Beneath the furnaces was a space as large as the whole
area of the try-works, about a foot deep, which, when the fires
were lighted, was filled with water to prevent the deck from
burning.
It may be imagined that the blubber from our twenty porpoises
made but a poor show in one of the pots; nevertheless, we got a
barrel of very excellent oil from them. The fires were fed with
"scrap," or pieces of blubber from which the oil had been boiled,
some of which had been reserved from the previous voyage. They
burnt with a fierce and steady blaze, leaving but a trace of ash.
I was then informed by one of the harpooners that no other fuel
was ever used for boiling blubber at any time, there being always
amply sufficient for the purpose.
The most interesting part of the whole business, though, to us
poor half-starved wretches, was the plentiful supply of fresh
meat. Porpoise beef is, when decently cooked, fairly good eating
to a landsman; judge, then, what it must have been to us. Of
course the tit-bits, such as the liver, kidneys, brains, etc.,
could not possibly fall to our lot; but we did not complain, we
were too thankful to get something eatable, and enough of it.
Moreover, although few sailors in English ships know it, porpoise
beef improves vastly by keeping, getting tenderer every day the
longer it hangs, until at last it becomes as tasty a viand as one
could wish to dine upon.
Pages:
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54