LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
307 
to the tail, carefully inserting* their tongue into every little hole 
or cavity in which a clot of blood had secreted itself. Nappa- 
tcoke, (well it is,) said Meviak, and the children returned to 
watch the dressing of the cutlets. Delightfully clean was now 
the interior of the fish, tempting and inviting even to the most 
fastidious taste. In a corner of the hut stood a utensil made of 
neither wood, iron, delf nor porcelain, nor gold, nor silver, tin, 
copper nor brass, but of a block of granite, which nature in one 
of her frolicsome moods had scooped out in the form of a basin ; 
this utensil was the family receptacle of the oil extracted at various 
times from the walruses, and the seals, and perchance from some 
unfortunate whale, who preferred being cut up in his native 
country, to being conveyed in the hold of a ship, to the country 
of the Kabloonas , From this utensil the thirst of the inmates of 
the hut was frequently satisfied ; from it the lamp which illumi¬ 
nated their dwelling was daily fed ; the cutlets swam in it, as 
one of the most delicious sauces which the culinary powers of 
the IJdes, or the Glasses, or the Rundells of this country could 
produce, and the more powerful and pungent its stench and 
fetor, the greater is the avidity with which it is consumed. 
Meviak approached this utensil, and plunging the fish, we were 
going to say over head and ears, but the Esquimaux trout being 
deprived from their birth of the latter organ, we will not expose 
our ignorance of that fact, and therefore we will adhere to the 
truth, by affirming that Meviak plunged the fish over head and 
tail in the unctuous mass, leaving it there for the space of sLt 
seniks, to be well soaked and saturated with the rancid liquid 
At the expiration of the said six seniks the fish was dragged from 
its oily habitation, and being suspended by its jowl from the top 
of the hut, was left in the full and undisturbed enjoyment of all 
the smoke, stenches and other effluvia, which are the universal 
concomitants of an Esquimaux dwelling, and which in the end 
impart to the fish that exquisite flavour which is so gratifying 
to the taste of the Esquimaux epicures. 
We are very prone to think that that, which we like ourselves, 
must also be liked by others; it is however a national pecu- 
