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Updated: June 3, 2025
Moreover, they killed many seals; and at Whitsuntide I myself killed one as I walked by the sea with my daughter. The creature lay on a rock close to the water, snoring like a Christian. It was a fat beast, though not very large; and we melted forty pots of train-oil out of his fat, which we put by for a winter store.
Both the men had their worn clothes smeared with train-oil and blood, so that they were soaked right through. Ivory and glaucous gulls, noisy and greedy, collected from far and near and picked up all the offal. They would soon fly south, the sea would be covered with ice, and the Polar night would be so dismal and silent. It took a week to get the new hut ready.
So he took the train-oil lamp and a wooden club, and began to test the prow and light up the boarding, and thump it well, and go over the planks one by one. And in this way he went over every bit of the boat from stem to stern, both above and below. There was not a nail or a rivet that he really believed in now. But now neither the shape nor the proportions of the boat pleased him any more.
But the final argument, which settled the question, was a happy reference of mine to the train-oil and tallow candles which the Esquimaux not only enjoy but digest.
"It is remarkable how our appetites have changed in this respect. Until quite recently almost the thought of it was nauseating. Now, however, we positively demand it. The thick black oil which is rendered down from it, rather like train-oil in appearance and cod-liver oil in taste, we drink with avidity."
"Don't they bite?" said I. "Oh no, sir, not at all." "Nor kick?" "No, sir, never." "Nor lie down on the way?" "No, sir, not at all." "Oh no, sir!" answered my guide, with a look of some surprise; "they are too well trained for that." "Then I suppose they subsist on train-oil as well as codfish?" "Yes, sir, when they can get it. They are very fond of oil."
We have very remarkable proofs of this in all parts of the world. In China they eat cats and dogs, while the poorer classes think rats, mice, and other vermin, no bad food. The Romans thought peacocks a dainty, which we quite nauseate. The Greenlander and the Esquimaux relish train-oil, whilst these and all savages, on first tasting our wines are disgusted and spit them out.
His Yakouta friend knew the value of train-oil and grease, which are the staple luxuries of Siberians, Kamschatkans, and Esquimaux alike. The first part of Ivan's journey was necessarily to the yourte, or wigwam of Sakalar, without whom all hopes of reaching the goal of his wishes were vain.
This is attributed to the difficulty of masticating the gum alone; but I am persuaded that it has another cause also, and that it arises from that experience of the necessity of an additional stimulus to the digestive organ which has taught the Esquimaux and Ottomacs to add sawdust or clay to their train-oil.
"The matter is that I am going abroad," said he, with his chin resting moodily in his two palms and his elbows on the table. "Going abroad! Where?" "I don't know 'Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world. It's of very little consequence whether I betake myself to the East or to the West; eat rice in the tropics, or drink train-oil at the Pole." "But have you no settled projects?" "None whatever."
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