Fuel.
When wood is scarce, almost any animal substance may be used as fuel; the dung of all graminivorous animals, the dried flesh, cartilage, fat and bones, will all burn. Dr. Livingstone once burnt the dried bones of an elephant in the furnace of the little steamer Ma Robert; and in trying down the blubber of a whale, the scraps from which no more oil can be extracted are used as fuel to melt the rest. Arctic explorers constantly burn bones to obtain heat. Parties away from a vessel on boat service frequently have blue lights or rockets with them. A blue light is usually provided with a percussion cap, so that it bears its own means of ignition; but, if there should be no need to burn it, the sulphur may be removed and used in small quantities to tip the ends of bits of paper, wood, or any light combustible matter to serve as matches.
A candle may be saved from guttering by being placed in a tube large enough to contain it with a small aperture to let the wick come through; if a spiral spring is at hand to force the candle gradually up, so much the better; if not, have the tube long enough to allow a stick of the same size to be inserted under the butt of the candle, then weight the tube heavily (see Fig. 4, [p. 555]), and it will of itself press downwards as the candle burns away.
Fig. 5 is a clay mould used by the natives of some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago for cooking sago; it is heated nearly red hot, the sago paste is ladled into the hollows shown in it, and, when cooked, taken out in the form of very palatable biscuits. In South Africa we make very excellent fritters by mixing a stout batter of meal or flour with a little sugar; then setting a pot of sheep’s-tail fat upon the fire, we keep it boiling, and taking up a spoonful of the batter drop it into the boiling fat. When a South Sea whaler is trying out blubber, the men take biscuits, saturate them thoroughly with water, tie them in a cloth to which a line is made fast, and throw them into the boiling oil. They also tie up fish in a cloth and throw them into the pot, secured in the same manner.
Hints on food.
Commander E. Belcher says that farmers throw a bag of flour into the water to keep it cool; the outer layer only forms paste half an inch in thickness. The American whalers put their flour casks into salt water to prevent weevils getting in; the outer paste dries as hard as flint, and resists their attacks. And lastly, speaking from his own experience, he says the flour balls washed ashore from a wreck, dirty-looking and studded with sand, gravel, and pebbles till they seemed almost like plum puddings, were most carefully gathered up and preserved; they were broken when required, and the dry flour inside made into cakes; this, with a little rum from the wreck and a scanty supply of salmon purchased from the natives, supported him and his crew for ten days; even the flour which had been reached by salt water was not quite spoiled, if the gravel and sand could be extracted.
What we rather absurdly reject as the offal of an animal contains in reality some of its tenderest and best parts, and the natives who follow a white man for the game he kills are well aware of this; and they know that he has a prejudice in favour of cleanliness, which to them seems groundless. However, they do not fail to take advantage of it, and, in cutting up an animal, generally contrive to break up the interior in such a manner that, without actually spoiling the tit bits, they give them a very unsightly appearance. If the traveller is content with the solid flesh, of course he can let them do as they like; if not, he must look out in time. It is quite well to know that the marrow-bones slightly warmed afford most delicious food; the marrow of the ox is good, that of the buffalo is better, but that of the koodoo is the ne plus ultra. The bones of the quagga—at least, so far as our experience goes—afford no marrow; indeed, there is no hollow for it, the inside being a cellular structure filled with oil. The flesh, also, being rather rank, persons of very delicate taste do not relish it. The wild Hottentots, however, not only eat it, but use the name “quagga” as the general term for food. We have frequently eaten it, and can safely say that it only requires a good appetite to make it palatable enough. The head of this or any other animal is best cooked in its skin—a good fire being made round it and earth heaped over the embers all night.
The skin of most animals will afford nutriment—of course, the thicker it is the better; that of the hippopotamus, which varies in different parts from half an inch to two inches, is very good. It may be roasted, or broiled, or boiled down to a soft jelly or even to a soup or gelatine, and in all these various forms it is good. We have saved large slabs of the hide after killing a hippopotamus; and after the flesh was gone the skin served us well, the Damaras washing it and pounding it between a couple of stones till it was tender enough to eat. When that was done, however, and we had to come down upon the hides of buffaloes shot three months before, and at that time dried so hard in the sun that we had to cut them up with a hand-saw, we found that, even after a couple of days’ soaking in the pool and two days more of boiling, nothing but the simple fact that we had nothing else would have induced us to eat them. The quagga skin is even harder; but our native followers cut it out piecemeal from under a Dutch lad who was using it as a bed till they barely left him enough to lie upon. We had used the hide of a black rhinoceros to make side chests for the waggon, and these, though much harder than the hardest wood we know, were taken off, roasted, pounded between stones, and eaten. Meat that has been cut into small pieces and exposed to the heat of the sun, so as partially to dry without allowing it to become tainted, may be eaten without further cooking.
In Tartary it is said to be common for a rider to cut a thin steak of beef and lay it under his saddle before he sets out on his journey, and after some hours he finds that the combined effects of constant pressure and warmth have, if not cooked it, at least rendered it palatable enough to be eaten.