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We ate them at every meal, by the dozen, and filled our pockets with them, to eat in our watch on deck; and the bunches, rising in the form of a cone, from the largest at the bottom, to the smallest, no larger than a strawberry, at the top, soon disappeared. The chief use, however, of the fresh provisions, was for the men with the scurvy.
But besides the pemmican for ourselves, that for our dogs was equally important, for they are just as liable to be attacked by scurvy as we men. The same care had therefore to be devoted to the preparation of their food. We obtained from Moss two kinds of pemmican, one made with fish and the other with meat. Both kinds were equally excellent, and the dogs were always in splendid condition.
In fine, I was considered and treated as a spy, and given to understand that my letters gave great offence. "I became very ill in this confinement, the scurvy breaking out in my legs and feet.
Shorty demanded, brandishing to the light packages of egg-powder and Italian mushrooms. "And look at that! And that!" He tossed out cans of tomatoes and corn and bottles of stuffed olives. "And the divine steeress got the scurvy, too. What d'ye make of it?" "Seeress," Smoke corrected. "Steeress," Shorty reiterated. "Didn't she steer 'em here to this hole in the ground?"
Scrupulous attention to cleanliness and hygiene produced this result in an age when scurvy was more to be feared than shipwreck. On every fine day the decks below and the cockpit were washed, dried with stoves, and sprinkled with vinegar. Care was taken to prevent the crew from sleeping in wet clothes.
Meanwhile, on the 16th of May, the little Victoria, with starvation and scurvy already thinning the ranks, with foretopmast gone by the board and fore-yard badly sprung, cleared the Cape of Good Hope, and thence was borne on the strong and friendly current up to the equator, which she crossed on the 8th of June.
Ike and Redwood both declared that they afterwards had their revenge upon the Utahs, for the scurvy treatment they had suffered, but what was the precise character of that revenge they declined stating. Both loudly swore that the Pawnees had better look out for the future, for they were not the men to be "set afoot on the parairy for nuthin."
So things went on awhile, and Asmund had Keingala killed; and many other scurvy tricks did Grettir in his childhood whereof the story says nought. But he grew great of body, though his strength was not well known, for he was unskilled in wrestling; he would make ditties and rhymes, but was somewhat scurrilous therein. He had no will to lie anight in the fire-hall and was mostly of few words.
The situation of the ships had now become very distressing. There was a scarcity of water and wholesome provisions; the scurvy broke out among the crew, and several men were affected with venereal symptoms, the consequence, it is said, of infection got at Otaheite. Hence it is asked, but by no means is the affirmative reply distinctly asserted, if the English brought it there?
Though scurvy had been so prevalent it had not been so severe as usual, and as yet the graveyard on "Deadmen's Island," on the outer harbor, had received no accession from the crews. The successful treatment of the disease seems to be to compel the patient to eat abundantly of raw walrus or seal meat, and to take moderate exercise, at first under shelter and then in the open air.
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