harness cask

plural harness casks

1. archaicnauticalA (usually round) barrel lashed to a vessel's deck and containing salted provisions for daily use.

   "Why, it's thirty year and more since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and me still picking my salt meat out of the harness cask."

   1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Gloria Scott

   1 more example

   1883, William Clark Russell, "Going Aloft" in Round The Galley Fire, a collection of sketches and tales that originally featured in The Daily Telegraph newspaper Practical seamanship, in the old sense, is bound to die out, because there is no need to preserve it. It was only the other day that an old skipper assured me that he was acquainted with the mate of a steamer who did not know what a harness-cask was, "and worst of all, sir," cried my friend, "he's not ashamed of his ignorance."

   Synonyms: harness tub