Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/156

Rh go down so easy. Not because the stomach had posted up its sentinel to say "no whale can come down here!" but because it was tougher than any bull beef of Christendom! For half an hour I tried to masticate it, and then found it was even tougher than when I began. At length I discovered I had been making a mistake in the way to eat it. The Esquimaux custom is to get as vast a piece into their distended mouths as they can cram, and then, boa constrictor-like, first lubricate it over, and so swallow it quite whole! "When you are in Rome, do as the Romans do." Therefore I tried the Esquimaux plan and succeeded, but that one trial was sufficient at the time.

A day or two afterward I again went on shore to where a portion of the whale's carcass remained.

The natives were so careful of the prize that numerous piles of stones, covering deposits of krang and blubber, were seen on the islands around. This would seem to bespeak a provident instead of an improvident trait in their character; but I am inclined to think the former is more the exception than the rule.

One old woman kindly came to me and offered a generous slice of the "whale-gum" she was feasting on. Reaching out my hand, with one stroke of her "ood-loo" (a woman's knife—an instrument like a mincing-knife) she severed the white, fibrous strip quick as thought. It cut as old cheese. Its taste was like unripe chestnuts, and its appearance like cocoa-nut meat. But I cannot say this experiment left me a very great admirer of whale's gum, though, if the struggle was for life, and its preservation depended on the act, I would undoubtedly eat whale's gum until I got something better to my liking.

On September 5th, while taking a walk on Look-out Island, half a mile south of the ship, I discovered a large piece of what I supposed to be iron mineral, weighing 19 pounds, and "in shape and appearance resembling a round loaf of burned bread." Circumstances afterward furnished me with many interesting particulars of this piece of iron, and ultimately I ascertained it to be an undoubted relic of Frobisher's Expedition.