Saturday, December 7, 2013

Pilchards, Congereels, and Pleasant Lodging at Last


Friday, 16.--I rode, through heavy rain to Polperro. Here the room over which we were to lodge being filled with pilchards and congereels, the perfume was too potent for me; I was not sorry when one of our friends invited me to lodge at her house. Soon after I began to preach, heavy rain began; yet none went away till the whole service was ended. 

The Journal of John Wesley

*Gentle Reader: Congereels were pale eels used for food, pilchards may have been the sardines used for food... or a species of slimy character that smells bad and speaks worse. Because Wesley complains of the perfume, I imagine this was the cooked and spiced odor of the seafood rather than a disparaging comment about his fellow lodgers.

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