"Are they only killed for their skin and oil?" asked Bell.
"By Europeans, yes, but the Esquimaux eat them; they live on them, and pieces of seal's flesh, which they mix with blood and fat, are not at all unappetizing. After all, it depends on the way it's treated, and I shall give you some delicate cutlets if you don't mind their dark color."
"We shall see you at work," answered Bell; "I'll gladly eat it, Doctor."
"My good Bell, as much as you please. But, however much you eat, you will never equal a Greenlander, who eats ten or fifteen pounds of it a day."
"Fifteen pounds!" said Bell. "What stomachs!"
"Real polar stomachs," answered the doctor; "prodigious stomachs which can be dilated at will, and, I ought to add, can be contracted in the same way, so that they support starving as well as gorging. At the beginning of his dinner, the Esquimaux is thin; at the end, he is fat, and not to be recognized! It is true that his dinner often lasts a whole day."
"Evidently," said Altamont, "this voracity is peculiar to the inhabitants of cold countries!"
"I think so," answered the doctor; "in the arctic regions one has to eat a great deal; it is a condition not only of strength, but of existence. Hence the Hudson's Bay Company gives each man eight pounds of meat a day, or twelve pounds of fish, or two pounds of pemmican."
"That's a generous supply," said the carpenter.
"But not so much as you imagine, my friend; and an Indian crammed in that way does no better work than an Englishman with his pound of beef and his pint of beer a day."