Geographic Groceries.

Another method of travelling without travelling is to know your groceries. Every shop shouts from its shelves of foreign parts—of rice and romance, vanilla and villainy, dates and palms, nuts and Maya, treacle and treasure. Consider the necromancy of nomenclature! Chow-chow, Ipecacuanha, vermicelli, Scotch herrings, molasses, macaroni, Brussels sprouts, Brazil nuts, Turkish delight, Gorgonzola cheese, cochineal, vanilla, tapioca, tomato, polony, saveloy and sedlitz.

What an array of exotic exhalations, breathing of stringed yams strumming on the reef, of the paw paw calling to the mum mum in the hula hula highlands; of bull fights in the hacienda, of dog fights in the fiesta, and street fights in the contata; of the betel nut flitting between the bites, of a blow out on the Golden Horn, a wash out on the Grand Canal, and a throw out on Ellis Island; of Sir Harry Lauder the laird of Scotland Yard, of cherry blossoms on Fujiyama, and rum blossoms in Jamaica. Oh, for love, life, laughter and lassitude! For strange sights and stranger smells! And all this can be got in the halls of commerce. The soul is cosseted, courted and caught by the exotic terminology of trade.