358 TEE CRUISE OF TEE " CACEALOT." 



" mutton birds." This latter delicacy is a great staple 

 of their flesh food, but is one of the strangest dishes 

 imaginable. When it is being cooked in the usual way, 

 i.e. by grilling, it smells exactly like a piece of roasting 

 mutton ; but it tastes, to my mind, like nothing else in 

 the world so much as a kippered herring. There is a gas- 

 tronomical paradox, if you like. Only the young birds 

 are taken for eating. They are found, when unfledged, in 

 holes of the rocks, and weigh sometimes treble as much 

 as their parents. They are exceedingly fat ; but this 

 substance is nearly all removed from their bodies before 

 they are hung up in the smoke-houses. They are split 

 open like a haddock, and carefully smoked, after being 

 steeped in brine. Baskets, something like exaggerated 

 strawberry pottles of the old conical shape, are prepared, 

 to hold each about a dozen birds. They are lined with 

 leaves, then packed with the birds, the melted fat being 

 run into all the interstices until the basket is full. The 

 top is then neatly tied up with more leaves, and, thus 

 preserved, the contents will keep in cool weather an 

 indefinite length of time. 



Captain Count was soon recognized by some of his 

 old friends, who were delighted to welcome him again. 

 Their faces fell, however, when he told them that his 

 stay was to be very brief, and that he only required four 

 good-sized fish to fill up. Inquiry as to the prevalence 

 of sperm whales in the vicinity elicited the news that they 

 were as plentiful as they had ever been — if anything, more 

 so, since the visits of the whalers had become fewer. 

 There were a couple of " bay " whaling stations existing ; 

 but, of course, their success could not be expected to be 

 great among the cachalots, who usually keep a respect- 

 ful distance from harbours, while they had driven the 

 right whales away almost entirely. 



