Quotation from: Elsinore

Written by: Jack London

Life is cruel. Amongst the Elsinore's five thousand tons of coal are
thousands of rats. There is no way for them to get out of their
steel-walled prison, for all the ventilators are guarded with stout
wire-mesh. On her previous voyage, loaded with barley, they
increased and multiplied. Now they are imprisoned in the coal, and
cannibalism is what must occur among them. Mr. Pike says that when
we reach Seattle there will be a dozen or a score of survivors, huge
fellows, the strongest and fiercest. Sometimes, passing the mouth of
one ventilator that is in the after wall of the chart-house, I can
hear their plaintive squealing and crying from far beneath in the
coal.