant Sherman. “I can find one that comes up to thirty feet.”
130“‘It has numerous alternate branches.’”
“So has the yapon, alternate and plenty of them.”
“‘Furnished with elliptical-oblong or lanceolate pointed leaves.’”
“These are elliptical, oblong and pointed leaves.”
“‘Which are serrate, except at the base.’”
“These are serrate; and let me see, yes, ‘except at the base.’ Not a saw tooth there.”
“‘Smooth on both sides, green, shining, marked with one rib and many transverse veins.’”
“‘Smooth on both sides, green, shining, marked with one rib and many transverse veins’—the exact description. Do look at them.”
“‘And supported alternately upon short foot-stalks.’”
“‘Supported alternately upon short foot-stalks’—so they are.”
“‘They are two or three inches long and from half an inch to an inch in breadth.’”
“These are little more than half the size. But then the book is describing the cultivated plant, and this is the wild one.”
“‘The flowers are either solitary or supported two or three together at the axils of the leaves.’”
“What a pity we have not seen the flower!”
“The berries, though, will help us to place them. Here they are ‘solitary,’ yes, and ‘two or three together,’ and at ‘the axils of the leaves.’”
“‘The fruit is a three-celled, three-seeded capsule.’”
“This has four, but I think that is not material. The 131persimmons, for instance, have seven seeds here and only two or three in New Jersey.”
“That,” said Mr. Stratford, still encouragingly, “is because Texas is such a seedy place. I’ve grown somewhat seedy myself since I’ve been here.”
“‘It is stated that the odor of the tea-leaves themselves is very slight.’”
“The odor of these is very slight,” remarked Mr. Stratford, “so slight, that I sometimes imagine I don’t smell it at all.”
“‘And that it is customary to mix with them the leaves of certain aromatic plants, such as Olea Fragrans.’”
“When the war is over,” said Mr. Stratford, in conclusion, “we will get some olea to mix with it, and then it will be all complete. And now let us hurrah for the great American tea. You can stay here and take care of the plant, and I will go home (so soon as I can) and get up a great Texan Tea Company.”