“Hold on!” exclaimed Dodd, with a deprecating gesture, “that’s enough, I’ll eat it”; and taking out a halfspoonful of the dark viscid mass, he put it to his lips.

“Well,” said we expectantly, after a moment’s pause, “what does it taste like?”

“Like the mud pies of infancy!” he replied sententiously.  “A little salt, pepper, and butter, and a good deal of meat and flour, with a few well selected vegetables, would probably improve it; but it isn’t particularly bad as it is.”

Upon the strength of this rather equivocal recommendation I tasted it.  Aside from a peculiar earthy flavour, it had nothing about it which was either pleasant or disagreeable.  Its qualities were all negative except its grassiness, which alone gave character and consistency to the mass.

The mixture, known among the Koraks as manyalla, is eaten by all the Siberian tribes as a substitute for bread, and is the nearest approximation which native ingenuity can make to the staff of life.  It is valued, we were told, more for its medicinal virtues than for any intrinsic excellence of taste, and our limited experience fully prepared us to believe the statement.  Its original elements are clotted blood, tallow, and half-digested moss, taken from the stomach of the reindeer, where it is supposed to have undergone some essential change which fits it for second-hand consumption.  These curious and heterogeneous ingredients are boiled up together with a few handfuls of dried grass to give the mixture consistency, and the dark mass is then moulded into small loaves and frozen for future use.  Our host was evidently desirous of treating us with every civility, and, as a mark of especial consideration, bit off several choice morsels from the large cube of venison in his grimy hand, and taking them from his mouth, offered them to me.  I waived graciously the implied compliment, and indicated Dodd as the proper recipient of such attentions; but the latter revenged himself by requesting an old woman to bring me some raw tallow, which he soberly assured her constituted my only food when at home.  My indignant denials, in English were not, of course, understood; and the woman, delighted to find an American whose tastes corresponded so closely with her own, brought the tallow.  I was a helpless victim, and I could only add this last offence to the long list of grievances which stood to Dodd’s credit, and which I hoped some time to settle in full.

Supper, in the social economy of the Koraks, is emphatically the meal of the day.  Around the kettle of manyalla, or the trough of reindeer meat; gather the men of the band, who during the hours of daylight have been absent, and who, between mouthfuls of meat or moss, discuss the simple subjects of thought which their isolated life affords.  We availed ourselves of this opportunity to learn something of the tribes that inhabited the country to the northward, the reception with which we should probably meet, and the mode of travel which we should be compelled to adopt.