human
Inexperienced hunters, he said,
gpt
Is it for the oil or skin that they are mostly hunted?
human
Europeans hunt them for the skin, but the Esquimaux eat them. They live on seals, and nothing is so delicious to them as a piece of the flesh, dipped in the blood and oil. After all, cooking has a good deal to do with it, and I'll bet you something I could dress you cutlets you would not turn up your nose at, unless for their black appearance.
gpt
We'll set you to work on it, said Bell,
human
My good Bell, you mean to say to please yourself, but your voracity would never equal the Green-landers', for they devour from ten to fifteen pounds of meat a day.
gpt
Fifteen pounds! said Bell.
human
What stomachs!
gpt
Arctic stomachs, replied the Doctor,
human
This voracity must be peculiar to the inhabitants of cold countries,
gpt
I think it is, replied the Doctor.
human
In the Arctic regions people must eat enormously: it is not only one of the conditions of strength, but of existence. The Hudson's Bay Company always reckoned on this account 8 lbs. of meat to each man a day, or 12 lbs. of fish, or 2 lbs. of pemmican.
gpt
Invigorating regimen, certainly!
human
Not so much as you imagine, my friend. An Indian who guzzles like that can't do a whit better day's work than an Englishman, who has his pound of beef and pint of beer.
gpt
Things are best as they are, then, Mr. Clawbonny.
human
No doubt of it; and yet an Esquimaux meal may well astonish us. In Sir John Ross's narrative, he states his surprise at the appetites of his guides. He tells us that two of them--just two mind--devoured a quarter of a buffalo in one morning. They cut the meat in long narrow strips, and the mode of eating was either for the one to bite off as much as his mouth could hold, and then pass it on to the other, or to leave the long ribbons of meat dangling from the mouth and devour them gradually like boa-constrictors, lying at full length on the ground.
gpt
Faugh! exclaimed Bell,
human
Every man has his own fashion of dining,
gpt
Happily,
human
Well, if eating is such an imperative necessity in these latitudes, it quite accounts for all the journals of Arctic travellers being so full of eating and drinking.
gpt
You are right, returned the Doctor.
human
I have been struck by the same fact; but I think it arises not only from the necessity of full diet, but from the extreme difficulty sometimes in procuring it. The thought of food is always uppermost in the mind, and naturally finds mention in the narrative.
gpt
And yet, said Altamont,
human
It is an affair of organization out of my power to explain, replied Clawbonny;
gpt
I declare, Mr. Clawbonny, you make me feel hungry with talking so much about eating,
human
Not I! said Altamont.
gpt
It rather sickens me, and makes me loathe the sight of a seal. But, stop, I do believe we are going to have the chance of a dinner off one, for I am much mistaken if that's not something alive lying on those lumps of ice yonder!
human
It is a walrus! exclaimed the Doctor.
gpt
Be quiet, and let us get up to him.