With respect to raw beef being nauseous, it may, in the first place, be observed, that "de gustibus non est disputandum,"[26] and, consequently, we can only say it would be nauseous _to us_. In fact, even Salt, who was by no means an unprejudiced man, after having eaten raw beef in Abyssinia, says, "I am satisfied it is merely prejudice which deters us from this food." But, admitting it to be nauseous, that forms no proof that it is not likely to be the food of man, for it is well known that there are few animals that feed more grossly than he sometimes does. Captain Parry, for instance, thus describes the appetites of the human beings it became his fortune to visit:
"It is impossible to describe the horribly disgusting manner in which they sat down, as soon as they felt hungry, to eat their raw blubber, and to suck the oil remaining on the skins we had just emptied. I found that Pootooalook had been successful in bringing in a seal, over which two elderly women were standing, armed with large knives, their hands and faces besmeared with blood, and delight and exultation depicted on their countenances. All the loose scraps were put into the pot for immediate use, except such as the two butchers now and then crammed into their mouths, or distributed to the numerous and eager by-standers for still more immediate consumption. Of these morsels the children came in for no small share, every little urchin that could find its way to the slaughter-house running eagerly in, and between the legs of the men and women presenting its mouth for a large lump of raw flesh, just as an English child of the same age might do for a piece of sugar-candy."... "As soon as this dirty operation was at an end, during which the numerous by-standers amused themselves in chewing the intestines of the seal," ... "they dropped their canoes astern to the whale's tail, from which they cut off enormous lumps of flesh, and ravenously devoured it."[27]
A hundred other examples might be given of the nauseous food upon which men in different countries have been found to subsist; but the above extracts are sufficient to refute the first argument against Bruce's statement, while they also afford a very remarkable exemplification of the effect which the criticism of the day may have on the credulity or incredulity of the public: for it is surely more difficult to believe that human beings should eat raw fish-blubber than that they should eat raw beef, the former being so much more nauseous than the latter; and yet the first statement has never for a moment been doubted, while the other is scarcely yet credited; the fact being that the ruling critics of Bruce's time were opposed to his African discoveries, whereas those of the present day have eagerly supported the Northern discoveries, and whatever relates to them. Parry and Bruce, therefore, although equally honourable men, and equally anxious to contribute to our knowledge of the earth, met with very different fates. The one was justly rewarded, the other most unjustly neglected and condemned.