For the first time that voyage an attempt was made to confine a portion of our farm-stock within a pen, instead of allowing them to roam at their own sweet will about the decks. For the skipper still cherished the idea that milk for tea and coffee might be obtained from the two goats that would be palatable¹, if only their habit of promiscuous² grazing could be stopped. So the carpenter rigged up a tiny corral beneath the fo’c’s’le deck, and there, in penitential gloom, the goats were confined and fed, like all the rest of the animals, on last voyage’s biscuit and weevily pease. Under these depressing conditions there was, of course, only one thing left for self-respecting goats to do—refuse to secrete³ any more milk. They promptly⁴ did so; so promptly, in fact, that on the second morning the utmost energies of[120] the steward⁵ only sufficed to squeeze out from the sardonic⁶ pair about half-a-dozen teaspoonfuls of doubtful-looking fluid. This sealed their fate, for we had far too much stock on board to waste any portion of our provender⁸ upon non-producers, and the fiat⁹ went forth—the drones must die. Some suggestion was made by a member of the after guard as to the possibility of the crew not objecting to goat as a change of diet; but with all the skipper’s boldness, he did not venture to make the attempt. The goats were slain¹⁰, their hides were saved for chafing¹¹ gear, sheaths for knives, &c., but, with the exception of a portion that was boiled down with much disgust by the cook and given to the

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