lyi FOLLOW THE WHALE 



per. In prints they look like children's drawings with unadorned 

 horizontal rails, clipper bows, cut-off stems, and masts that curve 

 slightly forward Hke saplings bending before a wind. 



Life aboard the Dutch whalers was not what we today would 

 call comfortable; in fact, it would be singularly unpleasant, if not 

 impossible, for our pampered generation. Breakfast, consisting of 

 coarse groats with rancid butter, was available at four o'clock and 

 not thereafter. One or two other meals followed during the day 

 according to work on hand; these were made up of an unending 

 succession of gray or yellow peas, pickled meat or dried codfish, 

 with old, maggot-infested bread that looked like peat and had to 

 be washed before it was eaten. Water was still carried in barrels, 

 often those used previously for whale oil, and it invariably went 

 putrid. 



However, here again the Dutch showed remarkable foresight, for 

 they forced their crews to eat fresh whale meat whenever avail- 

 able, and organized hunts for, or obtained by barter, all the ducks, 

 geese, and other edible birds they could. They also landed regu- 

 larly on islands where sea birds nested; there they collected thou- 

 sands of eggs. Finally, in Spitsbergen they employed apprentices to 

 collect stores of a plant they called "Greenland salad," which they 

 found prevented scurvy among their crews. 



