raw or frozen, sometimes boiled,
sometimes dried; and sometimes meat is allowed to undergo a sort of
decomposition or fermentation, when it is called _mikiak_, and is eaten
without further preparation. A dish of this sort, which is very highly
esteemed, is rotten seals'-heads.

The blubber of seals and whales is generally eaten raw. My dainty
readers will of course shudder at the very thought of eating raw
blubber; but I can assure them that, especially when quite fresh, it is
very good. It has a sweetish, perhaps rather mawkish, taste, reminding
one of cream, with nothing of what we should call an oily or fishy
flavour; this does not make itself felt until the blubber has been
boiled or roasted, or when it has grown rancid. There are still people,
no doubt, who believe that the Eskimos are in the habit of drinking
train-oil, although even Hans Egede has pointed out that this is a
mistake. That they do not always refuse it, however, when it comes in
their way, I was able to assure myself at Godthaab; for I always saw
our old maid-servant Rosina take a sip or two out of our lamp when she
was cleaning it in the morning, and, as she usually did, had filled the
vessel a little too full. It did not seem at all to disagree with her.

They also preserve the stalks of angelica in train-oil, preparing them,
according to Saabye's account, in the following peculiar fashion; 'A
woman takes a mouthful of blubber, chews it, and spits it out, and so
continues until she thinks she has enough. When the angelica-stalks have
steeped for a certain time in this liquid, they are taken out and eaten
as dessert with much appetite.'

Of vegetable food, the primitive Greenlanders used several sorts; in
addition to angelica, I may mention dandelions, sorrel, crowberries,
bilberries, and different kinds of seaweed. One of their greatest
delicacies is the contents of a reindeer's stomach. If a Greenlander
kills a reindeer, and is unable to convey much of it home with him, he
will, I believe, secure the stomach first of all; and the last thin