It might readily be supposed that in such leisurely¹ ships as the Southern-going whalers, calling, as they did, at so many out-of-the-way islands in the South Pacific, there would have been more inducement than usual to cultivate the bucolics, if only from sheer desire for something to break the long monotony of the voyage. And so, indeed, there was, but not to anything like the extent that I should have expected. On board the Cachalot we were handicapped considerably² in this direction by reason of several of the officers having an unconquerable dislike to fresh pork, which was the more remarkable³ because they never manifested the same aversion to the rancid, foul-smelling article supplied to us every other day out of the ship’s salt-meat stores. Whence, by the by, is ship salt pork obtained? Under what conditions do they rear the animals that produce those massy blocks of “scrunchy” fat, just tinged⁴ at one side with a pale pink substance that was once undoubtedly⁵ flesh, but when it reaches the sailor bears no resemblance to anything eatable? And how does it acquire that peculiarly vile⁶ flavour all its own, which is unlike the taste of any other provision known to caterers? I give it up; I have long ago done so, in fact. Men do eat it, although I never could, except by chopping it[149] up fine with broken biscuit and mixing it with pea-soup, so that I could swallow it without tasting it. But the only other creatures able to do so are pigs and sharks. Sailors have all kinds of theories respecting its origin, of which I am restricted to saying that they are nearly all unprintable. But I do wish most fervently⁸ that those who supply it for human food, both dealers¹⁰ and ship-owners, were, as their victims are, compelled to eat it three times a week or starve. Just for a month or two. Methinks it would do them much good. But this is a digression.

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