bilge-water is owing to its being imprisoned from air in the
bottom of the hold.

I held up the lanthorn and looked about me. A glance or two satisfied me
that I was in a room that had been appropriated to the steward and his
mates. A number of dark objects, which on inspection I found to be hams,
were stowed snugly away in battens under the ceiling or upper-deck; a
cask half full of flour stood in a corner; near it lay a large coarse
sack in which was a quantity of biscuit, a piece of which I bit and
found it as hard as flint and tasteless, but not in the least degree
mouldy. There were four shelves running athwartships full of glass,
knives and forks, dishes, and so forth, some of the glass very choice
and elegant, and many of the dishes and plates also very fine, fit for
the greatest nobleman's table. Under the lower shelf, on the deck, lay a
sack of what I believed to be black stones until, after turning one or
two of them about, it came upon me that they were, or had been, I should
say, potatoes.

Not to tease you with too many particulars under this head, let me
briefly say that in this larder or steward's room I found among other
things several cheeses, a quantity of candles, a great earthenware pot
full of pease, several pounds of tobacco, about thirty lemons, along
with two small casks and three or four jars, manifestly of spirits, but
of what kind I could not tell. I took a stout sharp knife from one of
the shelves, and pulling down one of the hams tried to cut it, but I
might as well have striven to slice a piece of marble. I attempted next
to cut a cheese, but this was frozen as hard as the ham. The lemons,
candles, and tobacco had the same astonishing quality of stoniness, and
nothing yielded to the touch but the flour. I laid hold of one of the
jars, and thought to pull the stopper out, but it was frozen hard in the
hole it fitted, and I was five minutes hammering it loose. When it was
out I inserted a steel--used for the sharpening of knives--and found the
contents solid ice, nor was there the faintest smell to tell me what the
spirit or wine was.

Never before did plenty offer itself in so mocking a shape. It was the
very irony of abundance--substantial ghostliness and a Barmecide's feast
to my aching stomach.

But there was biscuit not unconquerable by teeth used to the fare of the
sea life, and picking up a whole one, I sat me down on the edge of a
cask and fell a-munching. One reflection, however