The True-Life Horror that Inspired Moby-Dick

By Ben • amazing tales, history • 2 Mar 2013

Definitely one of the most amazing (yet disturbing) stories I've heard. The excerpt below is grisly, but isn't even the grisliest part of the tale.

"By mid-December, after weeks at sea, the boats began to take on water, more whales menaced the men at night, and by January, the paltry rations began to take their toll.  On Chase’s boat, one man went mad, stood up and demanded a dinner napkin and water, then fell into 'most horrid and frightful convulsions' before perishing the next morning. 'Humanity must shudder at the dreadful recital' of what came next, Chase wrote. The crew 'separated limbs from his body, and cut all the flesh from the bones; after which, we opened the body, took out the heart, and then closed it again—sewed it up as decently as we could, and committed it to the sea.'  They then roasted the man’s organs on a flat stone and ate them."

Read the whole thing.

from The True-Life Horror that Inspired Moby-Dick
via Neatorama

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