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1861 Nov 11 Mon
is as sweet as any other!
To-night Calm, the heavens covered with hazy clouds.
For Dinner to-day, Whale beef hashed & fried. Evening lunch = 1st one boiled "Muk-tuk" then cup of coffee with sea bread. When "Muk-tuk" is sufficiently cooked (boiled) it is placed on a plate on the cabin table, then each marches up, cuts off a slice & seats himself on a sea chest or takes a standing seat eating by holding the same in one hand & slicing off with a jack knife wh. he holds in the other. I generally use, what Capt B. calls an "Arkansas Tooth prick", an instrument presented me by my friends, Hamlin & Smith, Dentists of Cincinnati, O.
"Muk-tuk" as before explained, is the "Black Skin" of the whale (Mystecetus) called by Whalers: "Greenland Whale". The skin, proper, is usually about 3/4 of an inch thick. Attached to the "Black skin" as we cook & eat is a lining of white fat (blubber) vayring from 1/4 to 1/2 inch in thickness. Were it not for this fat (oil) substance, Muk-tuk would be very dry eating. We may say, [[underlined]] this is the butter of our bread. [[/underlined]] It is nothing more nor less than [[underlined]] lamp oil! [[/underlined]] It is probable every time we lunch on this whale skin, each one of us take in 1/4 to 1/2 of a gill of pure lamp oil. But it is sweet & palatable. Indeed, without it we should be wanting in that element that gives us caloric.
The "Black skin" has the appearance of India rubber- & has also much of the elastic nature of India rubber. It requires much grinding in the dental mill before it goes down below. Our jaws certainly get exercise in abundance daily. The only bad effects we experience in eating Muk-tuk is the getting the interstices between the teeth filled with the innumerable perpendicular, sable threads of wh. the whole of Muk-tuk consists. Tooth pricks dilligently
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1861 Nov 11 Mon
plied among the ivory frees us, after a time, of this grievance. Of course, tooth pricks are not handled till the lunch is through.
Capt B. met with a narrow escape to-day. He had been ashore & was returning when a musket ball passed his feet one step from him. An Innuit boy had carelessly shot at a mark in the direction of the ship. The Innuits every evening are engaged Ang-e-Koo-ting for a Northerly wind to blow the ice (Pack) from the Bay. The air to-night resounds with the voices of Angeko's & his people's responses.
One seal shot to-day out on the ice by one of the Innuits.
Tuesday Nov 12th 1861
29.7 AM 28° N.E. 6 o.u.s.
1675 M 28° E.N.E. 6 o.u.s.
PM 29 1/2 ESE 6 m.o.
To-day I begin to make record of wind & weather by symbolic letters:-
0. Calm | b. Blue sky: whether with clear or hazy atmosphere
1. Light air | c. Cloudy: but detatched opening clouds.
2 Light breeze | d. Drizzling rain
3 Gentle breeze | f. Fog - F, thick fog.
4 Moderate breeze | g. Gloomy, dark weather
5 Fresh breeze | h. Hail.
6 Strong breeze | l. Lightning
7 Moderate Gale | m. Misty, hazy atmosphere
8 Fresh Gale | o. Overcast: the whole sky being covered with an impervious cloud
9 Strong Gale | p. Passing temporary showers
10 Whole Gale | q. Squally
11 Storm | r. Rain; continued rain
12 Hurricane | s Snow
- | t. Thunder
- | u. Ugly, threatening appearance of the weather.
- | v. Visibility of distant objects whether the sky cloudy or not
14 Aurora | w. Wet dew
[[symbol: large dot]] Under any letters indicates an extraordinary degree.
[[symbol: circumpunct]] Sun
Blank no sun
* [[asterisks]] Starts Blank no stars
Fair = nearly cloudless sky
[[underlined]] "Fine" [[/underlined]] = clear, cloudless sky
At 2 this morn wind blowing strong from the N.E. - stars visible - at 3 the sky overcast.
The wind commenced blowing [[?storm]] from N.E. by X last night. This Morn as indicated in Table.
