476 ACCOUNT OF THE AIICTIC llEGIONS. 



to pieces of skin, preferring those with which a 

 little blubber is connected, and to give it as food 

 to their infants suspended on their backs, who suck 

 it with apparent delight. Blubber, when pickled 

 and boiled, is said to be very palatable ; the tail, 

 when par-boiled and then fried, is said to be not 

 unsavory, but even agreeable eating ; and the flesh 

 of young whales, I know from experiment, is by no 

 means indifferent food. 



Not only is it certain that the flesh of the whale 

 is now eaten by savage nations, but it is also well 

 authenticated that, in the 12th, 13th, 14th and 

 15th centuries, it was used as food by the Iceland- 

 ers, the Netherlanders, the French, the Spaniards, 

 and probably by the English. M. S. B. Noel, 

 in a tract on the whale-fishery *, informs us, that 

 about the 13th century, the flesh, particularly the 

 tongue, of whales, was sold in the markets of 

 Bayonne, Cibourre, and Beariz, where it was es- 

 teemed as a great delicacy, being used at the best 

 tables ; and even so late as the 15th century, he 

 conceives, from the authority of Cliarles Etienne, 

 that the principal nourishment of the poor in Lent, 

 in some districts of France, consisted of the flesh 

 and fat of the whale. 



Besides forming a choice eatable, the inferior pro- 

 ducts of the whale are applied to other purposes by 



" " Memoire sur rAutiquite de la Peche de la Baleine pai- 

 les Nations Europeeimcs." 



