From
the Vancouver Island stations it goes across to enrich the cane-fields
of Honolulu and the rose-gardens of Nippon. The Japs are eager customers
for the dried or smoked whale-meat; and whale-steak broiled to a turn
can scarcely be distinguished from choice porterhouse, since it is
absolutely free from fishy taste. Far back in the fourteenth century the
Biscayans made whale-venison their staple, and Norway to-day has more
than one establishment which turns out canned whale. Newfoundlanders
find whale-meat a welcome change from cod perpetual, and I have seen the
Indians of Cape Flattery eat it when it hailed you a mile to windward
and had more than begun to twine like a giddy honeysuckle. Now,
enterprising people are talking of canning whales' milk, a dense yellow
fluid like soft tallow. When the milk-maid goes out to milk a whale she
must take half a dozen barrels along as milking pails. The Eskimo like
it. Soon the soda-fountains on Fort Macpherson and Herschel Island will
bear the legend, "Whale cream soda" and "Best Whale Milkshake."
To have an even superficial knowledge of the commercial products of the
whale, one must learn of baleen, of whale-oils and spermaceti, of
ambergris, whale-guano, whale-ivory, and whale-leather.
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