#huckaback

I determined again to try my fortune at sea, as I was afraid that I should be discovered if I remained on shore. I purchased a small venture with the money in my purse, and having made my agreement with the captain of a vessel bound to St Domingo, exchanged my dress for a jacket and trousers, and was again at the mercy of the waves.

— Frederick Marryat, The Pacha of Many Tales

Your highness may imagine, that I ought to have been pretty well tired of going to sea, after so many mishaps; but there is a restlessness attending a person who has once been a rover, that drives him from comfort and affluence in possession, to seek variety through danger and difficulty in perspective.

— Frederick Marryat, The Pacha of Many Tales ("Fourth Voyage of Huckaback")

Having met with the captain of a whaler, who expatiated on the fortune which might be realised by embarking in the speculation, I purchased a large ship, and fitted it out for a voyage to Baffin's Bay. This consumed all the money I had left, but as I expected to return with ten times the sum, I made no scruple of parting with it.

— Frederick Marryat, The Pacha of Many Tales

I never met the English on shore, but I must say that, afloat, they are the most impertinent people that swim on the seas. They cannot be content with minding their own business, although they have plenty on their hands, but they must interfere in that of others. They board you, and insist upon knowing where you come from, whither you are bound, and what you have on board; examining you with as much scrutiny as if they had been the delegated custom-house officers of the whole world.

— Frederick Marryat, The Pacha of Many Tales

HMS Hecla in Baffin Bay, from William Edward Parry, Journal of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage, 1821. Not pictured: a Marryat character trapped in an iceberg in suspended animation.

The five months had elapsed, according to my calculations, when one morning I heard a grating noise close to me; soon afterwards I perceived the teeth of a saw entering my domicile, and I correctly judged that some ship was cutting her way through the ice. Although I could not make myself heard, I waited in anxious expectation of deliverance. The saw approached very near to where I was sitting, and I was afraid that I should be wounded, if not cut in halves; but just as it was within two inches of my nose, it was withdrawn. The fact was, that I was under the main floe, which had been frozen together, and the firm ice above having been removed and pushed away, I rose to the surface. A current of fresh air immediately poured into the small incision made by the saw, which not only took away my breath from its sharpness, but brought on a spitting of blood. Hearing the sound of voices, I considered my deliverance as certain. Although I understood very little English, I heard the name of Captain Parry frequently mentioned—a name, I presume, that your highness is well acquainted with.

“Pooh! never heard of it,” replied the pacha.

“I am surprised, your highness; I thought every body must have heard of that adventurous navigator. I may here observe that I have since read his voyages, and he mentions, as a curious fact, the steam which was emitted from the ice—which was nothing more than the hot air escaping from my cave when it was cut through."

The ice continued breaking up, and all day and night we were startled at the loud crashing which took place, as the icebergs separated from each other. But my disgust at feeding upon human flesh produced a sort of insanity. I had always been partial to good eating, and was by no means an indifferent cook; and I determined to try whether something more palatable could not be provided for our meals; the idea haunted me day and night, and at last I imagined myself a French restaurateur; I tied a cloth before me as an apron, put on a cotton nightcap instead of my fur cap, and was about to make a trial of my skill, when I discovered that I had no lard, no fat of any kind except train oil, which I rejected as not being suitable to the "cuisine française." My messmates who lay dead, were examined one by one, but they had fallen away so much previous to their decease, that not a symptom of fat was to be perceived. Without fat I could do nothing; and as I thought of it in despair, my eye was caught by the rotundity of paunch which still appertained to the English harpooner, the only living being besides myself out of so many. “I must have fat,” cried I fiercely, as I surveyed his unwieldy carcase. He started when he observed the rolling of my eyes, and perceiving that I was advancing towards him, sharpening my knife, he did not think it prudent to trust himself longer in my company.