It is like feeding straw to horses. I can not describe
the unutterable repugnance with which I tasted the first mouthful of
flesh. There is an instinct in our nature that revolts at the thought of
touching, much less eating, a corpse. It makes my blood curdle to think
of it! It has been told that I boasted of my shame - said that I enjoyed
this horrid food, and that I remarked that human flesh was more
palatable than California beef. This is a falsehood. It is a horrible,
revolting falsehood. This food was never otherwise than loathsome,
insipid, and disgusting. For nearly two months I was alone in that
dismal cabin. No one knows what occurred but myself - no living being
ever before was told of the occurrences. Life was a burden. The horrors
of one day succeeded those of the preceding. Five of my companions had
died in my cabin, and their stark and ghastly bodies lay there day and
night, seemingly gazing at me with their glazed and staring eyes. I was
too weak to move them had I tried. The relief parties had not removed
them. These parties had been too hurried, too horror-stricken at the
sight, too fearful lest an hour's delay might cause them to share the
same fate. I endured a thousand deaths. To have one's suffering
prolonged inch by inch, to be deserted, forsaken, hopeless; to see that
loathsome food ever before my eyes, was almost too much for human
endurance.
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