LAST VOYAGE OE CAPT. ROSS. 
821 
dogs, and be himself to have enjoyed it, only by—anticipation. 
Vengeance, direful vengeance, was vowed against the rogues, who 
had dared to practise so gross an imposition, but it was subse¬ 
quently ascertained that their fault consisted in attaching a su¬ 
periority to a particular part of the animal, which the Europeans 
were not able properly to appreciate. We believe that one of 
the best touch-stones wherewith to try the temper of a man, next 
to that of having a termagant for a wife, is to disappoint him 
of a dinner, the enjoyment of which he has been anticipating 
for some previous days, and especially if on the morning of the 
expected pleasure he has stinted himself at breakfast of an extra 
egg, or an additional slice of ham or beef. Woe to the breech 
of the school boy, which under such circumstances is exposed to 
the flagillating wrath of the dinnerless domine, the rod descends 
with tenfold accumulated force, and double are the number of 
stripes that are inflicted. Woe to the place hunter, who under 
such circumstances presents himself before his patron ; for the 
chances are then ten to one in his favour, but he receives a fund¬ 
amental salutation instead of the office for which he is soliciting, 
and lastly, woe to the crew of a ship, whose commander has 
been for some days anticipating the exquisite gratification of a 
juicy slice from a buttock of musk ox beef, and suddenly discovers 
in the moment of the long expected fruition, that he has been 
most scandalously and villainously duped, and that he has bar¬ 
tered away his valuables for a nauseous mass of tripe, guts and 
paunch. On such occasions the sailor boy is sent to the mast 
head, and the crew to build monuments of snow; the scholars 
receive double lessons, and himself a double portion of Booth’s best 
cordial gin. Still however the balance was not so much against 
Capt. Ross, as the mischievous wags of the Victory were inclined 
to promulgate ; it is true he had given to the value of one shil¬ 
ling and two pence foT an article, which had given his subordi¬ 
nates a great deal of trouble, and had excited in his own breast 
certain pleasurable emotions, which were never doomed to be 
realized; but then, when the other lump of beef was culina- 
rily and anatomically surveyed, it was ascertained without the 
possibility of doubt to have once belonged to the fore quarter 
