At the end of the fourth month, they had all died
except the chief harpooner, a fat porpus of an Englishman, and myself.
The bodies remained on the deck, for the cold was so intense that they
would not have been tainted for centuries; and, as at the end of five
months, the provisions were all expended, we were again obliged to
resort to the whale oil.
The whale oil produced a return of our complaints, and having no other
resource, we were forced by imperious hunger to make our repasts from
one of the bodies of our dead shipmates. They were so hard, that it was
with difficulty that we could separate a portion with an axe, and the
flesh broke off in fragments, as if we had been splitting a piece of
granite; but it thawed before the fire, which we had contrived to keep
alight, by supplying it from the bulwarks of the quarter-deck, which we
cut away as we required them. The old harpooner and I lived together on
the best terms for a month, during which we seldom quitted the cabin of
the vessel, having now drawn down the third dead body, which we cut up
as we required it with less difficulty than before, from the change in
the weather.
The ice continued breaking up, and all day and night we were startled at
the loud crashing which took place, as the icebergs separated from each
other. But my disgust at feeding upon human flesh produced a sort of
insanity. I had always been partial to good eating, and was by no means
an indifferent cook; and I determined to try whether something more
palatable could not be provided for our meals; the idea haunted me day
and night, and at last I imagined myself a French restaurateur; I tied a
cloth before me as an apron, put on a cotton nightcap instead of my fur
cap, and was about to make a trial of my skill, when I discovered that I
had no lard, no fat of any kind except train oil, which I rejected as
not being suitable to the "_cuisine Francaise_.
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