808 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
liarity ; the Italian stares with wonder if a person expresses his 
dislike to Macaroni, the German cannot be brought to be- 
lieve that any one can turn away with disgust from a dish of 
Sauerkraut, the Spaniard cannot conceive that any dislike can 
be entertained to olive oil and garlick, and a Frenchman would 
think himself entitled to call into question the taste of that indi¬ 
vidual, who might be so rude as to turn up his nose at a decoction 
of onions and frogs. Can it then be imputed as a fault, or even 
as an error of judgement in Meviak, when he came to the con¬ 
clusion that as the trout, or trouts which hung dangling over 
his head, were undoubtedly the greatest dainty which his hut 
afforded, they could not fail to be considered also as such by the 
great and powerful Kahloona, who appeared to possess the 
greatest authority in the huge and vast machine, which had by 
some means, wholly wonderful to him, found its way to his 
country. The thought was by no means an unhappy one on the 
part of Meviak, and therefore without any further loss of time he 
proceeded to dislodge the trouts from their smoky position, and 
he was rejoiced to find that they were in prime condition, the 
oil well absorbed and penetrated into every part—the original 
colour wholly lost, and approaching nearly to a black, and the 
odour very much resembling that which a fish ought to have, 
which had been absent from its native element for the period of 
about six months, and exposed during that time, to as vile a 
combination of effluvia as ever surrounded the pendent body of a 
trout. 
Nevertheless Meviak repaired to the Victory with his pisca¬ 
tory dainties, and as the last stage of its eventful existence, (if 
the solecism be allowed,) we have described it as forming a 
conspicuous object on the breakfast table of Capt. Ross, but let 
the wiseacres of this world say what they will, there is fre¬ 
quently a happiness in ignorance, which all the wisdom of the 
ancients and the modems cannot give us. Had Capt. Ross 
witnessed the process of purifying the fish from the clotted 
blood, had he been present at its immersion in the unctuous 
mass—had he daily and hourly observed it suspended in an 
