handfuloftime
handfuloftime
“This very day we ate our last piece of fresh pork killed 4 months ago, [i]t was a New Zealand pig, a very clever one, a pig of parts, & so was christened Miss Franklin; you may laugh at this, but, if you did but know the value of a pig in the Antarctic circle, you would then appreciate the honor done the young lady; it is, like a very high mountain or very large lake, only to be called after some great man. During our former cruize we took to the South nothing but corned beef, hams & Potatoes; the first was dreadfully tough, the second too rancid to eat, & the last all decayed; so we were thrown upon ships provisions, & used to get very hungry so much that we cast longing eyes upon one another, & I had anxious serious thought of applying to Capt. Ross for a Marine with a drawn bayonet to mount guard over me; for of an angry man I am not afraid, but a hungry one is a different thing, & much more dangerous.”
— Letter from Joseph Dalton Hooker, assistant surgeon on HMS Erebus, to his mother, 5 April 1842.
