Page 211

[header] 209]

would laugh at the scurvy - It seems
like a paradoxical speech but I
would rather be Franklins crew
without food - than Franklins crews
housed by the coal stove and the
head basket - It was only out late
resignation of hope of escape and our
crowded duties of the summer which
prevented us from now feeding like al=
=dermen eating our delicious frozen
beef - drinking out melted seal blood,
and garnishing our now dry biscuit
with lubricating blubbery antiscorbutics

As easy would it have been for
me to have laid in ten seal when our
one hunter - spared only when needed [from]
- gave us one. From May to August
we lived on seal and consumed
about twenty five before the middle of
July. - I am now writing by the
oil of these arctic blessings - say twelve
seal to the barrel - we have nearly
two barrels left and these are all
from one gun - my good Esquimaux
Hans.

What was to have prevented me sending
a hunting party to McGeary Is in June
for Eider Eggs we could have collected
about 3000 per trip as long as we felt
inclined to persecute the poor mothers - and
for winter food - it is no unpleasant thing
to dig an omelette for breakfast every
morning from a snow drift - ?

What was to have prevented me from
knocking down with stones and the
double barrelled shot gun - a great stone
house of meet not 35 miles from our
brig - I loaded my boat with Eider
Ducks - in three hours, and that as