As already stated, fuel they had in sufficiency; or, at all events, the best of oil, that would serve as such. The spermaceti could not be readily kindled, nor its blaze kept up, without wicks. But neither was there any difficulty about this. There was a quantity of old rope trash on the raft, which had been fished up among the wreck of the Pandora, and kept in case of an emergency. It needed only to restore this to its original state of tarry fibre, when they would be provided with wick enough to keep the lamp long burning. It was the lamp itself, or rather the cooking furnace, that caused them uneasiness. They had none. The tiny tin vessel that had already served for a single meal would never do for the grand roti they now designed making. With it, along with time and patience, they might have accomplished the task; but time to them was too precious to be so wasted; and as to patience,—circumstanced as they were, it could scarcely be expected.
They stood in great need of a cooking-stove. There was nothing on board the Catamaran that could be used as a substitute. Indeed, to have kindled such a fire as they wanted on the raft,—without a proper material for their hearth,—would have seriously endangered the existence of the craft; and might have terminated in a conflagration.
It was a dilemma that had not suggested itself sooner—that is, until the shark-steaks had been made ready for roasting. Then it presented itself to their contemplation in full force, and apparently without any loophole to escape from it.
What was to be done for a cooking-stove?
Snowball sighed as he thought of his caboose, with all its paraphernalia of pots and pans,—especially his great copper, in which he had been accustomed to boil mountains of meat and oceans of pea-soup.
But Snowball was not the individual to give way to vain regrets,—at least, not for long. Despite that absence of that superior intellect,—which flippant gossips of so-called a “Social Science” delight in denying to his race, themselves often less gifted than he,—Snowball was endowed with rare ingenuity,—especially in matters relating to the cuisine, and in less than ten minutes after the question of a cooking-stove had been started, the Coromantee conceived the idea of one that might have vied with any of the various “patents” so loudly extolled by the ironmongers, and yet not so effective when submitted to the test. At all events, Snowball’s plan was suited to the circumstances in which its contriver was placed; and perhaps it was the only one which the circumstances would have allowed.
Unlike other inventors, the Coromantee proclaimed the plan of his invention as soon as he had conceived it.
“Wha’ for?” he asked, as the idea shaped itself in his skull,—“wha’ for we trouble ’bout a pot fo’ burn de oil?”
“What for, Snowy!” echoed the sailor, turning upon his interrogator an expectant look.
“Why we no make de fire up hya?”