gradually heated until it boiled; and all the while he employed himself in masticating a lump of raw walrus-flesh, much to the amusement of Fred, and to the disgust, real or pretended, of O’Riley.  But the Irishman, and Fred too, and every man on board the Dolphin, came at last to relish raw meat, and to long for it!  The Esquimaux prefer it raw in these parts of the world (although some travellers assert that in more southern latitudes they prefer cooked meat); and with good reason, for it is much more nourishing than cooked flesh, and learned, scientific men who have wintered in the Arctic Regions have distinctly stated that in those cold countries they found raw meat to be better for them than cooked meat, and they assure us that they at last came to prefer it!  We would not have our readers to begin forthwith to dispense with the art of cookery, and cast Soyer to the dogs; but we would have them henceforth refuse to accept that common opinion and vulgar error that Esquimaux eat their food raw because they are savages.  They do it because nature teaches them that, under the circumstances, it is best.

The duty that devolved upon O’Riley was to roast small steaks of the walrus, in which operation he was assisted by West; while Fred undertook to get out the biscuit-bag and pewter plates, and to infuse the coffee when the water should boil.  It was a strange feast in a strange place, but it proved to be a delightful one, for hunger requires not to be tempted, and is not fastidious.

“Oh, but it’s good, isn’t it?” remarked O’Riley, smacking his lips, as he swallowed a savoury morsel of the walrus and tossed the remnant, a sinewy bit, to Dumps, who sat gazing sulkily at the flame of the lamp, having gorged himself long before the bipeds began supper.

“Arrah! ye won’t take it, won’t ye?—­Here, Poker!”

Poker sprang forward, wagging the stump of his tail, and turned his head to one side, as if to say, “Well, what’s up?  Any fun going?”

“Here, take that, old boy; Dumps is sulky.”

Poker took it at once, and a single snap caused it to vanish.  He, too, had finished supper, and evidently ate the morsel to please the Irishman.

“Hand me the coffee, Meetuck,” said Fred.—­“The biscuit lies beside you, West; don’t give in so soon, man.”

“Thank you, sir; I have about done.”

“Meetuck, ye haythen, try a bit o’ the roast; do now, av it was only to plaze me.”

Meetuck shook his head quietly, and, cutting a fifteenth lump off the mass of raw walrus that lay beside him, proceeded leisurely to devour it.

“The dogs is nothin’ to him,” muttered O’Riley.  “Isn’t it a curious thing, now, to think that we’re all at sea a-eatin’, and drinkin’, and slaapin’—­or goin’ to slaap—­jist as if we wor on the land, and the great ocean away down below us there, wid whales, and seals, and walruses, and mermaids, for what I know, a-swimmin’ about jist under whare we sit, and maybe lookin’ through the ice at us this very minute.  Isn’t it quare?”