one of indifferent beef rather overdone. Hair seal and bear steaks were
on different occasions tried at the mess on board the Corwin, but
everybody voted eider duck and reindeer the preference. It is not so
very long since that whale was a favorite article of diet in England and
Holland, and Arctic whalemen still, to my personal knowledge, use the
freshly tried oil in cooking; for instance in frying cakes, for which
they say it answers the purpose as well as the finest lard, while others
breakfast on whale and potatoes prepared after the manner of codfish
balls. The whale I have tasted is rather insipid eating, yet it appears
to be highly nutritious, judging from the well-nourished look of natives
who have lived on it, and the air of greasy abundance and happy
contentment that pervades an Eskimo village just after the capture of a
whale. Being ashore one day with our pilot, we met a native woman whom
he recognized as a former acquaintance, and on remarking to her that she
had picked up in flesh since he last saw her, she replied that she had
been living on a whale all the Winter, which explained her plumpness.

It must not be supposed, however, that the whale, seal and walrus
constitute the entire food supply of the Arctic. There is scarcely any
more toothsome delicacy than reindeer, the tongue of which is very
dainty and succulent. There is one peculiarity about its flesh--in
order to have it in perfection it must be eaten very soon after being
killed; the sooner the better, for it deteriorates in flavor the longer
it is kept. Indeed, the Eskimo do not wait for the animal heat to leave
the carcass, as they eat the brains and paunch hot and smoking.

While our gastronomic enthusiasm did not extend this far, we dined
occasionally on fresh trout from a Siberian mountain lake, young wild
ducks as fat as squabs, and reindeer, any of which delicacies could not
be had in the same perfection at Delmonico's or any similar