Which Would Have Startled Dr. Graham

In Chapter XXIX of Two Years Before the Mast Dana wrote of a time of hard physical labor, packing a ship with hides to be carried around Cape Horn to Boston, thatDuring all this time,--which would have startled Dr. Graham--we lived upon almost nothing but fresh beef; fried beefsteaks three times a day,--morning, noon, and night. At morning and night we had a quart of tea to each man; and an allowance of about a pound of hard bread a day; but our chief article of food was the beef. A mess, consisting of six men, had a large wooden kid piled up with beefsteaks, cut thick, and fried in fat, with the grease poured over them. Round this we sat, attacking it with our jack-knives and teeth, and with the appetite of young lions, and sent back an empty kid to the galley. This was done three times a day. How many pounds each man ate in a day, I will not attempt to compute. A whole bullock (we ate liver and all) lasted us but four days. Such devouring of flesh, I will venture to say, was seldom…