Cruise of the Cachalot - Softcover

Bullen, Frank T.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0918172063 ISBN 13: 9780918172068

Publisher: Leete's Island Books, 1981

Synopsis

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 Excerpt: ...condition of things was permitted to continue for about a week, when the officers got so tired of it, and the captain so annoyed at the frequent loss of fowls by their flying overboard, that the edict went forth to feed the foremast hands on poultry till further orders. Great was our delight at the news. Fowl for dinner represented to our imagination almost the apex of high living, only indulged in by such pampered children of fortune as the officers of ships or well-to-do people ashore. When dinner-time arrived, we boys made haste to the galley with watering mouths, joyfully anticipating that rare delight of the sailor--a good "feed." The cook uncovered his coppers, plunged his tormentors therein, and produced such a succession of ugly corpses of fowls as I had never seen before. To each man a whole one was allotted, and we bore the steaming hecatomb into the forecastle. The boisterous merriment became hushed at our approach, and faces grew lengthy when the unwholesome aspect of the "treat" was revealed. Each man secured his bird, and commenced operations. But oh, the disappointment, and the bad words! What little flesh there was upon the framework of those unhappy fowls was like leather itself, and utterly flavourless. It could not well have been otherwise. The feathers had been simply scalded off, the heads chopped off, and bodies split open to facilitate drawing (I am sure I wonder the cook took the trouble to do that much), and thus prepared they were cast into a cauldron of boiling salt water. There, with the water fiercely bubbling, they were kept for an hour and a half, then pitchforked out into the mess kid and set before us. We simply could not eat them; no one but a Noumean Kanaka could, for his teeth are equal to husking a co...

About this edition

• Publisher: Leete's Island Books
• Publication date: 1981
• ISBN 10: 0918172063
• ISBN 13: 9780918172068
• Binding: Paperback