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diff --git a/old/67446-0.txt b/old/67446-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5a909b4..0000000 --- a/old/67446-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11358 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Modern Whaling & Bear-Hunting, by W. -G. Burn Murdoch - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Modern Whaling & Bear-Hunting - A record of present-day whaling with up-to-date appliances in - many parts of the world, and of bear and seal hunting in the - arctic regions - -Author: W. G. Burn Murdoch - -Release Date: February 19, 2022 [eBook #67446] - -Language: English - -Produced by: deaurider and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN WHALING & -BEAR-HUNTING *** - - -[Illustration: LANCING A WHALE. - -An eighteen-foot spear is the lance—half iron half wood. The pram is -swung out; and Jensen is handed the lance. We reach the whale and Jensen -makes a lunge, and the spear goes in five feet and is twisted out of his -hand; the vast body rolls over, the tail rises up and up and comes down -in a sea of foam.] - - - - - MODERN WHALING - & - BEAR-HUNTING - - A RECORD OF PRESENT-DAY WHALING WITH - UP-TO-DATE APPLIANCES IN MANY PARTS - OF THE WORLD, AND OF BEAR - AND SEAL HUNTING IN THE - ARCTIC REGIONS - - BY - W. G. BURN MURDOCH, F.R.S.G.S. - AUTHOR OF - “FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC” - “AN ILLUSTRATED PROCESSION OF SCOTTISH HISTORY” - “FROM EDINBURGH TO INDIA AND BURMAH” - _&c. &c. &c._ - - With 110 Illustrations - chiefly from Drawings & Photographs - by the Author - - LONDON - SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LIMITED - 38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET - 1917 - - - - -PUBLISHERS’ NOTE - - -The readers of this book will be interested to learn that the expedition -from Dundee which set out for the Antarctic regions in 1892 to the -Weddell Sea, south and east of Graham’s Land, and in which the author -of the present volume took part, was the first of its kind since the -famous expedition commanded by Sir James Ross in 1842. Dr W. S. Bruce, -the distinguished polar traveller and oceanographer, was the scientific -naturalist, and Mr Burn Murdoch, the author of this volume, was the -artist and historian of the expedition, which is described by his pen in -“From Edinburgh to the Antarctic.” It consisted of three whaling vessels -specially built of great strength to withstand ice pressure, barque -rigged and fitted with auxiliary steam power. They were accompanied by -a Norwegian barque of similar type. The chief object of the expedition -was the capture of the Right or Bowhead whale by old methods, from small -boats. For three months these vessels were continuously amongst the thick -pack ice and enormous bergs on the east side of Graham’s Land. - -The publication of the above-mentioned book, and lectures by Dr Bruce -and Mr Burn Murdoch, revived both at home and abroad interest in the -Antarctic regions, and in 1897 the Belgica expedition followed in their -wake, and this again was followed by expeditions of various European -nations. - -During the expedition of 1892-1893 vast numbers of the largest-sized -finner whales were observed in the neighbourhood of Erebus and Terror -Gulf, and between South Georgia and the South Shetland Islands. The -report brought home of these whales being in such numbers led to the -development of the present great whaling industry in the Southern Seas. -Companies were formed and modern steam whalers were sent South to hunt -these powerful rorquals or finner whales. The extent of this industry and -the methods of modern whaling are described in the first part of this -volume. - -In the second part, which is concerned principally with bear-hunting in -the Arctic regions, some description is also given of the old style of -harpooning narwhals from small boats. - - * * * * * - -The publication of this volume has been held over owing to the war. -Part of the text was printed off, and it contains references to events, -current at the time, which, without this explanation, might puzzle the -reader. The prices of the products of the whaling industry are for the -same reason more up to date in the Appendix than in the text. - - - - -LIST OF CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - CHAPTER I - - Planning a Modern Whaler—Towing a Whale—Our Whaler, the - Haldane, in Shelter—Balta Sound, Shetland—We plan a Company—Our - New Whaler, the St Ebba, in Tonsberg 17 - - CHAPTER II - - Norway to Tonsberg—Comparison between the Old Viking Ships - and our Modern Vessel—Similarity of Lines—Modern Methods - of Whaling—“Modern Whales” compared with Old Style—Whales, - Sperm—Right Whales—Finners—Tackling a Finner with Old Style - of Gear—Whaling Stations—Utilisation of Whole Carcass—Whale - Products—Modern Whaling in Southern Hemisphere—Stations round - the World—Decrease and Increase in Numbers of Whales—Natural - Close Season—Increase of Biscayan Whale 21 - - CHAPTER III - - In Southern Norway—Building our Whaler—Cutting Lance - Shafts—Tanks—Whale Lines—Outfit for Prolonged Cruise—Rigging - and Arrangements of Hull—Our Harpoon Guns—The Henriksens - of Tonsberg—Svend Foyn inventor—The Henriksen Works—Early - Experiments with Modern Harpoon—Tonsberg Yacht Club—Tonsberg - Whaling Captains—Successors of Svend Foyn—Development of - Modern Whaling in South Atlantic—Weary Waiting—Trial Run - of Engine—Provisioning—At the Rope Factory—Spinning our - Whale Lines—Norwegian Hospitality—The St Ebba’s First - Journey—Studying Charts—The Winch 27 - - CHAPTER IV - - Clear St Ebba from Quay Side—Anchor in Sheltered Fiord—Getting - our Fishing Gear, Guns, etc., in order—Adjusting Compass—Final - Provisioning—Ammunition—The Islands in the South Atlantic we - hope to visit—A Fault in our Accounts—Harpoon Gun Drill 38 - - CHAPTER V - - Leave South Norway for the Shetlands—Anchors foul—At Sea at - Last—Down the Skagerak in Calm—Picking up Lights—Unpromising - Weather—Half a Gale—Digging into same Hole—Full Gale—St Ebba - a Dry Ship—Hove to—A Sick Crew—Our Cook—Engine will not - start—Drifting across North Sea to Yorkshire Coast—Recollection - of a Previous Whaling Voyage—All Hands to Air Pump 45 - - CHAPTER VI - - Drifting—Gale falling—Engines start—Set Sail—The Name St - Ebba—We put aside our Plans for Arctic Whaling—Fair Isle - Light—Sumburgh Light—Bressay and Lerwick—Quiet and Greyness of - Lerwick—Shetland Anæmic 53 - - CHAPTER VII - - The Waiting Part of Whaling—Before “grassing a Fish”—Waiting in - Japanese Seas—Poultry on a Whaler—Small Whale Yarn—Tied up in - Lerwick—“Customs” on Board—“Tearing Tartan”—Entangled in Red - Tape—Are we Pirates?—A Mass of Fish and Cormorants—Shetlands - held in Pawn—A Burly Type of Old Whaler—About the Old Dundee - Whaling Captains—The Registrar braves a Storm—Herring Catchers - _versus_ Whalers—British Restrictions on Whaling Industry 57 - - CHAPTER VIII - - Visit to R. C. Haldane at Lochend—Return to St Ebba—Captain - Henriksen entertains the Board of Trade Inspector—Registers - our Tonnage at Sixty-nine Tons—A Sunday Saturnalia of - Shag Shooting—How to cook Shag (Cormorants)—The Quiet of - Lochend—Haldane’s White House, Peat Fire and Illuminated - Missals—Stories—Our Shetland Whaling Station 64 - - CHAPTER IX - - Extracts from Whaling Log and Sketch-Book—In Shetland—Sea-Trout - in the Voe—The Whaler Haldane calls for the Writer—The - Forty-Mile Limit—Seals and Birds—The Modern Whale - Gun—Difficulty of shooting it—Various Whales—Their - Names—Idyllic Sea—A Bad Day for Whaling—Hunting—Freedom of the - Sea—Try to blow up Mackerel—Sabbath Calm—No Whales—Fascination - of watching for a Blow—Hark back to Shetland—New Departure—A - Bag of Wind—Across the Limit again—Fine Weather—Æsthetics on a - Whaler—A Blast, Whales at last!—A Rough Chase—A Bull’s Eye at - Forty Yards—Lost! 68 - - CHAPTER X - - Better Luck—Spectacular Effect—Whales and Rainbow—On - Chase—The Sea teems with Life—Our Chance comes—Heart-stopping - Excitement—A Close Shave—In Tow—Seventy Tons in the Basket—Ten - Whales in a Day—Vexatious Government Restriction—Uses of Whale - Meat, Oil, and some Values in £ s. d. 80 - - CHAPTER XI - - Whaling has its seamy Side—A Whale Hunt—Colours of the Sea - and Whales—In Tow—Whale is killed—Another Whale—“Thrilling - Dangers” of Whaling and Exceptional Behaviour of Whales—Dangers - of Whaling—Whale Steak—Whale Guano as Fertiliser—Lancing a - Whale—Exquisite Colour of Whales—Pedigree of Whales—Rolling - Home, Two Whales in Tow 85 - - CHAPTER XII - - Back to the St Ebba on West of Shetland—Fine Weather—No - Competition—All Hands busy but no Whales—Our Last Night in - Port—Out to the West—The Ramna Stacks as Targets for H.M.S.—A - Sailing Ship once more 97 - - CHAPTER XIII - - A Fine Weather Chantey “California”—Back to Lochend—Cormorant - Hash—Up Anchor and leave the Shetlands—Cape - Wrath—Lewis—Dunvegan—Picking up Lights—South to Tobermory—Our - West Coast on a Dark Night—Ardnamurchan and Coll—Morar, - the Most Beautiful Country in the World—Drimnin next, Glen - Morven—Tobermory—Relatives and the Lady of Aros Castle 102 - - CHAPTER XIV - - The British Fleet at Oban—A Union Jack made in Norway—St George - _versus_ Imperial Idea—Violation of British Constitution—John - Knox a Sunday Golfer—Wives at Sea—A Yarn—A Spy in Tobermory—The - Tobermory Policeman 110 - - CHAPTER XV - - Harvest Moon—Across the Irish Sea—Belfast—Origin of our Name - Scotland—Erin go Bragh—What brought us to Ulster Day and the - Covenant—The Crew’s Adventures—Greenhorns in Ballymacarack - Street—Down Channel for the Azores—Spun Yarn—Deep-sea - Swell—Inspection of Rifles 115 - - CHAPTER XVI - - N.E. Gale—“Oot o’ this intil a waur”—Into Deep Soundings—It - Blows Hard—Black Night and Phosphorescent Wake—Oil on the - Waters—Driving through—A Scrap of Sail—Attempt at Dolphin - Spearing—A Whale in Phosphorescent Sea—An Idyllic Sunday—A - Shoppie or Sale of Clothes from the Slop Chest—Æsthetic - Music—Grieg on a Melodeon—M’Crimmon on Practice Chanter—Men who - have dreamed—A Demonstration on flensing a Whale—Dolphin Steak - and Onions—The Islands of the World 122 - - CHAPTER XVII - - A New Land (to us)—St Michael of the Azores—Bens and - Glens—Colour of the Island—Portuguese Pilot—Talk by Signs—About - Sperm Whales—Ponta Delgada—Its Remarkable Beauty—Arcades—Colour - Reflections—The Inner Harbour—Sea Fishing—Bonita—A Trammel - Net—Hunting for Whales round the Island—Distress Signals—The - Wreck 130 - - CHAPTER XVIII - - Notes about the Island—Compared with Madeira—Its - Sights—The Streets of Delgada—A Café—Vino Tinto—Guitar - Melody—Costumes—Chase Small Whales—Whales’ Ocean Routes—“The - Ladies’ Gulf” 139 - - CHAPTER XIX - - A Sudden Gale—Driving on to a Lee Shore—Bad Night—Engine - Trouble—Killers attacking Whale—Recollections of the - Antarctic—Oddments—An Eight-Foot Ray or Skate—A Jaunt on - Shore—The Writer’s Excursion to “The Seven Cities”—Up the - Hills—Wind up Affairs in Delgada—Up Anchor 146 - - CHAPTER XX - - Leave the Azores and San Miguel—Madeira in Prospect and - Tunny Fishing—Whales at Last!—Sperm—A Chase—Prospects of - Success—Long Chase—Fast!—A Straight Shot—A Bull Sperm—Cutting - up a Sperm Whale’s Anatomy—Sharks—Creeling a Shark - Single-handed—Spermaceti Oil—Blubber like Marble—Cooking - Process—£. s. d. on the Horizon—Sharks and Pilot Fish—General - Satisfaction—Whaling off Madeira 154 - - CHAPTER XXI - - Madeira at Dawn from the Sea—Description—Funchal Flowers—Tunny - Fishing—Early Morning Start—Splendid Colours of Native Boats - and Crews—Small Fry for Bait—A Large Tunny caught by next - Boat—Our Tunny and Pulley-haul Fight—Sailing Back 165 - - CHAPTER XXII - - We leave the North Atlantic—Engine Troubles—Slow Voyage to Cape - Town—New Engineer puts Diesel Engine right—Up the East Coast of - Africa—The Seychelles Islands—Many Whales—We decide to make a - Land Station—Apply to Government for Licence 176 - - CHAPTER XXIII - - Going to the Arctic—Objects in View—Our Little Company in - the Fonix—Rough Weather—The First Ice—Draw for Watches—A - Party lost in the Ice and a possible Cure for Scurvy—A - Lunatic in the Ice—The Coming Spanish Arctic Expedition—Clay - Pigeons—Fencing—We aim at Shannon Island—North-East - Greenland—Ice Floes and Mist 179 - - CHAPTER XXIV - - Arctic Ice compared to Antarctic Ice—Colours of the Floes—First - Blood—Habits of Arctic Seals compared with those of the - Antarctic—Stopped in the Floes—Cobalt Ice Water—White Bears’ - “Protective Colouring”?—Watching a Bear Hunt—Flea of _Ursus - Maritimus_—Scoresby on the Danger of Bear-hunting 187 - - CHAPTER XXV - - Six Bears in the Twenty-four Hours—A Bear’s Meal—C. A. - Hamilton’s Veteran Bear—The Writer and a Bear stalk each - other—Tips for Animal Painters—Sensation facing a Bear at Three - in the Morning—Bear Flesh as Food—The colour of the Polar - Regions—Method of pulling a live Bear on Board—A Bear eating a - Seal 196 - - CHAPTER XXVI - - Waiting for Whales—Narwhals at last!—Our She-Cook—An Arctic - Sanatorium—A Shark—Arctic Seals and Seals of the Antarctic—Our - Bear’s Food—_L’éscrime_—Rifle, Pistol, Lasso—Lasso our - Starboard Bear—Morning Watch in the Ice—Ivory Gulls, Fulmars, - Skuas—Small Life—More Bears—A Bear Stalk before Breakfast—Fears - about reaching Greenland—Bears on Board—Cachés in Franz Joseph - Land—Bear Stories—“The Ends of our Garden” 204 - - CHAPTER XXVII - - A Walk on the Floe—Bear takes a Football—Lasso Practice—A Piece - of Driftwood—The Bagpipes—Pushing West—A Cold Bath—Chasing a - Bear and Cubs—Lost in Mist—Clever Mother Bear—Bear-hunting, a - Man killed—Expectations of Walrus 219 - - CHAPTER XXVIII - - A Narwhal and a Bear in the Bag—Missing Whales—Old Style - of Whale Gun—Svend Foyn’s Cure for Toothache—Is Whaling an - “Industry” or a “Speculation”?—Whales “Tail up”—Excitement - of Whaling—Svend Foyn overboard—Floe Rats—Bears struggle - for Freedom—Size and Strength of Bears—The Silence of the - Arctic—Seals—Painting Ice Effects—Our Gifted Steward and our - Vivandière on the Ice—A Bear on the Floe Edge 231 - - CHAPTER XXIX - - Arctic and Antarctic Floes compared—The Writer, the Bear and - our “She-Cook”—Bear bids for Freedom—Rope-throwing—An Artist’s - Points in a Little Seal Stalk—Man and his Works in Arctic and - Antarctic—Whales’ Food 240 - - CHAPTER XXX - - On Sitting up late—Harp Seals—Young Bears and Seniors—A Family - Party—An Ice Grotto—A Hot Grog and Another Bear—A Tight Place 248 - - CHAPTER XXXI - - All Hands to secure the Bears—Two Bear Cubs captured—Invidious - Comparisons between the Starboard and Port Bear—Another - Bear for the Larder—Greenland’s Icy Mountains—A Blue - Seal—“Starboard” makes more Trouble—A Spanish Yarn—Why the Harp - Seal blows its Nose 256 - - CHAPTER XXXII - - Sports on the Floe—Notes on Protective Coloration 263 - - CHAPTER XXXIII - - Bear Cubs, “Christabel” and “William the Silent”—Bottle-nose - Whales—Bear _versus_ Bull—The Dons back the Bull!—Getting out - of the Pack to Open Water—Meet Spitzbergen Ice 276 - - CHAPTER XXXIV - - We get out of the Ice—Open Sea again—Spanish Airs—Killers—A - Whaler’s Esperanto—Killers attacking a Rorqual—A Gleam of - Sun—Then Rough Weather—Then Shelter in a Fiord—Beards off and - Shore Togs—Our Engineer’s Children and the Bagpipes 281 - - CHAPTER XXXV - - Trömso again—Down the Coast—Selling our Bears—Bears - Escape—Eat the Fish in Market-place—We put our Bears into - New Cages—Notes amongst the Norwegian Islands—Recollections - of Hunting—Fishing—Music—A Viking Air—Talk in the - Smoking-room—Drawings of Whale’s Structure 287 - - CHAPTER XXXVI - - Killers—Stomach of Whales—Grampuses and Whales—William and the - Mandolin—The “Prophet”—Hard Waves—Back to Trömso 291 - - CHAPTER XXXVII - - Teetotal Travellers—Fate of the Bears—Bears at - large—Trondhjem—Folk Songs 300 - - CHAPTER XXXVIII - - Whalebone—Whales’ Food—Head of Sperm Whale—Value of Whale Oil 308 - - APPENDIX 312 - - INDEX 317 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - Lancing a Whale _Frontispiece_ - - PAGE - - Piping in the Arctic 24 - - Modern Whale Gun and Harpoon 24 - - Stern View of the St Ebba 40 - - The St Ebba in the Fiord of the Vikings 40 - - Dead Seal on the Floe Edge 48 - - Mouth of a Finner Whale 72 - - Leaving our Two Whales at the Station 76 - - A Finner Whale being cut up 76 - - Towing a Whale 80 - - Two Whales being hauled on a Slip 88 - - Flensing Blubber off a Polar Bear’s Skin 102 - - Whale Under Side up 102 - - The St Ebba Motor Whaler in Oban 112 - - The Arcades at Ponta Delgada 136 - - Tunny on the Beach at Madeira 136 - - Killers attacking a Finner Whale 152 - - Cutting up a Cachalot Whale 156 - - Sperm Whale sounding 156 - - Trying to get rid of the Lasso 157 - - Cutting up Sperm Blubber 158 - - Hauling Sperm Whale’s Flipper and Blubber on Board 160 - - A Sleeping Bear and Cubs 168 - - A Dead Bear 184 - - Reloading a Gun with a Harpoon 192 - - Towing a big Bear’s Skin 192 - - The Last Cartridge 200 - - Arctic Shark 208 - - A Modern Steam Whaler 208 - - Fulmar Petrels 216 - - Starboard being hauled on Board 216 - - A Polar Bear 224 - - The End of the Trail 232 - - Towing Two Bear Cubs 264 - - The Captain’s Polar Bear Cub 264 - - Bears in the Water 272 - - Our Last Glimpse of the Ice 288 - - Our Engineer’s Daughter 296 - - Photo of Starboard 304 - - Species of Whales 310 - - - - -[Illustration: ST. EBBA] - - - - -MODERN WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -It blows, it blows, at Balta Sound, a cold, strong wind, and yet we are -in June. I think it always blows at this northern end of Shetland, but we -on our little steam-whaler, the Haldane, are sheltered from the sea by -the low green shore and the low peaty hills half shrouded in mist. - -One after another herring steam-drifters come up the loch and collect -round the hulk of a retired sailing-ship to sell their catch on board it -by auction. The hull of the wooden ship is emerald-green and the small -sombre-coloured steamers crowd around it. On their black funnels each -shows its registered number in white between belts of vivid scarlet, blue -or yellow. - -Our Haldane lies at anchor somewhat aloof from these herring-boats, as -becomes our dignity and position, for we are whalers!—in from deep-sea -soundings—hunters of the mighty leviathan of the deep, the Balænoptera -Sibbaldii, the Balænoptera Borealis, the Balænoptera musculus: commonly -called Blue, all of which we call Finners, the largest mammals living or -extinct. We are smaller than the herring-drifters. They are a hundred -to a hundred and twenty feet long and we are only ninety-five, still we -consider ourselves superior: are we not distinguished by a crow’s nest -at our short foremast, and all the lines of our hull are classic—bow and -stern somewhat after the style of the old Viking ships—meant for rapid -evolutions, not merely for carrying capacity? - -Our colour is light greenish khaki, and if red lead paint and rust show -all over our sides, it is an honourable display of wounds from fights -with sea and whales—better than herring scales! - -We enjoy the enforced rest: all last night we towed a big whale -alongside—seventy tons’ weight in a rising gale! The bumps and thumps and -jerks and aroma were very tiresome. - -We towed it ninety miles from the outer ocean to our station at Colla -Firth, on Mr R. C. Haldane’s property of Lochend, in the early morning -(it is light all night here), and left it floating at the buoy, went -alongside the trestle pier, helped ourselves to more coal, and slipped -away again before the station hands had time to rub their eyes or show a -foot. - -We came up through the islands, ran to the north of Shetland, passed -Flugga Light, then turned tail like any common fishing-boat and ran back -before a rising gale to this Balta Sound on the east for shelter. - -Our little Haldane doesn’t care a straw for heavy weather, but we -on board her can’t harpoon well or manage a whale in heavy seas, so -“weathering it out” only means waste of coal. - -Therefore we spend the morning in shelter, tramping our very narrow -bridge (three steps and a spit, as the sailors say), and we talk and -sometimes go into our tiny chart-room and draw; and Henriksen plays Grieg -on the melodeon! Henriksen is a whaler by profession, an artist under the -skin; and the writer is an artist by profession and harpooneer on this -journey from choice and after long waiting. - -As we draw and chat we notice with admiration Swedish line-boats like the -Norwegian pilot-boat in type, sailing-boats with auxiliary motors, coming -up the loch with their sails down, pit-put-a-put, dead in the wind’s -eyes! We know they have been cod and ling fishing in the North Atlantic -for several months, and are now full of fish packed in ice. - -“Ah,” sighs Henriksen, “if I had a boat half the size of this Haldane, -with a motor and crude oil like them, I’d make a good thing of whaling -round the world,” and the artist agrees, for both have seen many whales -in far-away seas. Henriksen knows the Japanese seas where there are Right -whales—Australis with bone, and Sperm, or Cachalot, with spermaceti; and -the writer has seen sperm in other warm seas in numbers, and big Finners -or Rorquals in the Antarctic seas by the thousand. So we blow big smokes -in the chart-room and draw plans in the sketch-book of a new type of -whaler. And she will be a beauty! - -The Haldane we are on is second to none of the modern kind of -steam-whaler, and we have killed many whales with her up to seventy or -eighty tons in weight. But she requires to be frequently fed with coal, -and has to tow her catch ashore, possibly one or two whales, or even -three at a time, for thirty, forty or even ninety miles to leave them to -be cut up at the station. - -We plan a vessel that shall be able to keep the sea for a long time -without calling for fuel like these Swedish motor-boats, and that will -hunt whales and seals round the world, and carry the oil and bone of its -catch on board. - -Can there be any drawing more fascinating than the designing of a new -type of vessel for whaling round the world, for warm seas where the grass -and barnacles will grow on her keel, and for high latitudes where cold -seas and perhaps ice will polish her plates all clean again? - -So after some more whaling and planning, round the Shetlands in fine -weather and storm, the writer goes south with rough plans, and in a -few days two good men and true have agreed to be directors of a little -whaling company; and, the whaling season over, Henriksen goes home to -Norway, and with a shipbuilder they draw out our plan in detail, for -a new patent Diesel motor-whaler for hunting all kinds of whales and -whaling-grounds round the world, a combination of the old style and new, -with sails and motor to sail round the world if need be with never a call -at any port for food or fuel. - -All winter Henriksen the whaler and another Henriksen a shipbuilder -toiled at the planning and building of the St Ebba, Henriksen driving -every day from his farm five miles into Tonsberg with his sleigh behind -slow Swartzen; and the writer pursued his calling in Edinburgh, receiving -occasionally fascinating drawings or detail plans of the whaler in white -line on blue paper, and then he joined Henriksen in summer in South -Norway and both together they drove out and in to Tonsberg, behind slow -Swartzen, day after day for weeks, till weeks ran into months, and it -seemed as if our ship would never be done. - -A coal strike in Britain was the first cause of delay, our Colville -plates were kept back by that. Still, we had her launched in little more -than a twelvemonth from the time we first planned her, which we thought -after all was not half bad. - -We called her the St Ebba—why, it is hard to say. - -It would take volumes to describe the trouble there is in preparing a -boat for such a purpose, especially a new type such as ours. Further on -in this book the reader will be able to understand from the drawings and -descriptions the different styles of whalers of the past and present. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -In August I went to Tonsberg, the capital of the old Viking days, and -over the wooden housetops saw the two bare pole masts of our ship and a -little later saw her entire hull! How infinitely satisfactory, to see -our dream of a year ago in Balta Sound realised in hard iron and pine on -the slip. She is one hundred and ten feet over all, with twenty-two-foot -beam—just a few feet longer than the Viking ship of the Norwegian princes -that was found a year or two ago buried within a mile and a half of where -our vessel is being built. Tonsberg was the Viking centre, now it is the -centre of the modern whaling industry of the world. - -Years ago we thought of whaling as connected with the hunting of whales -in the Arctic regions, or of cachalot or sperm whaling in sub-tropical -seas, carried on by sailing-vessels which had several small boats and -large crews: in the eighteenth century 35,000 men and 700 vessels hunted -the Greenland Right whale. - -This modern whaling, however, that I write about just now is a new kind -of whaling of only forty-eight years’ growth. It has grown up as the old -styles went more or less out of practice. - -Two or three New Bedford sailing-ships still prosecute the old style of -sperm whaling south of the line, but the Greenland Right whale hunting -has been almost entirely given up within the last two years. The Dundee -whalers gave it up in 1912, because this new whaling brought down the -price of whale oil, and because the Right whale or whalebone whale, -Balæna Mysticetus, had become scarce and so wary that it could not be -killed in sufficient numbers to pay expenses. - -This Balæna or whalebone whale has no fin on its back. - -A large Right whale, or Bowhead, as it is sometimes called, has nearly -a ton of whalebone in its mouth, which a few years ago was worth about -£1500 per ton; previously it was worth as much as £3000 per ton, so -one good whale paid a trip. It was pursued from barques like the one -below—sailing-ships with auxiliary steam and screw, fifty men of a crew, -and small boats, each manned with five men, with a harpoon gun in its -bows, or merely a hand harpoon. When the harpoon was fired and fixed into -the whale, it generally dived straight down, and when exhausted from want -of air, came up and was dispatched with lances or bombs from shoulder -guns; they measured from forty to fifty-five feet. - -On another page is a small picture of the sperm or cachalot, valuable for -its spermaceti oil, and for ambergris, a product found once in hundreds -of whales caught. It is a toothed whale and carries no whalebone. - -[Illustration] - -But during the centuries these Right whales and sperm were being -killed there were other larger and much more powerful whales, easily -distinguished from the “Right whales” by the fin on their backs. These -were to be found in all the oceans and were unattacked by men. They have -only a little whalebone in their mouths and were much too powerful to be -killed by the old methods. - -Once or twice the old whalers by accident harpooned one of these “modern -whales” or finners, and the tale of their adventure, as told by one of -Mr Bullen’s Yankee harpooneers, bears out exactly what we ourselves -experienced down in the Antarctic, off Graham’s Land, in 1892-1893, when -one of our men tried to do the same. We had been for months hopelessly -looking for Right whale and only saw these big finners in great numbers -close alongside of our boats, so one of our harpooneers in desperation -fastened to one. - -In his book, “The Cruise of the Cachalot,” Mr Bullen describes sighting -a finner whilst they were hunting the more pacific sperm or cachalot. -Bullen asks his mentor, a coloured harpooneer, why he doesn’t harpoon -it, when Goliath the harpooneer turns to him with a pitying look, as he -replies: - -“Sonny, ef yeu wuz to go and stick iron into dat ar fish yew’d fink de -hole bottom fell eout kerblunk. Wen I wiz young’n foolish, a finback -ranged ’longside me one day off de Seychelles. I just gone miss’a spam -whale, and I was kiender mad—muss ha’ bin. Wall, I let him hab it blam -’tween de ribs. If I lib ten tousan year, ain’t gwine ter fergit dat ar -wan’t no time ter spit, tell ye; eberybody hang ober de side ob de boat. -Wuz-poof! de line all gone, Clar to glory, I neber see it go. Ef it hab -ketch anywhar, nobody ever see us too. Fus, I fought I jump ober de -side—neber face de skipper any mo’.” - -I have described our similar experience elsewhere—Weddel sea in the -Antarctic—with the old-style whaling tackle and a hundred to one hundred -and ten foot blue whale or finner. It took out three miles of lines from -our small boats—the lines were got hold of from board ship, and the whale -towed the procession for thirty hours under and over ice, on to rocks; -then the harpoons drew, and it went off “with half Jock Todd’s smithy -shop in its tail”—our sailor’s parlance for its going off with most of -our shoulder gun explosive bombs in its lower lumbar regions. These big -fellows were so numerous in the ice off Graham’s Land that we sometimes -thought it advisable to keep them off our small boats with rifle bullets. - -Now we can kill these big fellows. Captain Svend Foyn, a Norwegian, -mastered them by developing a new harpoon. Svend Foyn and the engineer -Verkseier H. Henriksen in Tonsberg worked it out together. A big harpoon -fired from a cannon, a heavy cable and a small steamer combined made the -finner whales man’s prey. Captain Foyn had made a considerable fortune -at Arctic seal-hunting, and thereafter spent five years of hard and -unsuccessful labour before he perfected his new method in 1868. Eighteen -years later there were thirty-four of such steamers engaged in the -industry in the North Atlantic, to-day there are sixty-four hunting from -the Falkland Islands and other dependencies. In the neighbourhood of Cape -Horn last year their gross return amounted to £1,350,000. - -These Balænoptera, averaging fifty to ninety feet, are fast swimmers and -when harpooned go off at a great speed and require an immense harpoon to -hold them, and when dead they sink, and their weight is sufficient to -haul a string of small boats under the sea. To bring them to the surface -a very powerful hawser is attached to the harpoon, and is wound up by a -powerful steam winch on the ninety-foot steamer, which can be readily -towed by the whale, but which is also sufficiently buoyant to pull it to -the surface when it is dead and has sunk. - -In order that a whale may not break this five-inch hawser (or five and a -half inches in circumference) the little vessel or steamer must be fairly -light and handy, so as to be easily swung round. If the steamer were -heavy and slow, the hawser, however thick, would snap, as it sometimes -does even with the small vessel when the whale puts on a sudden strain. - -In the old style the Greenland whale which floated when it was dead was -pulled alongside the sailing-vessel, when the whalebone was cut out of -its mouth and stowed on board, as was also the fat or blubber, and the -carcass was left to go adrift. The sperm also floats when dead. - -But the “modern whales,” as I call them, when killed are towed ashore -and pulled upon a slip at a station or alongside a great magazine ship -anchored in some sheltered bay and are there cut up, whilst the little -steam-whaleboat killer goes off in search of other whales. All parts of -the body, at a fully equipped shore station, even the blood, of these -finners are utilised, the big bones and flesh being ground up into guano -for the fertilisation of crops of all kinds, and the oil and small amount -of whalebone are used for many purposes. The oil is used for lubrication, -soap, and by a new “hardening process” is made as firm as wax and is used -for cooking, etc. Some of the whalebone fibre is used for stiffening silk -in France, but of these uses of the products we may only give the above -indication, for every year or two some new use is being found for whale -products. - -[Illustration: PIPING IN THE ARCTIC] - -[Illustration: MODERN WHALE GUN AND HARPOON - -Ready for firing.] - -Though so large, these whales are not nearly so valuable as the Greenland -whale; still their numbers make up for their comparatively small value.[1] - -In the last five or six years these finner whales, formerly unattacked by -man, have been hunted all round the world. In 1911 there were one hundred -and twenty modern steam-whalers working north of the Equator, and in the -Southern Hemisphere there were eighty-six. The total value of the catch -for the year was estimated at two and three quarter million sterling. - -These whales are rapidly becoming more shy and wary, still the catches -increase and the value of oil goes up. The more unsophisticated whales in -unfished oceans will have soon to be hunted. There is not the least fear -of whales ever being exterminated, for long before that could happen, -owing to reduced numbers and their increased shyness, hunting them will -not pay the great cost incurred. So there will some day be a world-wide -close season—just as has happened in the case of the Greenland whale, -which is now enjoying a close season and is increasing in numbers in the -Arctic seas. - -[Illustration: NORD CAPPER - -BALÆNA AUSTRALIS] - -Captain T. Robertson of the Scotia in 1911, though he came home with a -“clean ship,” saw over forty of the Mysticeti east of Greenland, but -could not get near them, for they kept warily far in amongst the ice -floes. - -The sperm whale is also recovering in numbers. I have seen them in great -numbers only last year in warm southern waters, where twenty years ago -they had become very scarce. - -We must mention here another whale that was actually supposed to be -extinct. This is the Biscayensis, commonly called a Nordcapper; it is a -small edition of the Greenland Right whale and is practically identical -with the Australis of the Southern Seas. - -This is the first whale we read of being hunted; in the Bay of Biscay and -along the west of Europe it was supposed to have become extinct, but of -recent years we have found them in considerable numbers round the coasts -of Shetland and Ireland; a few years ago there were, I think, eighty of -them captured in the season. - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -It does not surprise me that the Vikings of the olden days used to leave -the southern coast of Norway for summer visits to our Highlands and -western isles, for the climate in this Southern Norway in August is most -relaxing; there is absolutely nothing of that feeling of “atmospheric -champagne” that you expect to enjoy in Northern Norway in summer. - -We drive into Tonsberg from Henriksen’s farm every morning, and after -spending the day in the shipyard, come out again in the evening with our -ears deafened with the rattle of steam-hammers on iron bolts, rivets and -plates. And at night in the quiet of the country we pore over Admiralty -charts of the world, especially those of islands down in the South -Atlantic, about which we have special knowledge, where we hope our new -whaler will pick up cargoes of whales and of seals. - -Our first Sunday off work, 4th August, came as quite a relief, the -quiet of the country was so welcome. We wandered through the fields of -Henriksen’s farm with his wife and their jolly children, and Rex, the -liver-and-white collie, smuggled into Norway from Shetland, then through -woods and heather till we came by an ancient road to the summit of a -little hill and the remains of a Viking watch-tower, where we lay amongst -blaeberries and heather and enjoyed the wide view of sea and islands at -the entrance to Christiania Fiord, a pretty place to dream in and plan -raids to the Southern Seas. As we rambled homewards through the pine wood -that belongs to the farm we selected fir-trees to be cut down later for -boat masts, lance shafts and flensing blades. - -By the end of August we realise that our small ship is rapidly -approaching completion. What a little while ago was only unkindly iron -ribs and plates, with the added woodwork of the deck and masts, has now -become a little more personal, and more homelike. We have had our engine -hoisted from the slipside by a great crane and slowly and tenderly sunk -into the engine-room, a very modern six-cylinder Diesel motor made in -Stockholm. The fo’c’sle is well aired and lighted, and is fitted up with -comfortable bunks and mattresses on wire stretchers. Each man has a long -chest beside his bed, for we believe in making the men as comfortable as -the after-guard. - -The binnacle is now on the bridge, in front of the wheel; its bright new -brass looks resplendent; and two hermetically closed boilers we have -fixed on deck on either side under the bridge for boiling down whale -blubber at sea. - -Our hull forward of the engine-room is made up of iron tanks, and in -these we hold crude oil for the engine. They will be filled, we hope, by -whale oil and whalebone as we use up the crude oil for the engine’s fuel. - -Above the most forward tanks is the hold, where we shall stow our whale -lines—light lines for sperm or cachalot, or the small Right whale, -Australis, of the Southern Seas, and our heavy lines for the great -fighting finners will be in two bins to port and starboard. Forward of -the hold there is the fo’c’sle and men’s quarters, with more space under -their floor in the peak for more spare lines and sailcloth, and many -other necessaries for a prolonged whaling cruise. - -We have a small cabin aft, below deck, with four little cabins off it—to -starboard, the captain’s; the writer’s temporary berth is to port, to -be used later for any extra officer or pilot or for stores; the first -mate’s and first engineer’s cabin are a little aft on either side of the -companionway. - -The iron galley with its small cooking-stove is forward, on deck, and -attached to it we have a mess-room, into which four or even five of us -can squeeze at one time for meals. - -Aft of this mess-room and the foremast we have a very important part of -our gear, a powerful winch driven by a donkey steam-engine. This is our -reel, to wind up or let out our line, the five-inch cable when we play a -finner. The line passes five or six times round two grooved barrels of -the winch, and with it we haul up to the surface the dead whale. But -more about this winch when we tackle a whale. - -The 9th of August was a great day for us, for we started our 200 h.p. -engines, and drove them at half-speed for an hour and never moved an -inch, for the very good reason that our bows were still against the -quayside. How quietly and simply they work. We then got our big traveller -fixed across our deck for the sheet of our foresail. We are schooner -rigged, foresail and mainsail both the same size, and count on doing -eight to ten knots with engine, and six or seven with a fine breeze and -sails alone. - -In the morning we look at our guns in the harpoon factory. The gun or -cannon for the bow weighs about two tons. It is already in position; the -bollard on which it pivots is part of the iron structure of the bows -and goes right down to our forefoot. Its harpoons weigh one and a half -hundredweight: we shall take twenty-five of these, and forty smaller -harpoons for sperm or cachalot or Right whale. On either side of the bows -there is a smaller gun pivoting on a bollard to fire these harpoons. -These two small guns and our twenty-five big harpoons and forty of the -smaller size we find arranged in order at the works—a charming sight to -us. Harold Henriksen, the builder of our ship, takes us to these works, -where his brother Ludwig and his father make the harpoons and guns that -are now sent all over the world. The father is very greatly respected -in Tonsberg; he is called the “Old Man Henriksen,” to distinguish him -from the younger member of his family. I have already mentioned him as -being co-partner with the famous Svend Foyn, the inventor of the new big -harpoon for finner whales. - -He has made many inventions for marine work on all kinds of ships, -for which he has received many medals, and only lately he received a -decoration from the hands of his king, which is shown in the portrait -given by him to the writer, a rare and highly appreciated gift. - -He is seventy-eight years old and sails his own cutter single-handed. -I wish there were space here to tell of his experiences whilst working -with Svend Foyn developing the big harpoon. He takes us round the works, -where forty years of fire and iron have made their mark; remains of -failures are there; of burnt building and scrapped metal, but, besides, -there are these fascinating stacks of modern harpoons and piles of their -shell points to be used for great hunting in all seas. - -The “Old Man” chuckles as we wander from forge to forge and out -amongst the geraniums in the yard as he tells me how the first harpoon -they tried went over the walls of the works and landed through the -umbrella of an old lady in the street, and stood upright between the -cobblestones. You may believe they practised out of town after that! -Though old—seventy-eight years to-day—he is enthusiastic about our new -plan of whaling. He has formed a yacht club; everyone yachts at Tonsberg. -It is on a small island of little plots of grass between boulders and -small fir-trees. We were invited there to-day for the celebration of his -birthday. There were ladies in pretty summer dresses in groups, cakes, -teas, fruit and pleasing drinks, coffee and cigars, and wasps by the -thousands. Norwegian ladies cultivate coolness, and merely brush these -away as they hand us cakes and wine; and they would be greatly offended -if a man were to attempt to hand tea cakes. For the carpet knight there -is no show. I wish he could be exterminated at home. Do the gods not -laugh when they see our menkind in frock coats or shooting kit handing -tea and cakes to females? - -These pretty groups of summer-clad figures amongst lichen-covered rocks -and rowans, fir-trees, oaks and honey-suckle were all reflected in the -still water. As the sun sank low and a mosquito or two began to sing, -fairy lamps were lit amongst the trees, and softly shone on groups of men -and women in light raiment in leafy bowers. The light from the yellow -and red lamps contrasted with the last blue of day. There was warm air -and moths, cards and smokes, and then came music, and a perfect ballroom -floor and blue eyes and light feet—a kindly welcome to the stranger in -Gamle Norge. - -In the dark before dawn, with lighted Japanese lanterns, ladies and -men threaded their way over the flat rocks to motor launches and bade -good-bye to the hosts. I shall not soon forget the long walk home across -our island, the low mist, the warm, dark night, and wringing wet fields. - -There is one place in Tonsberg of which I must make a note before I come -back to our shipbuilding. It is the Britannia. Anyone who wishes to -learn all there is to know about modern whaling must get an introduction -to that cosy, old-world club. It is a low-roofed wooden house, with -low-roofed rooms; one big room adjoins a kitchen, in which broad, kindly -Mrs Balkan, wife of my friend the engineer on the whaler Haldane, sits -behind a long counter and rules supreme. You leave the shipyard and drop -in there for _middag-mad_, or shelter if it rains. It seemed to rain -very often in August. The “old man” Henriksen’s portrait and one of the -great Svend Foyn are, of course, in evidence, and Svend Foyn’s whaling -successors come there for _middag-mad_ or _aften-mad_, and some of them -drink, I dare say, a silent skaal of gratitude to the memory of Svend -Foyn, who gave them the lead to success, to become small landholders, -each with his home, farm, and family. - -Burly fellows are his successors, the pick of Norse sailor captains. One -is just home from the South Shetlands. I saw these desolate, unhabitated, -snow-clad islands many years ago, and saw there finner whales, thousands -of them! and knew they must some day be hunted, but I did not calculate -to a penny that there would be over a million pounds sterling invested -in whaling stations there to-day; in one bay alone in Clarence Island, -and that round these islands in 1911, twenty-two whalers would bag 3500 -whales. So whaling here is an assured _industry_. In Britain the few who -hear about it call it a _speculation_. - -Another ruddy-faced, broad-shouldered, fair-haired captain comes from -South Georgia and tells me of my friend there, Sorrensen, the bigger of -two big brothers, both great harpooneers—they are both quite wealthy men -now. They whaled with us from our Shetland station a few years ago, and -between hunts we talked of a whaling station we were going to start in -South Georgia; two or three years at this station has set them up for -life. - -Most of the men who come into the Britannia have been over all the -world; half-a-life’s experience of any of them would fill a book. But -of them all I think I’d sooner have my friend Henriksen’s experiences. -Young as he is, he has perhaps had more experience in whaling than any -of them. He was whaling for the Japanese when they opened fire on the -Russian fleet. At least he had been—he stopped when the guns began to -fire, and took his little whaling steamer behind an island, and he and -another Norsk whaling skipper climbed to the top of it and viewed the -fight from shelter. I believe they were almost the only Europeans besides -the Russians who saw that spectacle. Henriksen has a red lacquered cup—a -present from the Mikado in recognition of his services for supplying food -in shape of whale to Yusako during the war. In time of peace there they -eat the whole whale, paying several dollars a kilo for best whale blubber -and as much or little less for the meat. - -We in the Shetlands turn the fat oil into lubricants, etc., and the meat -into guano for the fertilisation of crops. I suppose it comes to the same -thing in the end, if “all flesh is grass.” - -So the talk, as can be imagined, wanders far afield in the Britannia. I -heard a skipper asked by a layman what corners of the world he had been -in, and he paused to consider and replied: “Well, I’ve not been in the -White Sea.” From Arctic to Antarctic he’d sailed a keel in every salt sea -in the world bar the White Sea and the Caspian. The telephone interrupts -many a yarn; perhaps Jarman Jensen, our ship’s chandler, calls up someone -about provisioning a station, say for three years—food, etc., for one -hundred men for that time or longer; or perhaps there is a less important -order from Frau Pedersen ringing up her husband from their little farm, -telling him to call at the grocer on his way home, and he perhaps tells -her he thinks he may not get out in time for dinner, and “Oh, buy a house -in town, Olaus” is possibly the jesting answer—a great saying here in -Tonsberg, where men sometimes are said by their wives to dawdle away the -afternoon in the Britannia, when they are really deep in whaling finance, -planning whaling stations for islands known, or almost unknown down south -on the edge of the Antarctic, or on the coast of Africa or the Antipodes. - -Here is the 12th of August, day of Saint Grouse, and we should be -treading the heather at home, but we are still on the island of Nottero, -with rain every day; and every morning the same slow drive behind -Swartzen into Tonsberg, longing all the time for our ship to be ready for -sea. We hoped to have had it ready in June! - -We have, however, made almost our last payment, and have her insured. -What a lot it all costs! - -We tried to console ourselves to-day with the interest of our first -trial run of our engine as against loss of pleasant company and grouse -at home, also we have the pleasure of seeing the last of our whale lines -being made and we get our chronometer on board, stop watch, etc., and -spend hours in Jarman Jensen’s little back shop with three skippers -giving us advice, as we draw up lists of provisions for the St Ebba for a -twelvemonth. - -In the rope factory run by Count Isaacksen we watched the last of our -great whale lines being spun; three five-inch lines we have to port and -three to starboard, one hundred and twenty fathoms each—that is, we can -let a whale run out three times one hundred and twenty fathoms on our -port lines, three hundred and sixty or two thousand one hundred and sixty -feet. I have seen that length run straight out in a few seconds at the -rate of sixty miles per hour, with engine going eight knots astern and -brakes on, and then it snapped; for some big blue whales five of these -lines are attached to give greater weight and elasticity, because, you -see, there is no rod used in whale-fishing. - -The rope factory and Jarman Jensen’s store are two wonders of Tonsberg. -The store is a small front shop, generally pretty full of townspeople -making domestic purchases, butter, potatoes, coffee. Jensen, with perfect -calm and without haste, weighs out a pound of butter, wraps it in paper -and hands it with a bow to some customer, gives a direction to one or -two heated assistants, and comes back to us in the den behind the shop -and continues to tot up the provisioning for our ship for a year, or the -stores for some far bigger whaling concern running to thousands of pounds. - -So much business done in so small a space and with such complete absence -of fuss! Jensen in his leisure hours is antiquarian and poet. He -possesses a valuable library in Norse antiquities and will write a Saga -while you wait. He must have burned a good deal of midnight oil over the -splendid saga he wrote about our St Ebba which was rich with historical -reference to the amenities between Scots and the Norwegians in ancient -days. - -The slowest part of the outfitting for our whaler was, for me, the -customary expressions of hospitality. I hope my Norwegian friends will -understand and forgive my criticism. It is the result of my being merely -British, with only a limited knowledge of Norse and a comparatively -feeble appetite. A quiet little dinner given to us as a visitor and -representative of our Whaling Company would begin at three P.M. and wind -up at ten—eating most of the time—plus aquavit and the drink of my native -land, which seems to be almost as popular in Norway as it is in England. - -Think of it—five or six hours’ smiling at a stretch, pretending to -understand something of the funny stories in Norsk and joining in the -hearty laughter! I could have wept with weariness. They are to be envied, -these Norse, with their jolly heartiness, the way they can shake their -sides with laughter over a funny story. The world is still young for -them. I remember that our fathers laughed and told long stories like -these people. - -One chestnut I added as new to their repertoire. I believe it has -spread north as far as Trömso, about the man with a new motor who, when -asked about its horse-power, drawled in reply it was said to be twenty -horse-power, but he thought eighteen of the beggars were dead! And as to -speed, it had three—slow—damned slow—and stop! It seemed to translate -all right—_saghte_—_for-dumna-saghte_, and, _Stop!_ fetched the audience -every time. At least it did so when Henriksen told the story, but he is a -born raconteur, and infuses the yarn with so much of his own humour and -jollity that everyone, especially the womenfolk, who are very attentive -to him, laugh till they weep. - -A perfect wonder to me is the way in which women here can prepare meals -and entertain a lot of people single-handed, or with, say, the help -of one maid, at a couple of hours’ notice; have a spise-brod ready—a -table covered with hors-d’œuvres at which you can ruin the best appetite -with all sorts of tasty sandwiches, aquavit, liqueurs and beer till the -Real dinner is ready, say, of four substantial courses and many wines, -custards and sweets. Between times she will possibly see her own children -off to bed, probably alongside some of the visitors’ children; then she -will sing and play accompaniments on the piano, and join heartily in the -general talk, and later will serve a parting meal and a deoch-an-doris, -and walk a Scotch escort of a mile or two with the parting guest as the -morning sun begins to show. - -They seem very jolly though they are so busy. Everyone on this island -knows everyone else: they were all at school together, as were their -parents before them. Most of the married people have a little farm. The -wife looks after this when the husband is at sea-whaling. The women have -the vote too! They voted solid a year or two ago for a neatly dressed, -plausible young orator who came round the island, and when their husbands -came home after the whaling season was over, found he was a Socialist; -and if anyone’s interests are damaged by the Socialist in Norway, it is -the whaler’s. So the vote for some time was not a favourite subject of -conversation here when ladies were present. I think the wealthiest family -in Tonsberg, a millionaire’s household, runs to two maidservants. - -But this is dangerous ground; let us upstick and board the St Ebba. “Once -on board the lugger” we cast off wire hawsers, let on the compressed air -with a clash in the cylinders, then petrol, then crude oil, back her, -stop her, then motor ahead easily. - -The St Ebba’s first journey! We passed down between Nottero and the -mainland, rapidly passing the small motor craft that seemed to be timing -us, travelling at nine and three quarter knots. She seems to go as -quickly as our steam-whaler the Haldane—less “send” in calm water. The -Haldane and her like pitch a little, St Ebba makes no turn up behind to -speak of at half speed, which is fast enough for actual whaling. She -seems particularly quick in turning, and in a very small circle. - -We had charts out all the morning planning our southern route, possibly -to the Crozets, possibly the Seychelles or the Antipodes. We have -information about whaling in these waters; I wrote our directors about -the possibility of running a shore station with St Ebba, and painted the -St Ebba flag. - -[Illustration] - -Then we went by our launch, a Berlinda motor-boat fitted with bollard -or timber-head at the bow for small harpoon gun for killing sperm or -Australis. We found St Ebba’s engineer very busy, and worried. The -cooling water inflow was stopped by something from outside. The British -engineer was also very busy with our Cochran steam boiler for our winch. -This winch seems very satisfactory—a sixty-horse-power salmon reel, with -ratchet and noise in proportion. - -We continued working at the engines till seven P.M., then motored in the -St Ebba launch down the side of the island, and got home in the dark at -ten-thirty. - -I must cut down these day-to-day notes. “Launching a whaler” sounds -interesting enough till you come to read about details. Little troubles -and big troubles and worries arose to delay the getting afloat, signing -on men took time, signing off an engineer who got drunk, and getting -another in his place caused another delay; and delays occurred getting -our papers audited. They had all to be sent back to Christiania to -get a “t” crossed or an “i” dotted. Rain came and helped to delay -getting our lines on board. Then we had to have an official trip, with -representatives of Government, etc., etc., on board, a curious crowd all -connected with the sea, most of them captains, a Viking crew on a British -ship, still with the Norwegian flag astern! - -At the next trip, however, given by us, when we had accepted deliverance, -we unfolded the Union Jack and had what I’ve heard called a cold -collation on our main hatch. There were the captain’s and friends’ -relatives, photographers, reporters and skippers all intensely interested -in our new type of whaler. - -On page 36 are depicted figures looking into the engine-room, because -there was no room inside! There our engineer is discoursing to whaling -and mercantile skippers, showing how he can be called from his bunk and -have the engine going full speed ahead in less than four minutes; and all -the wonders of a modern Diesel motor. - -And one by one the carpers climb down, each in his own way—for you see -almost all the “men-who-knew” said something or other would happen or -wouldn’t work. But once they saw our engine work and the arrangement of -harpoons, guns, lines, and oil tanks, all of them prophesied success. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -At last! on the 23rd of August, the St Ebba was ready to be taken away -from the slip, and the town, and the noise of the builders’ yard, and one -morning, with rain blotting out the grey stone hills and threshing the -trees, and the country a swamp, Henriksen, Mrs Henriksen and the writer -went into town for the last time about St Ebba’s affairs, motoring in our -whale-launch nine knots through the spray. It shows how hard some people -are to please, for Mrs Henriksen vowed she preferred her recollection of -the motion of a Rolls Royce in Berwickshire on a dead smooth road. Fancy -comparing metal springs and the hard high road to the silky rush over -spuming surge down the fir-clad fiord, the wind right aft, and each wave -racing to catch us. - -So we took St Ebba from town and the grime of the quayside and cleaned -her decks and laid her alongside a wooden pier a few miles from Tonsberg, -brought a flexible pipe on board and filled her tanks with sixty tons of -solar oil from an oil refinery, enough to take her at one ton a day to -Australia without a call! That went on board in eight and a half hours, -one man on watch with his hands in his pockets. How different from the -work and dirt of coaling! - -Then clang goes the bell for stand by—let go, fore, and aft—half-speed -astern and we back away from the pier, with Henriksen on the bridge, our -crew young and nimble as kittens and our young mate or styrmand forward -alert and the picture of smartness. He is twenty-one, is Henriksen’s -brother, and has held master’s certificate for three years. - -Round we come with the wind out of shelter into rougher sea—half-speed -ahead—full speed—and away we go, our first trip with no one but ourselves -aboard, no pilot or town ties—ready for a year at sea. - -But we have arrangements to make on board yet, arranging lines, and -guns, and testing them, and a lot of small work with wood which we will -do ourselves down the fiord opposite Henriksen’s home, a sheltered nook -with fir-trees round, five miles from Tonsberg. Knarberg they call this -little bay or arm at Kjolo, in Nottero, where long ago Viking ships were -built, where Henriksen’s father sailed from, and his father before him in -the days before steam. Now we revive the past glories with a split-new -up-to-date six-cylinder Diesel motor-whaler! - -We slide down the fiord before the wind and rain and squalls, smiling -with pleasure at our freedom from the wharf-side. With a foremast tackle -the port anchor is heaved up and hung over the side—the chain stopped by -a patent catch; it is the first time we have gone through the manœuvre in -the St Ebba, so even anchoring is full of interest. And in a few minutes -more we swing to windward in the narrow Knarberg and drop port anchor and -swing to starboard and drop starboard anchor, drop astern and lie where -all the winds can blow and never move us. - -One anchor might have been enough. But, as Henriksen said to his young -brother: “Styrmand, you remember, father always put down two anchors, we -will do the same.” - -Then we open out the foresail and spread it over the boom above the -main hatch, and our little crew gets to work, sheltered from the rain, -shifting and arranging our goods and chattels below, laying timber balks -over the tanks under our main hold so as to form a flooring to support -the weight of casks and spare gear, furnace, anvils, lance shafts, etc., -that must lie on top. - -A glow comes up from the red-painted ironwork on to the faces of the crew -that is almost like the effect of sunlight. - -Our whaling lines we have to stow away carefully; it takes eight men with -a tackle to lift one hank of line on deck, one hundred and twenty fathoms -of five-inch rope. And there are stacks of fascinating harpoons, large -and small, to be arranged. - -We have adjusted the compass to-day by bearings, a long process requiring -a specialist down from Tonsberg. The operation gave us a good chance to -test our engines—so much backing and going ahead and turning in small -circles, just the manœuvres we will require in pursuit of whales. - -More homely work consisted in getting potatoes on board from Larsen’s -farm—a retired American naval man—whose farm adjoins Henriksen’s. He -has cut the spruce shafts in our wood for lances, light and pliable, -carefully chosen for the quality of each stem, and so as to leave room -for growth of the younger trees. And we have cut down a venerable -oak, for we need a stout hole for our anvil, and other smaller pieces -for toggles for whale-flensing. Anvil and forge are of goodly size, -for we shall have heavy ironwork making straight the big harpoons -(three-and-a-half-inch diameter) after they have been tied into -knots by some strong rorqual. A turning lathe we must have, and an -infinity of blocks, bolts, chains, and shackles. Veritably our little -one-hundred-and-ten-foot motor, sailing, tank, whaling, sealing, cookery -ship is _multum in parvo_, and _parva sed apta_. - -We have got our ammunition on board. We brought it from Tonsberg -yesterday ourselves, on our Bolinder launch, so saved freight and -fright! for the local boat-owners were a little shy. Henriksen packed -the powder in tins on the floor of our launch in the stern sheets, -rifles and cartridges on top, and he himself with his pipe going sat on -top of all. I think he smoked his pipe to ease my mind, to make me feel -quite sure that _he thought_ it was quite safe, now the ammunition is -being stowed away under my bunk! Two thousand express rifle cartridges -with solid bullets we have, for we will call on the sea-elephants at a -seldom-visited island we know of just north of the Antarctic ice. One -load we should surely get in a few weeks’ time: their blubber is about -eight inches thick, and is worth £28 per ton; a load of one hundred and -sixty tons (I think we could carry as much as that at a pinch) at £28 per -ton will equal £4480, not a bad nest egg, and why not two or three loads -in the season, not to speak of the excitement of landing through surf and -the struggle through tussock grass. Man versus beast, with the chances in -favour of man, but not always; men I know have been drowned, and others -nearly drowned, in the kelp and surf that surrounds these islands in the -far South Atlantic. Once I had to swim in it, and do not wish to do so -again, and it’s one bite from a sea-elephant or sea-leopard and good-bye -to your arm or leg. - -[Illustration: STERN VIEW OF THE “ST. EBBA” AT TONSBERG] - -[Illustration: THE “ST. EBBA” IN THE FIORD OF THE VIKINGS] - -We now have salted ox on board, oxen grown at Kjolo and salted down last -winter by Henriksen; and Larsen, the neighbour, brought us vegetables. -He is almost a giant, and as he stood in our flat-bottomed dory with two -men rowing he made a picture to be remembered, for he was surrounded by -lance shafts, sacks of potatoes, red carrots and white onions, so that -the dory was down to the water’s edge! I prayed she might not upset. -Larsen himself stood amidships with three enormous green balloons in his -arms—such giant cabbages I have never seen before—each seven-and-a-half -kilos (fifteen pounds), in weight, the result of whale guano. - -The children of the neighbourhood played on our decks; Henriksen’s two -boys and daughter soon knew every corner of the ship, just as he learned -every part of his father’s vessel when he lay at Kjolo, only in those -days there were higher masts to climb, and yards to lie out on, and -tops to pause in, to admire the view and get courage to go higher. Our -crow’s nest on our pole-foremast is the highest they can attain to on the -St Ebba. The aftermast—or mainmast, I suppose I should call it, as we -are schooner rigged—is of hollow iron cut short above the top (this is -technical, not a bull); this forms the exhaust from the engine. You see -only a little vapour, still, it does seem a trifle odd even to see faint -smoke coming out of a mast! We will rig up topmasts in the South Seas, -and have topsails in fine winds and the Trades, when we do not need the -motor, and will then look quite conventional. - -Here is a photograph of some of the children that play on our decks and -round about the St Ebba in boats. They are of the sea. “It is in the -blood,” as Mrs Henriksen replied to me when I asked her how she got -accustomed to her husband’s long voyages and absence from home. It is -their tradition to go to sea, and Elinor, Henriksen’s daughter, will be -surprised if her brothers William and Henrik do not follow their father -to sea in a few years. In ancient days it was the same here, womenfolk -thought little of the men who had not done four or five years’ Viking -cruising, gathering gear from their own coast or from their neighbours’. - -We hope that this Monday, the 22nd of September, will be our last day on -shore, and it rains and rains, and we long for the shelter of board-ship -where there is no soppy ground or puddles, and there will be the fun of -going somewhere instead of inhabiting this one spot of earth for days, -till days become weeks and weeks months for ever and for ever without -getting anywhere farther. - -We have now almost everything on board, books, charts, bags of clothes, -but we have still to wait for some spare parts for the engine from the -makers at Stockholm, which they advise us to get before going on a -southern voyage. We intended to have got away in time to do a preliminary -canter, as it were, for whales up north to the edge of the ice—not into -it—for bottle-nose and finners, so as thoroughly to test our engine and -crew before going to the Southern Seas. Now it is too late for that, so -we shall only go “north-about” round Shetland, where we may be in time -for the last of the whaling season, and then proceed south. - -The spare parts of the motor arrived, but it rains and blows a fierce -gale from S.W., and we could get out of our fiord but no farther against -such a gale, so we cool our heels and Henriksen works at accounts, a -serious matter. It is a new departure, a captain acting in so many -capacities, manager, navigator, harpooneer, etc. - -This is my fifth week of waiting here, the most wearisome time I have -ever spent in my life. So much for whale-fishing and its preliminaries! -The time actually spent in connection with the ship’s affairs passes -pleasantly enough, and curiously the sense of weariness goes, once on -board. Perhaps getting off clay soil on to salt water accounts for this. - -The sea-water in the fiord here stands abnormally high all these days. It -came running in two days ago in calm weather. So outside the North Sea -and Skagerak we knew it must be blowing hard. To-day, though finer, the -fiord water still remains high, so we know from that and the newspapers -that there is strong southerly wind outside. - -For two days past a cloud has hung over us. Henriksen found a deficiency -in his accounts, found that the outfit for the St Ebba cost 10,000 kroner -more than the receipts vouched for, and went over and over accounts, till -yesterday we made another pilgrimage to Tonsberg and interviewed a banker -and said politely, “How the deuce can this be?” And he cast his eye over -his account-book and found his clerk had merely omitted a figure in -addition; a trifle of 10,000 kroner = £550! So we came away smiling, but -it gave us a bit of a shake, rather an aggravating and superfluous piece -of worry added to vexatious delays and bad weather. - -We motored back in the launch much relieved, and on reaching the St -Ebba practised big harpoon-gun drill. Henriksen and I are the only men -on board who are familiar with its workings, but one or two of the crew -have used the smaller bottle-nose or Right whale guns. It was interesting -watching Henriksen’s demonstration to all hands. Smartly they picked up -the drill; quickly, for all of them have served in the naval reserve or -army, and anything to do with a tumble about or small craft they are -familiar with from childhood to old age. Yesterday you could readily -fancy one of these old Viking fights, for a boatload of ten small boys -was fighting another boatload, a free fight, legs and arms in the air, -a fearful turmoil, and two boatloads of yellow-haired girls smilingly -looked on. - -“Old Man Henriksen,” the oldest of the Tonsberg inhabitants, came down -the fiord from Tonsberg to-night to wish us God-speed. He sailed down in -his cutter single-handed, shot into the wind round our port bow, jibbed -and swung alongside round our stern; seventy-eight years old and sailing -his home-built, prize-winning twenty-footer as well as the best of his -juniors. On board we had the tiniest skaal, which finished our last -bottle of whisky, the remnant of our hospitality in the trial trip; we -are drawing our beer and whisky teeth, as the sailors say, before taking -the high seas. - -Then he went off in the twilight, as the lights began to show in the -gloom of the pines on shore, alone, sailing single-handed, against the -wishes of the family, who say he is old enough and rich enough to employ -a crew. He will spend the night alone on Faarman Holme, at the club he -started there; in the morning he will dip his flag to us as we pass. - -We all go for our last night on shore, walking home in the dark. Not -all—I forgot. William and Henrik are curled up in their father’s bunk in -great glee at being left to look after St Ebba, along with the crew for -its last night in the fiord of the Vikings. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -Then it’s hey! and it’s ho! for Scotland, chilly Lerwick and the -Shetlands and kindly English-speaking people. My heart warms at the -prospect of seeing our western hills and heather and relatives and a -language we know. - -It rains again, tropical rain. We stand and bid farewell in the -homestead, round the little dining-room table, each with a liqueur glass -in hand. Suddenly I see eyes are wet, and the stranger nearly pipes an -eye too, for it is a bit harrowing even to cold hearts to see married -people with children still lovers. My host has been, for him, at home -so long, nearly eleven months now! So the parting from wife, children, -homestead, farm, woods, horse and hound, all of which he loves, must be -sore for however hardened a seafarer. - -Our last cargo from home goes to the ship on a hand-cart towed by the -children and Rex the collie in great glee—curious luggage—Japanese -wicker-work baskets and parcels of foreign-looking clothes for their -father. The writer goes ahead with them, leaving the lovers to follow -their lone, past the little home they built after Henriksen’s first -success at whaling, on a three months’ spell from sea, down the road and -past the school in the birches where they played as children together, -down to the _brig_ or rocks where their fathers before them careened -their ships and made the same sad partings. - -Perhaps the captain is the only sad man to-day. From first mate downwards -eyes are sparkling, in spite of the dull day of rain, at the prospect of -the rough, bracing, salt seas in front of us. We think nothing just now -of cold, wet, dark, dangerous nights; the future is all couleur de rose, -whale-hunting, new lands and people, sea-elephants, movement and life for -us, death to them and profit for us all! - -Was it lucky or unlucky that our anchors held to Norway and the -sea-maids’ hair or grass, like grim death? A sailor would be interested, -perhaps, in a description of how the two chains were fouled or twisted, -how one shackle opened and the starboard chain went slap into the water. -I thought, we are in for more delay, trying to pick it up. But Henriksen -spotted that it had caught on the port chain, and his young brother, our -mate, promptly slid down it—a nice muddy slide down and to his waist in -water—got a rope through its links and stopped it on the port chain, and -so we got both back. All the sea fairies of Norwegian seas could not have -given us more trouble in taking our British ship from the Norse anchorage. - -As we motored from sheltered Knarsberg to Christiania fiord we passed -Faarman Holme and the yacht club and dipped our Union Jack, and saw the -Norse flag dipped in return, no doubt by old Henriksen, who had stopped -the night there to flag us adieu in the morning. - -There was more heart-string-breaking before we left. Mrs Henriksen and -the children, and Hansen the steward’s newly married wife, came part of -the way, and we dropped them a few miles down the fiord in a motor-launch -we had in tow. There are tender hearts in Norway, tender and brave. - -And now we are out of the great Christiania fiord or firth, passing -Færder Light that marks its entrance, Norway faint on our right and -Sweden over the horizon to our left, the sun shining for the first day -this summer. The sea has a silky swell. We have shaken off all things -earthy except a little mud on our anchors now being stowed away, and -three or four green oak leaves and moss on the hole of the oak-tree -brought for the anvil. - -Henriksen and I stand for a little on the bow and rejoice in the heave -and send, and compare the movement of St Ebba with that of the Haldane -and other whalers we know, and we think that she makes good. There -is sun, sea, cloud-land, rippling swell and fresh, cold air, with a -luxurious roll; and we feel an hour of such a day at sea is reward for -all the months of worry and waiting and planning on shore. - -A pleasure in store for us will be setting our new sails. But even now, -with the motor alone and fully loaded—with sixty tons of fresh water -alone—we make nine and a half knots! but with our canvas unloosed and a -light breeze behind us might even reel off eleven to twelve. - -Not many miles out at sea a Killer (or Orca gladiator) appeared coming -from starboard. Our guns were all covered with canvas so we did not clear -for action, and the Killer is not of much value. He came towards us and -passed forty yards astern, a fact which greatly comforted us, for “those -who know” on shore informed us a motor would drive away whales, but how -they knew it is hard to say. Then it was said so often, and with such a -sense of conviction, that without acknowledging it, we had a slight sense -of chill. This Cetacean, a whale of, say, thirty feet, took not the least -notice of our crew, and as our fortunes depend on being able to approach -the leviathans of the ocean, without frightening them, the incident, -though apparently small, gave us considerable encouragement. - -Our first day at sea has passed very busily and we go below for a spell -to our blankets, early, and tired, but with a joy beyond words at turning -in again to a cosy bunk with everything at hand—pipe, books, paints, even -music (practice pipe chanter), all within arm’s-reach, an open port and -chilly, clean air, and the faintest suggestion of movement; such luxuries -you may not have on shore. - -The sea did not hide its teeth for long. After sundown skirts of rain -appeared from threatening clouds on the distant Norse coast. Gradually -they spread across our track, bands of little ripples, like mackerel -playing, appeared on the smooth swell, and these spread and joined till -all the sea was dark with a breeze, which in a few hours grew to a strong -wind against us. - -As we passed Ryvingen Light on the south of Norway the night grew dismal -and rough; we watched its revolving four-flash light, which seemed to be -answered by the three flashes we saw lit up the sky from the light on -Hentsholme in Denmark, over forty miles to our south, and the gloomy sky -over the Skagerak was lit with occasional angry flashes of lightning. - -Unpromising weather for our first night at sea! - -By two in the night we were digging into the same hole, making little or -no way, with more than half-a-gale from sou’-west. - -In the morning we were a very sad lot of whaler sailors. Fore and aft all -were sick, or at least very sorry for themselves. All but Henriksen and -the mate and the writer and one man were really ill, and we, I believe, -only pretended to be well—such is the effect of the motion of a small -whaler vessel on even old sailors on their first experience of them. I -have known Norsemen who have been at sea all their lives on large craft -refuse to go on a modern whaler at any pay. - -We aim at getting up the Norse coast as far as Bergen, then going west -towards north of Shetlands and, given fine weather, we ought to pick up a -whale or two before putting in to Lerwick, where we must re-register our -vessel. - -But the wind increases to a full gale. All the sea is white and the sky -hard, and rain and sun alternate and our nine-and-a-half-knot speed is -reduced to about four. - -But St Ebba is a dry ship. She proves that at least. Any other vessel I -have been in, whaler or other, would ship more water than we do. - -There is no use trying to steam or motor against this N.E. gale, so it’s -up close-reefed fore and mainsail and staysail; only four men to do it, -and that for the first time of this ship at sea, and in a gale. Reef -points are made and all got ready; then it’s “Haul away on throat and -peak” and up goes the scrap of sail, and what clouds of spray burst over -the oilskin-clad figures as they haul away cheerily! The writer, at the -wheel on the bridge, even comes in for a bit of the rather too refreshing -salt spray. - -Now the after or main sail is set like a board, and we are transformed -into a sailing-ship. - -A ring on the bell and the engine and sick engineer get respite; a point -or two off the wind and there is the silence of a sailing-ship—no engine -vibrations. True, we make little or no progress and some leeway, but the -motion is heavenly compared to the plugging away of an engine into a head -sea. - -[Illustration: A DEAD SEAL ON THE FLOE EDGE] - -The decks get dry though the sea is very rough, another proof of the St -Ebba quality. We wish, however, we were further on our road to “our ain -countrie.” - -The mess-room of St Ebba is not extensive, a little iron house built -round the foremast. One third of it is the steward’s or cook’s galley. He -acts both parts. He is almost like a fair Greek, rather thin, with golden -hair and a skin as white as his jacket; poor fellow, he is sick, but -sticks to his pans, and tries to forget the young wife he left behind him. - -His galley is about three feet by six feet beam, and his stove and pans -and coal-box just leave him room to stand in. Our mess-room is what I -consider a very cosy room for a whaler; it is fully five feet by six -feet beam of iron, grained yellow oak—iron ties and bolts grained like -oak. It may not be æsthetic, still in some ways it is the best part of -the ship. It seems to be the pivot of our movements. There is a round -port-hole or bolley to port, and two looking aft towards our stern and -a little round-topped iron door on the starboard. Through the two ports -astern comes the sunlight and the iron door keeps out sea and wind, so -in this stormy weather our mess-room has its points. There is another -round-topped door from it to the galley. So Hansen (cook and steward) has -merely to stretch his arm round to us to hand the coffee-pot, or sardines. - -Sardines and brown bread are on the table this morning. I notice about -two sardines have been eaten by our after-guard, so even if we claim -not to be sea-sick we cannot claim any great appetite. Poor cook—he has -upset a pail and dishes in the galley. I help him with his stores a bit, -but it is no use—he is a bit on edge, so the bridge is the place to sit -on and sketch, for one must do something to keep the mind occupied in -rough weather. And it is precious cold and comfortless. You have to twist -a limb round something to prevent being flung about, steering requires -gymnastics. - -There is a pale wintry sun, but the air is cold and clammy—all right on -shore, I should say, for a September day. - -Two masts and a funnel go driving across our track, almost hull down -before the gale, a wreath of black smoke dispersing to leeward in wind -and spray. I almost regret I am not on board, with steam and the wind -aft. I’d be in Leith before many hours, then with Old Crow and the dogs -on dry stubble. Just the day this for shore, and partridges, or to look -for hares on St Abb’s Head. - -One or two of the crew are reviving this afternoon, though it is still -very rough, but the first engineer, a Swede, is still very sick. - -One of the crew this morning told me as he steered: “Dem mens forward -all seek, but me no seek, so I have six eggs to mineself”; but he looked -pale, and in a minute or two he gave the wheel to me and went to the side -of the bridge and came back wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, -and took the spokes again, muttering: “Fordumna, now I’se loss dem.” Such -details of life at sea you find in the Argonautica; they give colour and -conviction; only the Argonauts in their days were laid out on the beach -with too much purple wine. - -Yesterday morning about four we tried the engine, but the Swede could not -start it. Either he had let the compressed-air supply run out or water -had collected and blew into first cylinder or—or—anyway, sick or well, -all hands had to pump on till late last night, and only raised pressure -to over sixty pounds and it requires to come up to one hundred and fifty. - -Henriksen has been saying the wind is going to moderate by such and such -a time; when I see a sky such as this round the horizon, with haze and -cold, I give several days of gale. - -It is very wearisome; Henriksen is pretty quiet. At breakfast we have -each half-a-cup of coffee! We are simply drifting across this shallow and -somewhat dangerous sea, sometimes called the German Ocean, a crablike -course to Yorkshire coast, or will it be St Abb’s Head we are to knock -against if the wind does not change or the engine go? - -It would be an interesting point to get wrecked at, for I’ve a bet on -that the lifeboat a lady started there won’t save ten lives in the next -ten years. It is only allowed out if the wind is off shore and if the cox -first gets her leave. It costs £700 yearly to keep it up, for motor-slip, -man’s house and storehouses. Seven hundred pounds per year for a lady’s -whim seems an extravagant way of running the Lifeboat Fund. - -With a few hours’ lull the engineers would get well, and possibly get the -engine air-starting apparatus to work; meantime it is a bit trying having -the elements against us, plus engine difficulty, as no engine, no success -to our whaling. Thank heaven we have sails; but we must be absolutely -sure of our powers of starting the motor, and that at short notice, or St -Ebba dare not venture into certain anchorages we hope to visit, such as -the east of Crozets and other islands. - -Wind always N. by W.; we are drifting close hauled S.W. - -There was watery sunlight this forenoon, now in the afternoon the wind -is even stronger, and it is dull with spits of rain, and spindrift; -everything is quivering, and throbbing, with the strain, and we shall -have to take in staysail. I think of my first whaling voyage many years -ago, when for twenty days we lay hove to, out west of Ireland about -Rockall. Days of gale are totting up for this trip now! And yet our waist -is full of water only now and then! On that old Balæna, barque-rigged, -and twice as big as this little St Ebba, it was knee-deep on an average, -and waist-high at times. This boat is marvellously dry; of course we -planned her from a very seaworthy type of boat, the Norsk pilot-boat -shape such as those we saw come into Balta Sound last year; after they -had been three months north of Shetland, they had never taken a drop of -sea-water on board, and we think we have improved on them. - -As afternoon wore on the wind grew very heavy indeed, and the sea was -very high. It was Henriksen’s worst experience of the North Atlantic. We -watched on the bridge all afternoon, and took in the reefed foresail, so -we have only the close-reefed mainsail, and we watched it anxiously lest -it should burst. But it is of new strongest sailcloth, Greenock make, and -it held. - -The watch taking in foresail was a pleasant sight to see. The young -fellows, all deep-sea sailors, sprang at the boom like kittens and -struggled with the billowing hard wet canvas, tooth and nail, till it was -brailed up. I was too cold and wet to get my camera, but what a scene, -say, for a cinematograph—figures on deck swaying at the halyards and -figures clinging pick-a-back to the sail on the boom! - -Oh, it was a beast of a day! even though the wave effects were fine; -of about five or six I thought each would be our last. But we lay so -far over with gunwales under so that we simply shot to leeward with a -heavy sea, so there was much “keel water” which, rising from under us to -windward, seemed to prevent the waves breaking over our beam. - -The crew are all taking turns at air-pumping; they kept at it all day -yesterday, and till one o’clock to-day, and we are soon going to see if -the pressure will start the engine—it is rather critical. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -We drifted about ninety miles S.W. in the three days’ storm, S.W. of -Norway, and now are just the same distance from Lerwick as when we -started. - -Nine watches with the engine going will take us there. - -It is blue and sunny to-day, wind N.E., so we have set staysail and -mainsail and go along in a real sailing-ship style. - -But the old sea still runs high from N.W. and the wind blows little -ripples down the long furrows, and the lumpy waves stop our way down to -four or five knots. - -In smoother water and with all hands free we would get a jib and topsail -on; meantime we want the engine to work. - -At night the blasts became gradually less furious and the seas less -precipitous. - -At two-forty as I write, rolling along through lumpy blue sea at four -knots, the engineer lets on the air all have been labouring at, clash -goes the engine, subsiding into its steady business-like stroke, and away -we ramp; cheers from some of us. The St Ebba vindicates itself. - -How our feelings are changed! “How is the air pressure?” is a question -which will be poked at the engineers for many a fine day to come; and -they will take care, sick or not sick, never again to let it run out. We -surely do twelve knots with sails drawing and engine running. The log -line will soon show.... - -We run all afternoon finely—sails, wind and motor—till the wind -heads us and the foresail comes down, and we roll, roll as I think -only a whaler can roll, and the expression on faces changes. But our -engineer—_mechanicien_, we call him—is now no more sick and has the -engine going, and is washed and is as spry as usual again. - -Evening meal comes (_aften-mad_) with ship’s provender, which is not bad, -and what is called tea in Norway; and the surges come over our bow and -we sit in the tiny galley, Henriksen, styrmand, mechanicien and myself, -and St Ebba rolls dishes, pots and pans all about. But what care we, -reeling off eight to nine knots against wind with little or no water in -our waist; an ordinary tramp at three knots against the same tumble of -sea would be half under water. - -Night falls, the Plough lights up, and our pole mast and crow’s nest and -steamer light go swinging against it. - -We ought to sight Fair Isle and Sumburgh Light and Bressay Light, -Lerwick, to-night about twelve. The breeze is northerly and for these -parts the air is clear and chilly and bracing, giving the energy of the -northern electrical condition that we cannot explain but which we know -does exist. - -We overhauled all our charts this morning in the little cabin after -marking our position—a pleasing pastime; charts are better pictures than -the most valued engravings if you have fancy enough to see coral islands -and waving palms where are only copper-plate engraved lines. Our Arctic -charts we roll away in the very centre of our other charts, for alas, -we are now months too late for Davis Straits: the polar bears and white -whales and Arctic poppies and the bees humming in the white heather we -must visit some other time. These are the happy regions the old whalers -speak of with glistening eyes as they recall the joys, the hauls of -salmon in nets, the reindeer flesh, and the Right whale hunting. No, no -long sunny nights for us this journey. Possibly there will be room for -some such description further on in this book, perhaps of whaling and -sealing by the light of the midnight sun in the Antarctic or the Arctic. - -We must make the best of this northern latitude and get braced up a -little with Shetland, which is astonishingly bracing, before going south -again. A dip into its cold, salt, crystalline water as you get out of bed -is a better tonic than quinine for fever; and against the grey skies and -grey houses of Lerwick and its pale, yellow-haired and kindly people we -will picture before us the blue of the south, say the hot side of Madeira -with the brown, bare-legged grape-pickers, the sugar cane and the deep -blue sea or the hot volcanic dust and fruit at the Azores, the Canaries -and Cape Verde, and the hunting and waiting for the cachalot or sperm, -small game for our big harpoon, but worth much money. - -Perhaps we may have a chance down there of Tunny Bonita Sharks and flying -fish to put in our bag, and possibly even a turtle. - -Fair Isle flashes N.W. at eight-twelve P.M., then Sumburgh Head. - -We have been doing eight knots with the wind against us, consuming two -tons of oil, from Tonsberg to Shetland, which would have taken sixteen -tons of coal. - -Then Bressay Light red and white, the night hazy, wind going to S.W. -As we come into lee of the island we slow down to three miles an hour, -for Lerwick and its light on Bressay Island are only a few miles off -and—well, it is just as good fun going into harbour by daylight—so we -go slow and the St Ebba’s engines start a new chant. This music of our -engine we hear sometimes, and do not quite understand. And now Henriksen -hears the music; we lean over the bridge in heavy coats in “the black -dark and feen rain,” as he calls it, and he hears the singing. Yes, at -“Slow” we have the full chorus of voices coming up from the engine-room -into the silent night, the general theme a chant, of young voices -repeating musically the creed, these change to sopranos, and interludes -of deeper women’s voices speaking low-toned instructions—then all united! -It is just as if we stood at the entrance of some Gothic cathedral at -night. - -But I leave the fascination of deck and “feen rain and black dark” plus -cathedral music to Henriksen and light the midnight oil, and Henriksen -hangs on to Mousa green light and dodges fishermen’s nets and boats, and -in the grey morning tells me it blew up from sou’-west and got very cold. - -I was not the least aware of above, as we slipped into Lerwick at five, -but yesterday’s rapid rise of glass promised as much. - -Lerwick at five A.M. in the morning in summer is the same as at any other -hour in the twenty-four; it is always light and grey. Green fields and -low peaty hills lie behind grey stone houses, and the grey clouds hang -low on the hills. The sea-water is grey-green. You might call the houses -a sort of lilac-grey, to be flattering. One or two of them painted -white and a black steamer or two on their sea-front give relief to the -greyness, and the white steam from their banked fires gives a slight -sense of life and joins the grey below to the grey above. Always Lerwick -seems instinct with this sense of coming life; here it always seems to be -on the point of dawn or beginning of twilight. - -Not all the herring-boats, herring men and herring women that congregate -here in summer, not even the most brilliant blue summer day, can do away -with this twilight; people and boats come and go but Lerwick preserves -the same pleasing grey expression of quiet reserve. - -To let you into the secret, Lerwick and the Shetlands are slightly -anæmic! The best blood of several countries has been flowing into the -islands for ages, yet always intelligence remains in excess of physical -vigour, always the Scots and Norse say: “Let us go and make use of these -islands.” “Look at the wealth there is there of sea-fish and sea-birds,” -says the Norseman, “give me one little island there and I will envy -no man.” But they forget their starting-points are lands of assured -summer, where trees grow (and, for Norsemen, where wild fruit ripens), -and they come, and have come, conquering or peacefully hunting, catching -sea-trout, whales or herring, and either go away again, or stay, and -become like the islanders anæmic, and slightly socialistic, and lose -the sense of industrial enterprise, and other people come and take the -herring and whales and sea-trout from their doors. - -It is greatly a matter of geographical position and climatic conditions. -The one tree that grows on the islands could tell you this if you could -hear it speak to you of its struggle for existence. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -Whaling is like salmon-fishing, but the waiting part is on an enormous -scale, bigger in proportion than even the game or the tackle, however -huge that is. Fancy waiting and fishing for nine months for your first -fish. That was my first whaling. Henriksen in Japanese seas on his first -whaling command was, I think, a year before he saw a whale. Then he had a -lot of shots in succession and missed every time, till he discovered the -powder was at fault, and then he killed about ninety in three months. - -He sometimes gives me thumb-nail jottings of his experiences. - -Once he ran into port. Yusako, I believe, and the harpoon-gun on the bows -was still loaded, and the Japanese Bos’n fiddled with it and let it off. -Two white chickens were resting on the forego (coils of rope under muzzle -of gun), and Jap shoemakers, tailors with their goods and chattels, -were on foredeck, sitting on the line, and they were all upset by its -tautening suddenly. The boom brought Henriksen on deck, he found his -bos’n standing pale as china, and a few white feathers floating in the -air—a rather Whistleresque picture, is it not? Another time he himself -upset all his poultry. He had quite a lot of hens on board, and they -rather took to him. He had stood for hours on hours chasing two finners -that never gave him a chance of harpooning them, and just at twilight he -grew tired waiting and let drive a long shot on chance, never noticing -that the fowls had collected round his feet and on the coiled forego. -Overboard they went, every hen and chick of them, and great was the -retrieving in the pram.[2] - -Another curious mistake by a gunner I have heard of. He’d been chasing -for a long time and fired at a whale, as he thought, but could not see -where the harpoon went for the smoke. “Have I got the beggar?” he said, -turning round to the Jap at the wheel. “Yes, captain, veree good shot.” -The smoke cleared and a moak or gull lay with its head off, a bight of -the forego had chopped it off; the Jap on bridge had seen no whale and -thought the captain fired at the gull. The gunner’s expletives followed, -and he threw his hat overboard, and stamped and swore accordingly. - -And now here we are tied up, waiting again in Lerwick in September, and -on the 1st of June we should have started fishing between Iceland and -South Greenland, at a place we know there are certain to be the small but -valuable Atlantic Right whale, Biscayensis, or Nord-Capper, as the Norse -call it, a small edition of the Greenland Bowhead or Mysticetus (see page -26). - -We waited and waited all that August in Norway, our grouse-shooting has -gone, and now partridges are going, and we wait still. This last wait is -due to an entanglement in red tape, a difficulty in getting our vessel -registered here. We have the British Consul’s form of registration, a -temporary affair from Norway, that has to be renewed here. - -Soon after dropping anchor those agreeable and necessary officials, the -Customs officers, came on board, in oilskins, which they discarded, -disclosing blue jumpers and his Majesty’s brass buttons, all showing -the effect of the climate, and they set to work overhauling our stores -most carefully. If officials are to be maintained work must be found for -them and we must all pay; we have assisted the Norwegian and British -governments incalculably for weeks and months past. They earn their -country’s pay by overhauling poor mariners’ tobacco and provender, only -intended to be chewed and eaten far away in the North or the Southern -Seas. Their chief, I knew at once, came from our west or north coast, by -his soft accent, which was much to my taste; how much there must be in a -voice if it makes even a seafarer almost welcome a Customs officer! - -As he opened the stores and checked coffee and tobacco, we “tore tartan” -a little. I said my heart was in Argyll but my people came from -Perthshire, and suggested he might be from Islay. And from Islay he came! -the island of Morrisons and whisky. But MacDiarmid was his name. “But -that’s a Perthshire name,” I said. “Yes, yes,” said he, “to be sure, from -Perthshire my people came.” “And from Glen Lyon, possibly?” I said, “and -the Seven Kings?” And “Yes, yes,” he said, “to be sure, and it is Glen -Lyon you know? Well, well, and that is the peautiful glen—and that wull -be suxty poonds of coot tobacco, and wan hundred and suxty poonds of -black twust. And did you see the Maclean was back to Duart Castle? Aich, -aich! it was a ferry fine proceeding! You see, his mother’s grandmother’s -daughter’s niece she would come from Glen Islay, and so it wass they came -to their own again. Noo hoo much tae will you have here—we must mark it -a’ doon seeing you may be callin’ at another Brutish port or in the back -parts o’ Mull or maybe in Ireland too.” - -His junior was Irish, with a Bow Bells accent, and the speech of both -was very pleasant to me after months of Norse. The junior leant against -the galley door as I had morning coffee, and leisurely interviewed our -very busy cook—told him about Lerwick, asked him, “Did yew ’ave a good -viyage, stooard?” to which pale Hansen with the golden hair answered, -“Yah, yah, goot,” indifferently, but he brightened up when told of the -fish to be had in Lerwick. “Wy, yuss, for a shillin’ you can git as much -’ere as will feed all ’ands, woy, for a sixpence or fourpence you can -git a cod ’ere of saiy fourteen or sixteen pounds!” “Yah, yah, but vill -it be goot?” said incredulous Hansen. “Yuss, you bet y’r loife. Ain’t -no Billinsgaite fish ’ere, matey! wot I mean is you git ’em ’ere ’alf -aloive! But did ye git any wyles?” he continued, “on yer weigh accrost?” -“Wyles?” repeated Hansen. “Wy, yuss, wyles, wyles I say; you’re a wyler, -ain’t yer?” and it dawned at last on Hansen—“Vales! nay, nay, ikke -vales—no seed none.” - -We went ashore with the brass-bounders rowing hard against wind over -the fizzling sea amongst hundreds of tame herring gulls, most of them -in their young brown plumage, and amongst armies of these sea-robbers, -scarts, or cormorants, that are here as tame as chickens and numerous -as sparrows. Why they are allowed to exist is what we trout and salmon -fishers wonder at; in Norway the Government pays fourpence a head. I wish -we were as fond of eating them as the Norwegians are. - -On shore we got fairly messed up with red tape at the Customs office. The -officials were charmingly polite and really wished to be of assistance, -but duty first; and the very young man in authority showed us, with the -utmost patience, how essential it was for the interests of everybody that -we should be able to prove that the makers of the St Ebba made it really -for us, and that the British Consul in Norway should also believe this, -and certify that the Norwegian builders had really built it, and also -that they had done so to our order, for if they had not done so, it might -belong to someone else. Consequently if they, his Majesty’s Customs House -officers in Lerwick, were to register it as ours, and it wasn’t ours, -many things might happen, and so on and so forth. And we went back and -forward to the ship to get papers and more papers, and each helped, but -each and all were smilingly explained to be not absolutely the documents -necessary to satisfy his Majesty’s Government that—that—we weren’t bloody -pirates. So give us School Board education and Socialist officialdom and -we see the beginning of lots of trouble. Finally, after much pow-wow, -we telegraphed the gist of this to Norway, asking the Consul there, in -polite language, why the devil he hadn’t given us the papers needed to -prove we were we, and the St Ebba was the St Ebba, and not another ship, -and that it belonged to her owners—that is, to a little private British -Whaling Company. - -And poor Henriksen, who had spent days and more days getting all these -formalities arranged with the Consul in Norway (whilst I used to wait -outside under the lime-trees flicking flies off Swartzen), seemed to be -almost at breaking-point of patience, and I wondered in my soul how ships -ever got out and away to sea free from red-tape entanglements. - -A pleasing interlude and soothing was the pause we sometimes made between -ship and office to watch the fish in the clear green water along the edge -of the quiet town. The water was clear as glass above white sand, and -against the low stone quay or sea face were driven, by cormorants, shoals -of fish, dark, velvety-green compact masses, of saith or coal-fish, -actually as thick as fish in a barrel. These ugly dusky divers paid -little heed to people on shore, but in regular order circled round the -shoals, coming to within eight yards of us, and every now and then one -would dive under the mass of fish and fill itself as it went, and an -opening through the mass would show its horrid procedure as it straddled -across white sand under the fish, till it came up with a bounce at our -feet, shaking its bill with satisfaction and then go back to do its turn -at rounding up, whilst another of its kind took its turn at eating the -piltoch. - -No wonder, with this wealth of fish and fowl round the shore, that the -Norsemen rather hanker after their old islands; they cure these saith and -eat them through winter, and very good they are, and they also eat the -cormorants (I give you my word, they are bad; I’ve eaten many kinds of -sea-fowl and the cormorant is the worst). The reader may have heard that -Norwegians claim the Shetlands, for they say Scotland only holds them in -pawn, for the dowry of Margaret Princess of Denmark, wife of King James -III., estimated at 50,000 florins, which has not yet been paid. So when -Norway offers the equivalent, plus interest, which now amounts to several -million pounds sterling, the islands may be returned to Norway. Possibly -international law, recognising the amalgamation of the two companies, -Scotland & Co. and England & Co., into Great Britain & Co., may not now -admit the claim. - -A specimen of a really stout Shetlander came on board with the Customs -House men, Magnus Andersen, a burly, ruddy type, not so intellectual or -finely drawn as the typical Shetlander—a pilot by profession—what seamen -call a real old shell-back, with grizzled beard and ruddy cheeks—about a -hundred years old and straight as a dart, stark and strong, with a bull’s -voice and a child’s blue eyes. I said: “Why don’t you have an oilskin -on?” It was raining a little and blowing. “I’ve been at sea all my days,” -he said, smiling, “and never wore an oilskin”; one of the old hardy -school, with a look of “Fear God, but neither devil, man, nor storm.” - -He spoke of all the lines he’d been on—old flyers like the Thermopylae, -and others, sailing cracks that we read of, Green & Smith companies, and -the old tea traders, and then he told me he had been at the Greenland -whaling, and mentioned a Captain Robertson, and I said: “D’ye mean ‘Café -Tam’?” and he looked at me with a little surprise, but was so pleased -to hear the nickname of his old skipper. “Why,” I said, “I was with him -on board his last ship, the Scotia, in Dundee, not a year ago, and, -bar a slight limp, he’s as good as a two-year-old.” And from that we -started off yarning for as long as there was time, which was not much. -Old “Bad-Weather” and B⸺ Davidson I asked about. He knew them from their -boyhood: old B.-W. came here to Lerwick on his last voyage and ordered -Magnus on board. He was to go whether he did a hand’s turn of work or -not. Magnus admired B.-W., even though he had the common failing; but -now he has gone——? may peace be with him. Magnus blamed the steward and -mate for his end, on that last voyage, blamed them for not having his -temptation in greybeards thrown overboard. My opinion is that the ice -finished him. Take a boy as a mill hand and let him struggle through the -fo’c’sle to be bos’n—second mate—first mate and master, then keep him -whaling year after year with ice perils and whaling problems and the -intense strain and excitement of Arctic ice navigation, and he must die -before seventy! Ice navigation is a severe strain. - -I’ve known of a strong man, a Norwegian skipper, who when he saw the ice -for the first time, and got his vessel well into it, was so scared that -he locked himself into his cabin and was fed through the skylight for a -week! - -Another old whaler (I mean this time a man of thirty-five) I met -in Lerwick. I heard he wanted to see me, for he said he had been a -“shipmate” of mine; “shipmate” to one who only plays hide-and-seek with -the sea sounded rather pleasant, so we shook hands very heartily for a -few seconds, but we had no time for a “gam,” for I had to go about our -business with these horrid Custom affairs. He seemed to be doing well; -he had some harbour office and was neatly dressed—his name was Tulloch. I -must meet him again and have a yarn when there is more leisure. - -We have additional worry here besides the registration. We have to have -our vessel remeasured to satisfy our Board of Trade. I fear it gave the -registrar some trouble to come from Aberdeen in rough weather, and he was -very sick; if his eye ever falls on these lines, here are my thanks and -sympathy. If we had gone to him at Aberdeen he would have put us into dry -dock and kept us for weeks, but here we knew there were no dry docks. - -At this point in our proceedings the writer left the St Ebba and took -the high road over the island, and left the measurement business to -Henriksen, for that is a matter that required tact and patience rather -than the English language. I went to see my friend R. C. Haldane, who has -the property of Lochend on Colla Firth, also to see our Alexandra whaling -station there, of which this writer is a Director. I hardly dare mention -this in Lerwick for the herring-fishers are jealous of whalers—whaling, -they say, has spoiled their herring-fishing—and yet the herring-fishing -is better than it ever was! The fact is, if the Man in the Moon made a -half-penny more than they did, at his trade, which I am told is cutting -sticks, they would eat their fingers off. Being numerically superior to -us whalers they carry the vote—and so _our Government has forbidden us -to kill whales within forty miles of our Shetland shores during the best -of the season, whilst any Dane, Dago or Dutchman may kill them up to the -three-mile limit_! - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -I have just come over the island and on board ship after a week-end -trip to the north of this main island to my friend R. C. Haldane, of -the distinguished family of that name, associated in historians’ minds -with Halfdan the Viking leader, and to newspaper readers with a younger -brother—late War Minister and present Lord Chancellor. I came over the -island in a single-cylinder motor-car, a splendid new departure for -these parts, over the windy, wet moorland track, four hours to do forty -miles, but what glorious speed compared with only the other day, when we -stiffened for long hours doing the same journey in a slow dog-cart. - -The old whaler, Magnus Andersen, took me off to St Ebba in the wind and -dark and splashing sea in a leaky cobble. - -How jolly and cheery it is to be back in the cosy, lamplit cabin. The -first mate is busy at his log, trying to write in English, and soon there -is the bump of a boat alongside, and down the companionway comes our -burly youth of a captain, and what a hearty handshake he gives, as if we -had been away for weeks, or months, instead of only a week-end: and we -compare notes. His day has been full to overflowing. - -He had prepared the fatted calf—tinned meat and fish balls and beer, -and whisky and soda, against the Board of Trade inspector’s visit for -measurement and registration; and then he turned out to be a teetotaller -and vegetarian! We had telegraphed to Aberdeen for this poor man and -he had torn himself from the bosom of his family, faced two days’ gale -and arrived white as paper and rather on edge. But he was profoundly -clever, all admitted that, and he was impressed with Henriksen’s books -in the cabin, three big shelves, all of them scientific sea-books, and -directories. And he said: “Where are the novels?” And there were none! -At least there were none visible. I have two or three about heroes and -heroines of Park Lane and country mansions, into which I sometimes dip -a little just to give renewed zest for the wide horizon and the tang of -wind and sea out-by. And he measured this and that, and, much to our joy, -he practically accepted the Norwegian Lloyd registration, and put us down -at sixty-nine tons instead of a larger figure, which we feared; now, -registered as under seventy tons we need not have pilots, and we save in -many ways on entering port. - -Sunday afternoon with Norwegians is a playtime and holiday, so our master -and mates and engineers had a Saturnalia of shag or cormorant shooting -and rather shocked the natives of Lerwick who heard the shooting. Our -men rejoice more heartily at banging down these marauders than you and -I, gentle reader, would rejoice at clawing down the highest birds in -Britain, and we all eat them. To cook them, we skin them first, then lay -breast and limbs, without the back, in vinegar and water for a night, and -wash them in milk and water next morning, then they are stewed; there is -a good deal of trouble taken with the cooking, and when done they are -extremely bad to eat! - -My Sunday, however, was passed in unbroken peace and quiet at Lochend -on the west of Shetland. There is a silence at Lochend and on the -silvery shingle beach, and over the crystalline rippling green bay -that is astounding; a bee humming over the patch of yellow oats sounds -quite loud, and a collie barking in the distance beside one of the grey -thatched cottages sounds quite close. Haldane’s white, thick-walled stone -house looks out on to a silvery shingle that makes a perfect crescent -between a fresh-water lake of brown peaty water and the sea-loch where -the water is green above the white sand, and purple above tangle. - -Ah! the purity of the air there, with its scent of peat! How I have -longed for it in town, and even in warm South Norway counted on breathing -it again, and at every breath thanked heaven for its restorative energy. -The morning dive was past expectation—how the Shetland sea makes the -blood tingle and the skin glow! And the contrast from the outside -keen air, after days buffeting on the North Atlantic or North Sea, -to come into the warm stone house, to sit by the glowing peats and -coal, surrounded by books of travel, illuminated missals and natural -history, to read or to listen to my host telling tales of the times of -our fathers, told as they told them, without haste and with exquisite -inflection and skill in picturing peoples and places at home or abroad. - -One family story he told me should be of national, or even international -interest, so I must make it a classic. It was in the first days of trains -in this country that my host and his brother were coming back to school -in Edinburgh from Cloan in Perthshire with their father. The father was -considered a splendid traveller, for he could actually sleep in these -Early-Victorian carriages! As he lay asleep with a red rug drawn over -him—which Haldane says figures largely in his boyish recollections—he -and his brother plugged cattle and engine-drivers and various things as -they passed, or at the stations, with their catapults, till at Larbert -old Haldane awakened and saw the instruments and asked the boys what they -were. “Never had such things when I was a boy,” he said. They explained -to him how to fit a stone into the leather, and he did so and held the -catapult out of the window and let fly, and with inexpressible joy the -boys watched the stone go hurtling into the centre of the stationmaster’s -window. Old Haldane promptly pulled the red plaid over his head, and out -came the wrathful stationmaster, and the guard, and a boy clerk, who -took them to the Haldane carriage. Wrathfully the stationmaster pulled -open the door, and met the gaze of the cherubic innocents. Then angrily -he pulled the red rug aside and disclosed the stem, judicial features of -Haldane senior. - -“How dare you, sir, disturb me in this rude manner?” he demanded of the -guard he knew so well, and “Och, sir! Save us!—It’s you, Mr Haldane! -A’ maist humbly apologise. A’ maun hae made a mistake,” and he bustled -away, angrily elbowing the boy clerk and muttering: “Yon’s Mr Haldane, ye -fuil, ye gowk, Haldane o’ Cloan, yin o’ the biggest shareholders o’ the -Company.” “Ye may ca’ him what ye like,” said the clerk, “but A’ saw him -let flee yon stane.” - -As the train proceeded, Haldane _père_ emerged from the red rug again and -the three laughed long and loud, and the juniors told their father more -about catties and what they did with them at school. And this led to talk -of fights, and they asked their father if he ever fought at school, and -he confessed to having done so and pointed to two metal teeth, mark of -an ancient fray or “bicker” between the Edinburgh Academy boys and the -boys of the Old Town on the mound. It is at this point that this domestic -tale becomes of national interest, for the present Viscount and our Lord -Chancellor appears on the scene; he was much the junior of these two -elder brothers, and soon after this, when they had all got back to their -respective schools, “Campy” and his brother asked Bob, the Benjamin, if -he ever had a fight, and jeered at him for being at such a school where -they didn’t fight—I forget which it was, possibly Henderson’s, and he -replied that they were taught at school that it was very wrong to fight, -and they referred to the two metal teeth of their father, and gentle -Bobby went away thinking. A few days later he came home from school with -two black eyes, and his poor little nose pointing north by south, and -Lispeth, the old family nurse, was nearly broken-hearted. “Oh, wae’s me, -puir wee lambie, wha’s gaun an’ made sic a sicht o’ ma bonnie wee bairn?” -And he explained. He was top of his class, and “I thought I ought to -fight, so I looked at the other boys, and there was one long one, at the -bottom of the class, and I just gave him one on the eye—and he licked -me.” And there were poultices applied to the black eyes—and his nose you -have seen—and much pity from Lispeth for her bonnie wee laddie. - -So the elder brother, R. C. Haldane, after travelling the wide world -o’er, has found the most quiet, most restful spot in Ultima Thule, and -the youngest is, we trust, still fighting for universal service, we -trust, in London, England. - -On this Haldane senior’s property we have the land station of our -little whaling company, the Alexandra Company, which by our Government -is allowed to run two small whaling steamers only, and incidentally to -employ many Shetlanders at 23s. a week. More steamers we may not have. -Ask herring-fishers why we may not! - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -Perhaps it will be as well for me to hark back here and make some -extracts from my last year’s whaling log and sketch-books, for who knows -when this St Ebba will fall in with whales; in this way the reader will -the sooner be made acquainted with the procedure in “Modern Whaling.” - -The extracts that follow have appeared in magazines—in The Nineteenth -Century, The Scottish Field, and in Chambers’s Magazine, and Badminton, -but possibly the reader may not have seen them; and I am sure that the -illustrations have not yet been submitted to the criticism of the general -public. - -The first begins one evening in June a year or two ago, when we were -fishing sea-trout in the Voe at Lochend, beside our whaling station, -putting in the time till our whaler came in from the outer sea. - - * * * * * - -On the evening of the second day of waiting a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked -boy with great grey eyes and a ragged red waistcoat came down from the -hill bare-footed and breathless, and said: “She is there!” and went off -in astonishment at the unfamiliar silver. Then we got our bag down to the -shore and waited for the smoke above the headland which would tell us -that our little steam-whaler had been into the Colla Firth station and -had left the last captured whale there, had taken coal on board, and was -coming out again for the high seas. - -Henriksen has heard of our arrival and, as she swings into the bay in -front of Haldane’s house down comes her pram, and two Norsemen come off -in it and take the writer on board. - -Ah! it is good to feel again the rolling deck, on “the road to freedom -and to peace,” to the open sea and big hunting, and to read in a note -from the Works Manager that we have at last to act as harpooneer. - -Yell Sound is calm as a mill-pond, with swiftly running tides as we go -south and east past the Outer Skerries. We aim at a latitude N.E. of the -Shetlands beyond the “forty-mile whaling limit” made against British -whalers only. - -Even with a glassy calm a steam-whaler has a rolling send. She seems -to make her own swell to plunge over, but it’s a silky, quick, silent -motion that, once accustomed to, you never notice; though old seamen are -prostrated with it when they first experience it. Round about the islands -we see many seals and an endless variety of divers and other sea-birds -and some herring-hog or springers, a small finner whale (Balænoptera -Vaga), and porpoises in great numbers, so we practise swinging and aiming -our gun in the bows at them, against the time when we have to fire at the -mighty Fin whale (A), Blue whale (B), Seihvale (C), Nord Capper (D), or -Sperm (E),[3] for even Sperm and the Nord Capper we have killed in the -last two years off the Shetlands, yet the Nord Capper or Atlantic Right -whale, Biscayensis, was supposed to be extinct! and the sperm or cachalot -is a warm-water whale and only occasionally is found as far north as the -Northern Shetlands, or as far south as the South Shetlands south of Cape -Horn. - -The modern whale gun or swivel cannon is on the steamer’s bow and is -swung in any direction by a pistol grip. It weighs about two tons, but it -is well balanced when it has the one-and-a-half hundredweight harpoon in -it so that a hefty man can swing it fairly easily in any direction. The -difficulty for the landsman shooting is, of course, in his sea-legs—you -must be absolutely unconscious of them and of the vessel’s movement, or -of pitch and roll, and the wet of cold, bursting seas that may come over -you at any time in the pursuit; but, given good sea-legs and indifference -to a wetting, and there is nothing in ordinary circumstances to prevent, -say, a fairly quick pistol shot from killing his whale, a certain amount -of strength and nerve is required for the final lancing from the pram -or small boat, but that is seldom done nowadays, for a second or third -harpoon is usually resorted to, as being more effective and less risky. - -At midnight we turn in with regret from the pink light and calm sea, for -Henriksen the master, and the writer, have much to talk of about whales -in other seas; but a few hours’ sleep we must have if we are to be steady -in the morning. - -You turn in “all standing” on a whaler, you have no time to dress when -the call comes; so much time is saved out north-east. At three A.M. -perhaps you tumble out, there is enough daylight to read by all night, -but between eleven and twelve, and three o’clock, you are pretty safe to -have a nap, for you cannot then see a whale’s blast beyond a mile or two. - -We are now (five A.M.) going N.E.—a lovely smooth sea—nothing more -idyllic we think than at five in the morning to be steadily pegging -away over the silky swell seventy miles north of the Shetlands into the -sunrise on a warm morning, watching the circle of horizon for a blow. One -man is in the crow’s nest on our short foremast, another at the wheel, -and you lie your length on the bridge, on the long chest used for the -side lights, which of course are never used here, with glass in hand, -watching. The gun is ready in the bow, and the harpoon and line are all -in order. There is no hurry for a blow, you have to-day, and to-morrow, -and the next day before you to hunt in, food and fuel for a week, and the -wide sea to roam over in what direction you please, towards whichever -cloud castle you choose, and if rough weather comes, you are confident -your little ninety-five-foot whaler will ride out anything, if she is not -pressed. - -It is turning out a beast of a morning for whaling. Oily calm but a lumpy -swell, making us crash about, and never a blow in sight; I have been -handling gun for practice, an excellent opportunity in this swell from -the N.W. crossing the swell from N.E., the gun muzzle yaws a bit and -our feet are apt to be insecure on the little platform in the bows, and -there is nothing to hold on to but the pistol grip of the gun. We pursue -our north-easterly course, then go at forty-five degrees, say ten miles -N., then say ten miles N.E. again, a simple way of keeping our position -on the chart. Of course whenever there is anything like “a blow,” we -swing about in that direction; rather a charming feeling after the usual -experiences of travelling at sea in one dead straight line. It makes you -feel as if the ocean really belonged to you, and you are not merely a -ticketed passenger sent off by the time-table. - -In the forenoon we fall in with three whalers from Olna Firth, the -station of the Salvesens of Leith, and all of his had been scouting in -different directions, over hundreds of miles, and not one had seen a -spout, and yet where we are, there were numerous whales only a few days -ago. Like trout, whales seem to be unaccountably on the rise one day, and -utterly disappear the next. So we resort to music and painting. Henriksen -plays Grieg on the weather-worn melodeon and the artist paints sea -studies. - -At twelve comes a meal, usually called _middag-mad_ on a Norse whaler, -Henriksen calls it tiffen. It is simple enough—a deep soup plate of hasty -pudding (flour and water boiled), on this you spread sugar half-an-inch -thick, and then half-a-packet of cinnamon, on your left you have a mug -of tinned milk and water, on your right a spoon, and you buckle to and -eat perhaps half-way through or till you feel tired; it is awfully good; -then you eat smoked raw herrings in oil from a large tin, black bread, -margarine and coffee, such good coffee. I’d defy anyone to be hungry -afterwards or ill-content. Dolphins pass us and we pick up a drifting -rudder. Henriksen sniffs at its workmanship and says: “Made in Shetland,” -so I quote the Norse saying: “The family is the worst, as the fox said of -the red dog.” - -However, I suppose we will stay out till we do find whales or finish -coal. It almost looks as if whales could stay below and sleep. One day’s -blank waiting seems a long time from three A.M. to eleven or twelve -P.M. We growl together on the bridge, skipper, self, man at wheel and -the cook. There is no hard-and-fast distinction of rank on a Norwegian -whaler’s bridge, and Henriksen counts up our mileage, one hundred and -sixty-nine since last night. “We might be having cream and fruit in -Bergen,” he remarks; we are about half-way across, and we all wish we -were there. Henriksen says, by way of consolation: “Well, I was once six -months whaling for Japs off the Korean coast, and I never saw a fin, and -fine weather just like this”; and I tell him of our being surrounded in -the Antarctic with hundreds of whales up to and over a hundred feet in -length without sufficiently strong tackle to catch them; don’t we both -long for one of these huge Southern fellows in this empty ocean. - -At evening meal, or _aften-mad_, are potatoes, tinned meat and anchovies, -bread, butter and coffee, and we feel vexed that we do not have whale -steak and onions as we expected. The cook explains that owing to warm -weather his last supply went bad, a grievous disappointment, for whale -meat is worth travelling far to eat[4]; it is superior to the best beef, -in this way, that after eating it you always feel inclined for more. The -evening we wiled away by making an invention to kill mackerel, of course -keeping a keen watch all the time for a blow. Mackerel shoals appeared -in every direction in patches, rippling the smooth sea for miles. Our -plan, inside the three-mile limit may sound infernal; a hundred miles out -it didn’t seem so wicked, especially as we had keen appetites for fresh -fish. We filled a quart bottle half full of gunpowder, put a cork and -foot of fuse into it, slung a piece of iron under it, lit the fuse and -dropped it into a shoal of mackerel, and sheered off. The result ought -to have been lots of stunned fish. A little thread of smoke came quietly -up through the falling sea—and then—nothing happened!—a faulty fuse, we -supposed. We tried a dynamite cartridge and fuse later, but the fish had -gone, and of course, it went off; and gave our little whaler a knock -underneath as if with a hammer, then we hove to, and all went asleep, and -the Haldane watched alone in the half light of the Northern night for a -few hours. - -At three A.M. Sunday, we were under steam again, the day very grey and -the wind rising slightly from W. by S. “Like to be vind,” said a young, -blue-eyed Viking with long fair hair and a two-weeks’ beard, but I -doubted it; youth is apprehensive or too sanguine—age is indifferent. -Which is best? - -[Illustration: MOUTH OF A FINNER WHALE - -Showing the hairy surface of the whalebone plates on the palate.] - -We are heading west again, east to west and back again and north and -south, we go in any direction we fancy, but never a whale, so the -Sabbath is devoted to the melodeon and painting. We have a book to read -but the cloud pictures and their reflections always take our eyes from -the print. - -So we live on a whaler, in old clothes, seldom changed. I think we -rather affect worn, patched clothes. Our cook or steward, a man of -means, I have no doubt, in his own country, has a faded blue jersey, the -darning of which must have pleasingly occupied many of the few hours of -leisure he has on board, and the men, too, have most artistic patches -on their clothes. They differ from their superior the skipper in that -their coats are torn and darned, and his is torn and not darned. The -writer’s is neither, but will be shortly, and the crease in the trousers -is a memory; it goes soon on a whaler, where you waste no time changing -clothes—certainly not oftener than once a week. But, though we are -roughly clad, we have Grieg’s music, rye bread, and whale meat, luxuries -we often have to do without on shore; the black-bread Socialists will -have none of it, and the meat for which the Japs, even for the fat, pay -twenty-five cents a pound. - -The melodeon player’s biography would make good MS. He is young and big, -weaned from shore to sea by his skipper father at thirteen; master’s -certificate at seventeen; then mate on a sailing ship to the Colonies; -master and gunner on a Japanese whaler; twenty pounds a month; seven -pounds for each whale and all found; large pay in Norway; purchaser -of his own island; farm, wife, three children; a sixteen-hand fast -trotter, sleighs, guns, rifles; six months on shore; six at sea; youth -and exuberant spirits and as keen about securing a guillemot for the pot -as for a four-hundred-pound sterling Nord Capper.... The day passes and -it seems as hopeless as ever, but I find Henriksen knows some useful -fo’c’sle language for the relief of feelings; it gives a little lurid -colour to the otherwise monotonous soft pigeon-grey landscape. - -For hours at a time the fascination of watching the horizon for a blow -is enough to keep one’s mind fully occupied, but at length and at last -the writer begins to count painting and reading as of equal interest—a -deplorable state of affairs. It is almost hopeless, from a whaling point -of view, so we are going to give up this ocean north-east of Shetland, -and go south-westwards some seventy-five miles till we see the Flugga -Lighthouse, thence we will make a new departure and go and have a cast in -the North-West Atlantic. - -Ah! but I have hopes—there were big finners in families out there last -year, at about this time they came up from the south, possibly from even -south of the Line. I remember the oldest members were very exclusive, -but some of the younger people made our acquaintance. There was one, an -island!—may I have a shot at it is my prayer, then would there be some -real interest in life for us all. - -So we practically put in the Sunday without work, only watch and hope, -and make a passage; but the two engineers and two boy stokers work. One -of the stokers looked as if he did so hate work this morning—came on deck -with his black face disfigured with an expression that meant: “I could -kill anyone if I was strong enough!” He is such a sleeper that Larsen, -his master, to waken him, took down the foghorn in the small hours and -blared it into his ears. Henriksen in the chart-house where he sleeps, -jumped at the sound, and I too, sleeping aft over the rudder, dreamt I -heard the sweet note. - -It is a curious little family party we are; bit by bit, I begin to know -about the individual, gentle, blue-eyed Vikings, about their farms, and -boats, at home; for farms and even sheep have a certain interest at sea, -when you are not watching for whales. - -One of them, a long, young man, with pale eyes and three or four fair -hairs on his chin, has such a kind expression, and a stutter! It is -the funniest thing in the world, in the beginning or the middle of -a chase, if he is at the wheel, to listen to him, as he tackles the -speaking tube. He spits hurriedly, then in a sing-song note, he says: -“F-f-ulls-s-speed,” twists the wheel and spits again, saying some Norse -expression for “Tut-tut” or “Oh, bother,” and then the same performance -at “S-s-saghte” (_i.e._ Slowly). Finally he gives up stuttering words -down the tube and resorts to the engine-room bell for signalling. - -I have already touched on the interesting subject of meals on a -whaler; I have known one begin at five P.M. and finish at eleven P.M., -the prolongation being the result of frequent dashes from the minute -mess-room to the gun platform in bows or to the bridge, in the immediate -prospect of getting alongside a whale. To-day we begin our midday meal -at the sweet end—why, the Norse only know!—prunes and rice, winding up -with tinned herrings and coffee. After food we studied Art, did bits of -sea from the bridge and pretty faces from fancy, the skipper played on -the melodeon, and we exhibited in the chart-room, and each of the unshorn -Vikings as he came to the bridge for his trick at the wheel or on one -excuse or another came in and looked long and admiringly. Of course I had -painted to the gallery—the girls had blue eyes and fair hair, the colours -of birch bark, the silvery harmonies of nature beloved by the Norse and -the artist. - -At three in the afternoon we got sight of the Shetlands and Flugga to the -west, and made a new departure to the N.W. We were only three miles south -of our dead reckoning; not so bad, after several days lying hove to, and -dodging about in all directions, with neither sextant nor chronometer; -a chronometer gets knocked out of time in such a small craft with the -shock from the gun. Towards night the Haldane’s engines slowly stopped -in accordance with orders; which orders our friend the stutterer at the -wheel did not know about, and his muttered imprecations on the lazy -engineer stopping, as he thought, for a rest, made us all on the bridge, -skipper, steward, and two of the crew, laugh till the tears came! a -little goes such a long way at sea in the way of a jest (in fine weather). - -So we lash the wheel to windward and roll about just over that scandalous -limit line—forty miles N. of Shetland—inside of which any foreigner may -whale, but we may not! We have seen nothing for twenty-four hours and -the sea is as empty as the Sahara of herring-boats; the crew have three -hours’ sleep. - -Monday, 4th July, three A.M. A most bilious morning, enough to make a -seagull ill or upset the hardiest shell-back; the world seems just a bag -of hard wind and cold water, squalls, and scraps of rainbow, and tossing -seas, with the eerie sough in our scanty wire rigging. We bury our bows. -For five minutes our faces pour with rain and spray, the next five we dry -and shiver in the cold and early sun, and vainly search the horizon for a -whale. We think, almost with regret, of warm rooms in town in the South. -There is no rest anywhere, aft or forward, or on the bridge, and we plug -on northwards, and there’s never a blow anywhere in this useless bit of -the world. It requires extreme æstheticism to see beauty in such cold -water and sky, and hope to see sunshine through these squalls. We peg -away in silence; yesterday, we could talk; to-day it is too cold. We bury -our hands in our pockets and weep with the sting in our eyes. Yesterday, -we discussed, as far as we could, the reason why whales suddenly will not -rise; like trout, they do so one day and not the next, but unlike the -trout-fisher, who is usually ready with a theory to explain the lethargy -of trout, our Norse whaler simply says: “I doan know; der yesterday now -gone; vee go vest hoondred twenty mile p’r’aps vee find ’em der.” - -By midday we are thirty miles beyond the limit and are going west, and -the day seems to have regretted its angry rising and is now making amends -to us by putting on all its best things. The colour of the water has -turned from dull lead to sunny emerald-green with belts of purple, and -over it all is a lacework of lavender, the tracery of reflected sky, -picked here and there with white sea caps. A jolly exhilarating sea -occasionally comes on board, and rollicks sparkling round our deck, full -of good intention, and we make it welcome and enjoy it, and let bygones -be bygones and pretend to forget it is not always in such a jolly mood. - -I knew we would get sun and warmth out N.W.; there is a space of ocean if -you can only find it just between W. and E. that is always sunny and full -of whales. I know it, but cannot give exact latitude and longitude; that -is why it is so hard to find, but you are sure to strike it in time; so -probably we will do so again to-day. We are getting the sun now, we only -need the whales, and a little less sea for pleasure and comfort. - -[Illustration: LEAVING OUR TWO WHALES AT THE STATION] - -[Illustration: A FINNER WHALE BEING CUT UP - -Commencing to cut strips of the blubber with a flensing knife. The -blubber is being pulled away as the man cuts by a chain and steam winch.] - -The writer and the skipper were discussing the colours of the sea; -Henriksen, unlike the average whaler, does not despise things æsthetic; -on the contrary, he takes delighted interest in Nature’s picture-book. As -we painted, and discussed how to get this effect, and the other, there -came from the crow’s nest the welcome cry of “A blast!” and the response -from the bridge: “How far?” We were bowling south with a blustering, -following wind, really too rough for whaling, for the sea made us yaw -this way and that. However, there was no choice; there was half-a-chance -and it was not to be missed. It did not turn out to be a long chase; it -was a solitary finner and we swung after his first blow a mile to port -and at his third blow were within a quarter of a mile. Then he sounded, -and in twenty minutes came up again and blew a twenty-foot blast of -steam into the bright windy air. Again we pursued and were nearly in -shot at his second blast, and were following him north against the sea -with the foam coming splendidly over us at every dive, making one fairly -gasp with excitement and cold, but feet and legs held good; they shake -a little, we notice, whilst we look on at another gunner. We were all -wrong at the third rise; a mile out and very disappointed, then, to our -astonishment, three minutes after appeared a blast to leeward, and the -huge, plum-coloured shoulders of a leviathan coming right across our -course—the same whale or another we could not tell. A turn of the engine -then “Saghte” (Slowly), and we surged ahead, rising and falling on the -far too big waves. Then a strange and rare sight came; owing to the -position of the sun, the light shone right into the banks of waves, and -inside one and along it, we obtained a splendid full-length view of the -whale under the greeny water looking almost yellow and white. We have -only on very few occasions obtained such a complete view of a whale, when -looking down on one, but in this case, it was a complete side view. Up we -rose in a thirty-foot surge, and the top of his dark shiny head appeared, -up rushed the blast, and over went his enormous back. How we wished it -was higher out of the water. As we plunged down a wave its back showed -at its highest, and we pulled the trigger, aiming almost uphill as we -plunged our bows under. It was a longer shot than usual, about forty -yards and in rougher weather, and the harpoon plunged in at the centre of -the target! What a boom and whirl of rope and smoke, and what a glorious -moment of suspense and then intense satisfaction when the great line -tautened up and began to run—some excuse for a wave of the cap. - -[Illustration: Harpooning a Whale] - -But wait...! What is this? the line is suddenly slack. There was no -miss—what has happened we cannot tell. All we can do is to wind up—we -have lost him, somehow or other! - -I know men who feel almost relieved at missing a whale, for they say -they have had the hunt, which is better than the actual harpooning, and -after-play, and so I have heard some salmon-fishers talk, who say they -hook their salmon, then hand the rod to their gillie. Not so with the -writer; one part of whaling or fishing is as good as the other to me, and -to harpoon your whale and lose it is too distressing for words. - -At last the harpoon comes on board—the flanges have never opened!—there -is flesh on them, and a foot up the shaft—two and a half feet it had -entered, and yet came out! possibly the marlin round the flanges was too -strong to allow of them spreading. Possibly the explosive point made too -great a hole and allowed the flashes to miss their anchoring hold. It was -bad luck for us and for the whale. Our leviathan disappeared and we wound -up, very melancholy.[5] A slight consolation was that a neighbouring -whaler was seen to fire at another whale; we heard the boom and saw the -smoke, and nothing more—she had made a clean miss! probably owing to the -roughness of the sea. - -[Illustration: View of Whale under Water] - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -The solitary finner we hunted disappeared, and we hunted for hours -towards heavy purple clouds in the S.W., and the sea seemed deserted as -before, till towards six o’clock we saw a blow, and soon after saw the -crow’s nest of a whaler above the horizon; she appeared to be working to -and fro as if hunting a whale. - -In half-an-hour we were amongst great large whales! and began the most -spectacular whale-hunt we have ever seen. For two and a half days we -had hunted blank, lifeless ocean, then, without rhyme or reason, it was -brimming with life! An indigo bank of cloud there was for background, a -complete vivid rainbow against that—beneath it the swelling seas, dark -green with purple lights and white foam, with here and there whales’ -white blasts catching the western sun from a score or fifty enormous -finners. In every direction were dolphins with yellow and white stripes, -and porpoises spurting water up like cannon shots as they dived; overhead -were petrels and dark skuas. The whales’ plum-coloured backs caught the -western light and reflected the sky on their upper surface in tints -of lavender as they rose, glittering and powerful, in green and white -foaming water, thousands of pounds sterling, and millions of horse-power, -in groups of three or four surging along beside each other, east and -west, sending up mighty jets of steam, to be carried away in the wind. - -As we went in chase of a group of these we saw the other whaler was fast -to a whale, over which she apparently had no control. - -[Illustration: TOWING A WHALE - -The top plate shows a fluke, that is, one half of a whale’s tail, -fastened by a chain to the bows. This is cut away to prevent resistance -to the water. Note the gun and harpoon on the bows. - -The middle plate shows two 5½″ lines attached to a whale. - -The bottom plate shows the double-barrelled winch and line and grooved -wheel on which the hard wood brake acts.] - -The whales were feeding, but travelling so fast that we could not come up -with them, so we cut across their course, and dozens of times we thought -we were going to get our chance. Then other bigger whales crossed, and -we gave up the first lot and went plunging after the others, throwing -up grand showers of foam over our bows and oilskins. But cold and wet -you do not think of, with seventy or eighty tons charging in front of -you and the chance of getting in the harpoon any moment. For several -hours we chased in this wonderful piece of sea, so brimful of life, but -the whales dodged about at a most unusual rate; possibly their rapidity -of motion was caused by the host of dolphins and porpoises that leapt -alongside them and crossed their course; and for all these hours we could -occasionally descry our neighbour through the rain showers and failing -light, still in tow of her prey. Not till about nine o’clock did she fire -a second gun and we hoped she had got in another harpoon to finish her -prolonged fight. - -Often we were close to a whale but not in such a position as to be able -to swing the gun towards it. For some time a huge fellow surged close -alongside within one or two feet of our starboard beam and never touched -us. I think they must have a sense by which they can judge their distance -from a vessel’s or boat’s side or ice: one can hardly believe they judge -the distance by the eye alone. - -At about ten o’clock our real chance came—we crashed down from a high sea -almost on top of a whale as it rose unexpectedly, but it was too close, -we could not depress the gun enough to get the foresight on, but the next -rise, the moment after its blast we were high in air and let drive as we -came down and were fast and sure. - -I do not know how to describe the grand rush of a huge whale or that -fractional pause of uncertainty after the boom and smoke and flame and -the whirl of great rope. It is heart-stopping, almost solemn. You watch -the seething black boil where the whale has gone down, with small flecks -of scarlet in it, and the great cable fading down into the depths, and -the gun-wads smoking on the water. Then off goes the cable to right or -left! Sixty to seventy miles an hour, cutting the water into foam, and we -swing into the course of the whale. Before going fairly in tow on this -occasion, an unusual thing happened. The whale’s huge head, immediately -after it sounded, suddenly shot up twenty yards in front of our bows, -twenty feet in the air, and went as quickly down. We were glad it had -not touched us, or we would have had quick work to get into our boat, and -our little steamer would have made a deep-sea sounding. - -About three hundred and sixty fathoms ran out before we saw further -sign; running over the two ringing barrels of our strong steam winch, -five times round each barrel with the brake such as you see on a railway -engine wheel hard down and burning; then foam appeared a quarter of a -mile in front, and our whale’s flippers, then the mighty flukes of its -enormous tail, slowly threshing the sea into white. To right and left -it travelled, towing us ahead whilst our engine reversed at eight knots -but not for long. We managed to wind up some line and got the gun loaded -again, thinking it might take another harpoon to stop it, for lancing -from the small boat in such a heavy sea would have been too dangerous, -even if possible. - -It was a short fight. At ten-thirty we harpooned it; at eleven-thirty -we had it alongside; a weight and line thrown over its tail; took out a -heavy chain which was shackled round above the tail and hauled by the -steam winch to our port bow beside the anchor davit, then with the huge -body with its lovely white corded underside above water surging alongside -we steamed ahead. It seemed to be about seventy feet and would probably -weigh about seventy tons, and it made us lie well over to port. To float -it a little higher out of the water, we drove a pointed tube with holes -in its side through the white kid skin, and blew in air and steam. We -began our day’s hunting at three A.M. and wound up and started home at -eleven-twenty P.M. We have to go, without waiting for another whale, for -we fear the station hands may be standing idle and we have ninety miles -to cover at not much more than six miles an hour, for the dead whale -alongside stops our speed. - -No two whale hunts are alike; one trip you come home with a “clean -ship” and empty bunkers, the next you get two or even three whales in a -couple of days and come home at once and give all hands, Shetlanders and -Norsemen on shore, work for night and day.[6] Here we consider three in -a day for one steamer a big catch. - -Another Government regulation restricts our number of steamers and we are -allowed to have only two, so that often it happens, owing to our only -having two steamers and both of them being out hunting, our station hands -stand idle, but the restrictions put on this new industry by official -“experts” at home and in our colonies, who have only recently learned -that this whaling exists, make too tearful a subject to insist on here. - -During a summer season, our Shetland station, with only two steamers, may -catch from seventy to one hundred. There are any number of whales, but -they are becoming every year more wary. Needless to say that a whale, if -it is frightened, cannot be approached. The whole of the whale’s body -is used. The best of the meat is sent to Copenhagen, bought by Danish -butchers at the stations for 18s. a barrel, sold at Copenhagen as a -delicacy at £9 a barrel. It is very good to eat—between beef and veal, -but rather better than either. The Japanese pay 25 cents a pound for it, -but we use it for fertilising fields. The oil extracted from the blubber, -meat and bone, sells now at about £4 a barrel; six barrels equal, -roughly, a ton (2240 lb.). But the value of whale oil is increasing owing -to the invention of a “hardening” process by which the oil is turned into -white tasteless edible fat excellent for cooking purposes. - -The Right Atlantic whale (Biscayensis), of which we get one or two in the -year, is worth £300 to £400, owing to its having good whalebone. What -we usually catch, “seihvale,” and “finners,” have only a little bone in -their jaws, worth about £30 per ton. The Greenland Right whale that used -to be fished had sometimes a ton of it, which a few years ago was worth -from £2000 to £3000. The prices fluctuate considerably. When this modern -whaling began oil went down £10 a ton; now, even though the production is -enormously increased, its value is £24 per ton, and will rise in a year -or two very much. - -In the north the largest whale we have killed was seventy-five feet in -length. But in the south, in the Antarctic regions, we have fired into -whales well over one hundred feet in length, and have heard from reliable -observers of whales killed and measured up to one hundred and twenty feet. - -To get the full value out of a whale it must be taken to a station on -shore or to a floating factory. After the blubber is removed thirty per -cent. more oil is obtained from the carcass by cooking the meat and bone -in huge tanks. This meat oil is twenty per cent. less in value than the -blubber oil. - -The residue of bone and meat is ground into guano, which fetches about £7 -per ton. This meat oil and guano together give an addition of more than -fifty per cent. to the value of the blubber alone. This guano is much -used in America for exhausted cotton soils, and I have been told that it -is beginning to be used for rubber estates. - -Before writing more about the cruise of the St Ebba, I may be allowed -to insert here another chapter of notes on modern whaling made on board -another whaler in these same seas—that is, to the north, east and west of -the Shetlands. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -Whaling has its seamy side. We met it outside the loch going up west of -Shetland—the wind had almost dropped, but the cross sea it left was as -if several Mulls of Cantire had been rolled together, and neither our -little whaler nor its crew liked it a bit. Rocky capes and islands were -blurred in mist and spouting foam, and sometimes obscured by passing rain -and hail showers. About eight or nine, morning, we were off Flugga, the -most northerly point of Britain’s possessions, and the weather was simply -beastly; by two in the afternoon, we were about sixty miles north-east, -in an intensely blue sea, with immense silky rollers, it might have been -in the N.E. Trades. It was just what I expected; thirty to forty miles -north of the islands you strike sun and clear sky—we always do, then go -west fifty miles and you come up against a curtain of rain. - -At three-five we are sloping along half-speed north-easterly over a -splendid silky swell, all our eyes sweeping the horizon. The boy beside -me at the wheel is the first to spot a blow, to which we promptly swing -our whaler, and immediately after, on the horizon, we discover the -faintest possible suggestion of a blow, a minute cloud hardly enough to -swear by, as big as the tip of a child’s little finger. It fades away -and we are sure it is the blow of some kind of whale, and the boy rings -up the engine-room and, grinning, shouts down the tube: “Megat Stor Nord -Capper, full speed!” This to make the stokers lay on, for a Nord Capper -means £1 apiece bounty money to each of our crew of ten men. - -At three-ten we begin the hunt; we go seven miles towards the first blow, -when there is a shout from the look-out in the crow’s nest, and we find -big spouts within a mile from our left. So the skipper goes forward to -his beloved rusted swivel gun or cannon, in his weathered green jacket, a -picturesque figure against the immense blue silky sunny swell. - -Five minutes the whale stays down, then comes up to starboard. “How -many were there?” says Jensen to the look-out in the crow’s nest. “Two -big and a calf.” Eight minutes they stay down and appear half-a-mile to -starboard; there is the lovely silence of a sailing-ship as we wait with -the engines stopped, studying fleecy clouds and the silky blue stripe our -track has left on the swell. It is this rapid contrast that gives the -charm to whaling—this morning, in hail and black-eyed sea, a blurred sea -and landscape of beaten cliffs and capes; this afternoon a wide horizon, -and not a ship in sight, the colour and width of it! But here he is! -He came up half-a-mile to port—appeared two or three times, at a few -seconds’ interval, then “tailed up,” that slow, farewell turn over of the -after part of the body as it goes down for a deep dive; and we follow its -general direction. In ten minutes he appears a mile to N.W. It is four -o’clock, the air S.W. and cold, and bright enough to be N.E. - -“Saghte!” (Norse for softly, slowly), he ought to be up soon.... 4.3 P.M. -There he is half-a-mile to east—we hear the blast. These North-Atlantic -whales don’t make half such a resonant loud blast as the Antarctic -whales ... another whale blowing to E. by S.... Four-twelve. Within two -hundred yards, a little to port—we follow, a stern chase—note blue sky -reflected on wet plum-coloured back ... within fifty yards when he made -his last dive, Jensen had the gun swung ... separate whale appears to the -right—very large ... nearly fired. Four-twenty. Behind, to port, we swing -round—we are lacing the rippling swell with blue silky bands—“Lord!” -there it is! at the second rise under our bow—BANG! - - * * * * * - -A splendid shot!—away goes the line at seventy miles the hour and we are -hauled quickly round, and are taken in tow eight miles an hour and the -engines going eight miles astern, if that is not exhilarating! - -Jensen wipes his nose on red handkerchief—the cook and engineer are -at the winch brakes—there is a thin furrow of Union Jack colours, red -blood, white foam in the blue of ocean—and the line still whirling out -at intervals. We “fish fine,” the casting line is sixty fathoms, the -rope four and a half inches in circumference, the finest Italian hemp -procurable, with a backing of two thousand one hundred and sixty-six -feet, five-and-half inches rope to port, and the same to starboard, a -total of eight thousand six hundred and twenty feet. The line passes five -times round the two barrels of a sixty-five horse-power winch. It is -“fine tackle” compared to the seventy or eighty ton fighting finner that -we are playing.... 4.25—not much line out, only about one thousand five -hundred feet—now we go more slowly in tow.—It was a well-placed shot ... -a few Mother Carey chickens come and some fulmar petrels, later a solan -goose!—there is a little blood now in its feeble blast, it thrashes with -its tail—more line going out—we go astern to drown it. The nose appears, -exactly the colour of a salmon at a distance—it turns over. 4.33—White -ribbed underside up—now it is dead and it sinks. The line is rove over -large iron snatch block[7] up the mast and the steam winch begins to -turn slowly, raising the whale from the depths; a slow, steady, funereal -clank; a great chain is manœuvred round the tail and it is hauled up to -the side of the bow by the winch; getting the tail chained up to the bow -is a complicated, heavy bit of seaman’s work. A magnificent and beautiful -thing is the tail in colour and form; so wide and big and yet so delicate -in design and finish and plum-like colour and so immensely strong. The -body swings alongside, the head reaches our stern quarters, the line is -cut clear of the harpoons in its body. 4.55—Two hours after we first -sighted the whale, a quick hunt, play, and kill. 5.3—Blowing it up and -off for second whale. - -Blowing up, as already described, is putting a hollow lance into whale -and blowing through it air and steam, which makes the body slightly more -buoyant and more easy to tow. - -5.30—Sight another whale. Meantime Jensen has been cleaning out the -whale gun on the bows with tow and cleaning rod and the charge is put -in, and the india-rubber wad driven home on top of three hundred and -eighty-five grammes of black powder. The second line from the port -side of the hold is made ready, and a new harpoon, one and a half -hundredweights, slung from the hold. The line is spliced to the twisted -wire grummet or ring that travels in a slot in the shaft of the harpoon, -which is rammed into the gun so that line and ring hang from the shaft -at the muzzle of the gun. Getting this done and putting chains and ropes -in order takes time and a considerable amount of work for five men, and -meanwhile we on the bridge are conscious, as we roll, of occasional -whiffs from the galley of roast whale steak and onions. For merit I place -caribou meat first, whale and black bear about equal, in second place, -and beef third. - -Five-forty-five. We have screwed on the explosive point to the harpoon -(over the time fuse), swung round the gun, and are off in pursuit of the -whale we sighted at five-thirty. By six-thirty he has appeared several -times, made two or three handsome blasts and gone down “tail up,” and we -followed, as we thought, in the direction he took, but he always appeared -right off our track. I use the term “tail up” not quite accurately here; -the expression really means the whole tail going into air as the whale -goes down for a long dive. In the case of these northern finners it is -generally only the part of the back next to the tail that is raised, not -the flukes, and this rising tells you the whale intends to go down deep -for twenty minutes or half-an-hour. “A wrong vone,” the engineer says—“he -be chased before.” You see the engineer, when his mate is below, joins in -the sport of watching, ahead, to port, to starboard and astern, and works -the winch when we are playing the fish; always there is work for all, and -little enough time for meals, if any. - -Whilst we roll about in the swell waiting for the leviathan to make our -closer acquaintance, I may relate some of the thrilling dangers with -which the track of the modern whaler is beset. Novel, unfamiliar dangers -must always make interesting reading when people are tired of hearing of -the risks we all run at any crossing as pedestrians or motorists. - -[Illustration: TWO WHALES BEING HAULED ON TO A SLIP - -The nearest whale is a Bull finner. A man is seated on the farthest. The -men in the foreground are cutting meat from the spine of a third whale.] - -Off Norway, several steam-whalers have had sea-water and daylight let -into them by careless whales, and a whale here, some years ago, when -the industry was new, took offence at being fired at, and flew at the -innocent little steamer (seventy tons solid life and energy against a -ninety-five-foot boat) with jaws wide open and generally chewed-up rails -and superstructures, so the owners hardly knew it when it came back to -the station. But whales are not in the habit of behaving like this. I did -myself, however, experience a mild charge last year; possibly the charge -was unintentional, but certainly the whale came straight at our starboard -bow, and had we not been quick enough to swing and depress the gun’s -muzzle and shoot at six yards, something might have happened; as it was -the whale came on and struck a dead whale we had alongside, and with its -impetus it gave our little ship a considerable dunt in the ribs. “If” it -had not been hit and “if” it had struck us a little harder, say twice, -we would have had to row home a hundred miles in the boats, which would -have been rather a come-down from steaming the wide seas o’er, on our -up-to-date little whaler, the Haldane of Colla Firth. - -“If” another whale a few nights ago had pulled a little harder, when it -suddenly changed from towing us forward to towing us astern, we might -have been quite upset, whereas we were only half-seas over. But alas, -there was a really very sad and dreadful experience here, two years ago. -Captain Torp, a fine man and a good gunner, fired at a whale and the -harpoon ricochetted, and three hundred and eighty-five grammes driving -a one-and-a-half-hundredweight harpoon burst the five-inch cable, and -the inside end came back and wound round him and broke him unspeakably -from head to foot, and yet he lived two days, and fourteen ounces of -chloroform had little effect. - -Then, too, one sometimes gets sunk whilst whaling. Casperg, a master -in Ronas Voe, our next-door station, had that experience—went down in -his cabin with pipe and tobacco pouch in hand, felt himself kicking the -rock with his sea-boots under the kelp before he had time to strike -a light. He came up all right, but four of his crew stayed down; that -was recently. And my friend Sorrensen, engineer of the Haldane, told me -comfortingly last year, as we chatted in the warm engine-room one dismal, -dark, rough night, when we were trying to find land, that on his last -whaling trip to Iceland, in making land in a gale of snow and wind, “on -a night like this,” he observed a large rock suddenly protrude itself -through his engine-room floor, which finished his trip for that year. -“Yes, yes, two tree skip do so,” he said. - -The wonder really is that more accidents are not met with. The whale’s -head is such a weight of bone; the pointed mass on the upper jaw or beak -meeting the huge bent bones of the lower make a most formidable ram. - -Another close shave there was the other day. A⸺ tried to lance a whale -in its death-struggle from the little steamer’s bows. We have tried this -ourselves with and without success. On this occasion the whale raised its -huge flipper, swung it across the gun at the bow, which was loaded with -the harpoon in it, and its muzzle was thrown round so heavily that the -harpoon was shot out on deck and the shell exploded. No one was hurt, but -A⸺’s oilskin coat had holes torn in it between his legs—and so on.... - -By eight P.M. we had eaten our whale steak (meals are at any hour or no -hour when you are whaling), discussed the latest type of whaler, Captain -Larsen’s three-gun boat, and had given up that wily old dodger of a -finner, and now we peg away over the blue sea to the N.E. The sun swings -round with us to dip quite near the north, whilst we wait and rest until -it comes up again in a few hours to form our gallery. True, we have -another companion beside the few petrels. The Busta, our sister ship, is -in the offing. She also has a whale alongside; we can make it out with -the glasses as she rises over a blue surge; and as I write, far to the -west I descry an almost invisible smoke, which I hope is a boat of our -Alexandra Company, the Queen, or the Haldane. - -[Illustration] - -At nine-thirty the sun slants below the horizon and the colour display -begins toning down to soft, warm light in the north and violet in the -south and west. It is very still, the only sound the surge of the water -over the white-ribbed flounces of our whale’s underside as it tows -alongside. We speak little; there is the skipper, and the man at the -wheel, on the bridge, and one above us in the crow’s nest; the rest are -sleeping below. It is the romantic, beautiful time at sea, formality -goes, we talk a little of home and families we have, or may have, and -the night, as it were, just droops her golden eyes, and in a very little -while raises them on another day, blue and fresh as ever, and we begin -another day’s hunting, to get, if we can, one more whale to tow to our -harbour in the south, there to provide work and pay for Shetlanders and -Norwegians, food for Danes and ourselves, and fertilisers for farmers’ -crops and cattle, each of which subjects could not be treated of in less -than a page of these notes for itself. But one word I may be allowed here -for readers who are interested in fertilisers for vegetables, and cattle -foods. For both these purposes the cooked and ground-down whale meat and -bone is invaluable, and it costs about one-sixth the price of ordinary -fertilisers—but beware, don’t use it for the latter purpose without -digging it into the soil. The gardener of my friend, C. A. Hamilton of -Dunmore, Stirlingshire, did so—put it on the top of the soil in a vinery, -and was “maist astonished.” “Ma gosh, Maister Hamilton,” he said, “you’d -hae thocht I’d plaunted pussey cawts!” it was so mouldy. The same worthy -used it properly for turnips, dug it in, and exhibited the result at the -local show, and was disqualified! The judge said: “Mon, it’s turnips is -the exheebut—yon’s no turnips—wha ever saw neips like that—they’re faur -ower big.” - - * * * * * - -A cool, sunny morning, with rolling glassy grey swell and warmer. We are -in tow of a large finner; we began to hunt a herd (pod is the old name, -it means a family party) at five-thirty. It has taken five hundred yards -out with several rapid rushes of forty to fifty miles an hour, and there -is a smell of the burning wood of the breaks; it is very quiet, Jensen -has come up beside me at the wheel. I noticed after the shot he again -rubbed his nose with the red handkerchief, a little nervous, colourful -touch. The whale blows occasionally and turns the swell into white and -red; it looks as if we must lance it from the small boat, or get another -harpoon in. It was a most interesting chase; five monsters blowing -half-a-mile apart seemed quite a crowd. We got in between two, feeding, -and after an hour’s hunt altogether one rose a few yards to starboard. -Jensen refused it, coolly waiting for the bigger one behind to come up in -front, to the left, and mercifully it did, slowly; you could see down its -blow hole, then its great back came out, and into, I think, its last ribs -the harpoon went, and at the wheel we were all in smoke and tow. The -smoke cleared and the wads lay in the swelling vortex the monster left, -and then the line rushed! - -[Illustration] - -Who can describe the heart-stopping thrill as the monster breaks the -surface within shot, only perhaps the dry-fly man, he must experience -exactly the same in a minute degree. - -But this whale will not die, we must lance it; an eighteen-foot spear -is the lance—half iron, half wood. The pram is swung out—we are dropped -half on top of our dead whale and slide off somehow. Jensen is handed the -lance and away we go, double sculls. Over the glassy rollers we go at -a good pace, the whale is six hundred yards away or more and wandering -from left to right, and ahead, in the deep swell, it seems as if it would -be a long business to get into reach. We back the stern in and Jensen -makes a great lunge and the spear goes in five feet and is twisted out -of his hand and the vast body rolls over, the tail rises up and up and -comes down in a sea of foam. We pull clear back in again at next rise and -draw the spear all bent, straighten it, and one more thrust finishes the -business and the whale spouts red and dies. - -It is a quarter to eight when we finally get the tail up to our port bow -and go off easterly; we must be seventy miles N.E. off the Shetland Isles. - -Whales seem to be such good beasts, and have such kind brown eyes—nothing -of the fish in them, and their colouring is that of all the sea; their -backs are grey-black to dove-colour, reflecting the blue of the sky, and -the white of their underside is like the white of a kid glove with the -faintest pink beneath, so white it makes the sea-foam look grey as it -washes across it to and fro, and the white changes to emerald-green in -the depths to the blue-green of an iceberg’s foot. It is strange that -this skin should be so extremely delicate in such a large animal; it is -too thin to be used as leather. - -Our first whale was fifty-four feet, say fifty tons, equal to twenty-five -to thirty barrels of oil. Second whale, seventy feet, say forty barrels -of oil. - -The second whale was a bull “fish,” according to S. Johnson of Fleet -Street, and the dark colouring came farther over the white corduroy -waistcoat than in the female. It is curious how the grey colour blends -into the white exactly as if it were drawn with a lead pencil on ivory -in perfect imitation of hair; from a few yards you think it is hair, for -its formation so resembles the lie of hair on other mammals. I have never -heard of this having been observed by naturalists. I am sure a Darwin -might make endless deductions from it, coupled with the belief of the old -neolithic Indians of Newfoundland that the caribou had gradually changed -into whales. The colour of the caribou is quite like the colour of these -Seihvale. But we must keep off speculations on the origin of species, -and these marks in particular, and the whale’s pedigree, opinions, and -domestic life. It is such a large subject, though fascinating. Many -authentic and startlingly new facts have been gathered since this modern -whaling began. For example, a whale was killed last year “wid six leetle -children in it.” This will rather astonish naturalists—it horrified a -Shetland lady in whose hearing a polite Norseman made the relation—but -that there were six embryos is a fact I vouch for. I hope some naturalist -of means will some day charter a vessel and suitable observers to make -a few years’ study of the subject round the world. H.S.H. the Prince of -Monaco has set the example, particularly in regard to the study of the -sperm whale. - -It was grey all day, grey sky reflected in lavender-grey water, the -surface hardly indicated till an endless shoal of dolphins came out from -the shadow of a cloud in the east. They were pretty enough to watch, but -we had little time for two finners led us miles here and there over the -ocean, but eluded us ever; we had little chance of circumventing them by -reason of our two whales in tow. We gave them up and went after spouts -like cannon shots against the dark rain-cloud to the east; and this time -cleared ourselves of our bag; slipped the heavy chains, fastened a buoy -with a tall flag to the two bodies and left them in charge of the Molly -Mawks or Fulmar Petrels. But the family of finners we pursued were very -wide awake, and though we pursued them for weary hours we never got quite -within shot, though dozens of times we whispered to ourselves “A certain -shot!” So with more trouble we took our two whales in tow again, and -left the gulls lamenting, for already they had begun to pick away the -delicate white skin. Then we “up sticked” and steered away south-west to -this sunny part of the sea, and dozed comfortably as we went, our best -speed about six knots, for home. - -A fisherman is not to be pitied coming home with seventy tons to port -and sixty to starboard, enjoying the sense of comfort and well-being -that comes after the first hardening days at sea, enjoying the pure air -and the scent of roasting coffee. We do ourselves well on our Norwegian -boats this year; at least the coffee is good. As we imbibe it and think -our sport is over, we come into warmer weather, a froth of soft white -and grey clouds reflected in the swell, two whalers on the horizon and -finners in sight. So it’s all alive-o! Off with the guns’ coverings—we -may have a third whale to show the girls on shore—(if there were any!). -And we chased these too in the silky silence of that space of sea and air -and reflections of fairy lands of softest, most pearly cumulus clouds -with only a spot of frosted blue overhead to give force to the faintest -yellow, the only sound, the soft thrum of our subdued screw beat and the -occasional surge as we crushed down on the glassy swell, and every now -and then the great deep, deep sigh of the seventy-ton finners rising in -front, alas always just out of reach. One of the whales bore a scar where -we think a harpoon had glanced off. The Fritjiof, a neighbour whaler, -also occupied this ocean chamber a few miles off and quietly went about -in tow of a whale; we saw her fire one shot and noted the colour of the -smoke, blue against her hull fading to rusty brown across the sky. She -had four lines into the beast when we called on her later, and chatted -across the swell to the harpooneer. - -Now we have again picked up our prey of dead whales and are toddling -home five to six miles an hour at full steam, and ought to be in by -dinner-time to-morrow, Wednesday—that is, twelve o’clock. - -Wednesday morning, it is, it must be! But it seems months since -Wednesday last week. Yesterday seemed a week, with its endless gallery -of magnificent sky and sea pictures. Now there is time for a shave and -a wash in the sun on the top of the engine-house. What intense luxury! -What joy to sit and shave and be unconscious of the roll, how superior -we feel compared to the townsmen who left Leith a week ago. There’s the -rush and sound of many waters over our whales on either side, the largest -a little less than our own length. All hands have an easy time. It takes -two watches (eight hours each) down the Shetland shore to our station, -and no whales about. Of course the land is clouded, and we regret that -sunny chamber to the N. and E. of Shetland. I speak to Jensen as we pass -the western cliffs and he verifies my experience; to the N.W. you come -against dark hangings of rain, N.E. you are in sun, back to land and you -are in clouds again. It is no wonder that sunny, crystalline stretch of -sea a hundred miles north of Flugga Light calls to one in town to go -a-whaling. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -Having put down these recent experiences of modern whaling, which, though -not exciting, may at least be instructive, let us return to follow the -fortunes of our patient whalers on the St Ebba. - -It is September now, and a Wednesday, and early and clear and cold, with -no gale, with just a ripple down Lerwick Bay; one or two people are -lighting their peat fires and the scent comes off to us on the pure, -almost wintry air, and we hoist the Union Jack astern though no one may -see it, and let steam into the steam donkey-engine, and up comes the -port anchor, then the starboard and there is a pause and a bell rings -for stand-by, then half-speed and clash goes the air pressure; then full -speed, and the motor settles down to its steady musical beat and hum. We -are becoming more easy in our minds now about our air compressor starting -the engine, but have not quite forgotten that failure down south-west of -Norway, in the heavy weather, and the subsequent twenty-four hours of -hand-pumping for air pressure to start the engine. - -Now we swing round and head south and east out of Lerwick Bay, past the -Bressay Light on our left, and then turn northwards towards Whalsey and -the Outer Skerries, making for Yell Sound and the west of Shetland for -whales, finners, rorquals or big cetaceans of any kind. I found on my -visit to the west coast of Shetland on Sunday, to our whaling station -there, that our steam-whalers had left for Norway a week previously. -Owing to the rough weather they said the season was over; but they left -word that there were still whales about the coast as close as five miles. -Now we have lovely weather to-day, though so cold it feels as if we -were at the start of the spring fishing rather than arriving at the end -of the season. It will be rather rich if we capture a few whales when -the others have fled. At any rate we have the joyous sense of freedom -from competitors that we trout and salmon fishers feel when we find our -favourite pool is unoccupied by another rod. - -But, dear brother anglers, could I but tell you of the joy of preparation -for whaling! You know how your fingers almost tremble as you undo your -casts for the first day’s fishing of the year, and what pleasure there is -in all the preparations. - -Now we are enjoying a similar pleasure, only our preparations are on a -larger scale, fifteen there are of us, all doing something to help. The -captain and the writer sit on the bridge and con the chart with thumb and -finger, picking up the points—rocks, skerries, beacons. “Steady she is -now, keep her heading for Muckle Skerry,” with Isbister, Moa, Nista and -Nacka skerries on our left. Another mile or two in this direction and we -will turn westwards right through Yell Sound that divides the main island -from the island of Yell. - -A swell comes from the north and there is a fresh, pleasant ripple, -and sea and sky are blue as can be expected up north in September, and -everyone is busy, some on deck, some below, engineers at the engine—it -takes very little attention. Then there is a jolly hot fire amidship, -where the smith is busy at his forge. The mate gives him a hand with the -bellows and there is the cheery sound of the ring and beat of red iron on -the anvil. The bos’n, a mere lad, of fairest northern type but of much -seafaring knowledge, sits in a sunny spot sewing canvas. Hansen beside -him is peeling potatoes, and some of the crew bring up bolts of canvas -preparatory to the task we have before us of making awnings, awnings -against the hot sun of the equator. It is a little difficult up here in -the north to believe there is such a thing as hot weather, when we find -two ply of winter clothes none too warm in the sun. - -We have our three guns in the bow still swaddled in canvas, but we will -take that off and get them ready farther up the Yell Sound, and perhaps -give my late host a salute as we pass Lochend. - -We rather hug ourselves for having at last and at length escaped from -official red-tape entanglements and got to the comparative wilds of the -west of Shetland. - -Last night before we left Lerwick we entertained the Custom House and -other officials very modestly, I must here say, and they entertained us -too in the way of songs and arguments and stories. A Swedish captain -joined the entertainment and our evening meal of cormorants and light -beer without making a very wry face at either, and later he gave us -songs. He was slightly grizzled, with close-cropped beard and hair, with -brilliant blue eyes, and he shook his head and beard and closed his eyes -whilst he sang, and hit off some of his notes most exquisitely truly—sang -Freuden’s “Der ganger tre Jenter i Solen” (Three maids towards the sun -went under the linden trees, and the flowers swept their skirts as they -sang tra-la, tra-la, tra-la-la-la), and he quite excelled himself and -shook his head twice as hard, in a dainty ditty about a maid who argued -she might do many things “For mama did so when she var a flikke” (I think -“flikke” stands for our “flapper”), and verses of this he hummed and -sang right into the middle of our most solemn debates on international -politics. Our friend of the “wyles” and the Bow Bells accent, junior -Customs officer, turned out to be Southern Irish, and for the evening at -least a strong Home Ruler and Socialist. His song was too blue to catch -on, but his Socialism raised Henriksen’s fighting spirit to such heat -that we had almost to hold the disputants. But through all the smoke and -heated discussion and small amount of beer, our worthy Swede either slept -or awakened and sang “So did mama, when she were a flikke,” smiling and -shaking his head in a most ingratiating manner. - -Then we had a Gaelic song from MacDiarmid of the Isles, and Glen Lyon, -and with the Norwegian national song we dispersed, the Swede still -smiling, singing about the flikke, and the Cockney from Cork firing off -fluent platitudes. Henriksen would hardly believe me when I told him that -any Southern Irishman could be just as eloquent and excited on any side -of any subject under the sun. I hope they were not all drowned, for they -went ashore in a very small, leaky harbour boat, five souls, one pair of -oars, and it dark, late and windy. - -But to continue our cast round the islands for whales—we motor steadily -through Yell Sound and past Haldane’s house at Lochend and its silvery -crescent shore, with the little green crofts and low, misty hills beyond. -We swing round his bay and blow our horn three times and by-and-by we -see two figures, Haldane and his gillie, against the white house with -its many little windows in the thick walls and they wave a greeting and -we dip our flag three times and proceed west and north till we feel the -ocean swell again, and pass Ramna Stacks, the battered sentinels at the -north entrance to Yell Sound, home of cormorants and shag. A lumpy sea -generally heaves about them, throwing white fountains up their dark -sides. Often I have seen them when passing up the coast in whalers, and -always they express a rough, rugged aspect of the sea. I have known them -change their colour in a most remarkable manner in the space of a few -moments, from livid yellow to green and back again, and at their feet lie -many shells of great value deposited there in H.M.S. by various cruisers. -This is how it happened. One day an admiral came from the outer seas -at thirty miles an hour and called on R. C. Haldane and said he’d like -to have a shot or two at the Stacks as they were exquisite targets. So -Haldane agreed, seeing the matter was one of national service. And one -morning, bright and early, my host climbed on board the admiral’s ship, -and in the time they had half done breakfast they had travelled from -Lochend at a fearful speed to the Stacks, and then their owner saw the -islands stagger and change colour; when the war vessels passed them, each -decorating the islands with four shells apiece of various explosives, -each patent explosive painting the rocks a different tint. - -To-day as we pass they seem to be of their natural colour again, sombre -black and red with a suggestion of pale green grass on their sloping -tops, with streaks of white on the ledges where the sea-birds breed, -undisturbed by man. - -N. by W. we steer, the wind ahead as usual, with a careful look-out for -whales, the wind rising meantime till the sea becomes too rough for -harpooning; then we turn tail to the rising sea and fine rain and do a -patrol southwards. As it still grows rougher and there is no sign of any -kind of life, whales or birds, or whales’ food[8] in the water, and as we -have a sheltered anchorage on our lee, we right about, and head for Colla -Firth and Lochend for the night. - -For we argue that we can make a more certain “departure” from Colla -Firth if the weather improves to-morrow morning than we could make after -drifting a night in a strong wind in the open sea. - -Now we have at last a fair wind almost aft, and up goes our foresail and -staysail and cheerily we hoist away at mainsail, all hands pleased to -turn back from a nasty sea to a cosy night in shelter. We tramp along in -great style, a sailing-ship once more, plus the engine going steadily. -We ought to drop anchor in shelter before dark. How big the sails seem -to-day, with all the reefs out. Dear me! that foresail must have looked -very small indeed in last week’s gale, with all the reefs in, a mere -pocket-handkerchief bit of mainsail. - -St Ebba lies over with the squalls off shore as we get into the wind -again, but she doesn’t roll much and we feel increasing belief in her as -a sailing-ship. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - For like the Duke of York - We have some stalwart men, - And we led them out to the High, High Sea, - And we led them back again. - - NEW CHANTEY. - - -We began this day with a chantey—a cheerful, fine-weather chantey. There -are lugubrious songs too for bad weather or unhappy crews—“Stormalong,” -for instance, “Stormie,” who “heard the angels call.” I associate that -slow minor air with the dreary sough and rush of wind and seas south of -Cape Horn. But to-day it was the cheery - -[Music] - - “Then blow, ye winds, hi ho, to California, - For there’s plenty gold, so I’ve been told, - On the banks of Sacramento.” - -It’s ages and ages since I’ve heard it, and to-day it came off by chance -with a go! We were below amongst the ropes and harpoons, Henriksen and -I and some men, and had rigged a hand-pump to shift fresh water from -midship tank into the steward’s, and we set to, coats off, four at a -time, to pump, and I think the captain began; the fine weather we have -struck must have given us spirits, for the chantey rang out all right; -and the fellows on deck were quite surprised and looked down, grinning. -Norsemen are not great at chanteys as a rule, but “California” is known -pretty well round the world by all nationalities. - -[Illustration: FLENSING BLUBBER OFF POLAR BEAR SKINS] - -[Illustration: WHALE UNDERSIDE UP IN TOW ALONGSIDE - -The ribbed white of their undersides is like the white of a kid glove.] - -The origin of the chapter heading is perhaps obscure. It was inspired by -the fact that we reached the outer ocean, returned to Colla Firth and -shelter in the evening, and dropped anchor in the twilight opposite the -Norwegian wooden-painted buildings of the Alexandra Whale Company, which -all the workers have left for the winter, the Norsemen to Norway, and the -Shetlanders to their crofts, like bees to enjoy their summer earnings -through the winter. - -The morning was perfect so we weighed anchor about five A.M. As we passed -Haldane’s house at Lochend, the black blinds were still down and the -sun shining on its white wall, so we did not as much as blow our horn -to disturb its inmates but hied away for the open sea again, past these -Ramna Stacks and held a course N.W. For about ten miles we kept this -course till we got to the forty and sixty fathom soundings that mark the -change to deep water, then turned S.W., gradually leaving Shetland below -the horizon with Foula, the outlying craggy island showing grey against a -pale rib of salmon-coloured sky beneath the grey pigeon-coloured clouds. -And for once in a way we have what may be called a smooth sea, at least -there’s no white water, and alas and alas, no whales nor any sign of life -in the ocean. Evidently the season is over, the Gulf Stream has been -switched off. - -There is still so much to do on board that there is barely time for -disappointment. The whales must be somewhere, so why not farther down our -Scottish coast; so we keep going south, one man only watching, all the -rest of us busy with a variety of work—the artist, the first mate and a -hand laying down a flooring on our main-deck or waist, made of planks -we brought from the wood behind Henriksen’s house on Nottero. This is -to save our permanent deck, for when the whales do come they will have -their dark, silky skin and firm, white fat hauled up on to this from -their bodies in the sea, and there will be so much cutting and chopping -and hauling wire ropes and iron flinching blocks across this waist or -main-deck that our permanent deck would suffer in appearance were it not -protected. And the smith is tackling a piece of ironwork, with the bos’n -as assistant, making clamps to hold chock blocks for the new scuttle -hatch or companion we have made through the big hatch over the main hold. -This being just small enough to admit a man, we can leave it open in bad -weather for access to the hold. - -The captain attends to a thousand and one things without pretending to -do so, leaving as much as possible to the mate and crew, and has a two -hours’ sleep, preparatory to a night on the bridge, and works out the -course on his chart. We are aiming—failing whales—at Tobermory, and at -odd intervals we talk whales and prospects, about this kind of whale -and the other, and the sperm in particular, that we are now setting -our hopes on meeting; as the finner has not put in an appearance, the -valuable sperm compared to the less valuable but infinitely stronger -fighting finners. Also Henriksen looks on a little as I paint, for he -is just as interested in my painting as I am interested in his pricking -out our course on the face of one of those most suggestive pictures, the -Admiralty charts. There is nothing more fascinating, even thrilling, to -my mind than picking up this light or the other as we do to-night, and -verifying it on the chart in the cabin. - -Noaphead Light on the Orkneys is the first we will pick up, we should -see that soon after (or before) picking up the “three flashes in quick -succession” from that lonely skerry, Sule Skerry, between Orkney and Cape -Wrath. Its guiding circle of radiance intersects the circle of the rays -from Cape Wrath. Cape Wrath is white and red alternately. Then we will -hie for the Butt of Lewis, weather permitting. St Ebba give us better -weather than we met there in the Balæna, a whaling barque of the old -style out from Dundee uncountable years ago—we were twenty days hove to -in a wicked gale with broken bulwarks, spars, and tattered sails—twenty -days between Cape Wrath and the south-west of Ireland—bad spaewives did -it! Now, holy St Ebba, hear our prayer. Dear saint, give us gentle winds -and fair, and for what we are about to receive in the way of whales or -fine weather we will be most truly thankful. - -This is the first mate’s birthday—he is certificated as master and has -attained the ripe age of twenty-two, quite an advanced age for many -a Norwegian master, and we celebrate his birthday and incidentally -our first really fine day since we left Norway. Our skipper believes -in making small celebrations on shipboard. He likes to get good work -from the men and be friends at the same time, a perfectly possible -attainment. All hands get a small bottle of light beer, and the steward -(cook, he would be called with us) makes pastry for all hands. We begin -our festive meal with cormorant fricassee, you could not escape the -smell anywhere aft this afternoon. I can’t quite rise to cormorant; -penguins and several other sea-birds I like; but there’s no accounting -for taste, and our _mechanicien_ or engineer, a Swede, simply dotes on -cormorants, and regrets leaving the Shetlands and the endless supply of -these hard-featured birds. Then we have the pastry, and such pastry I -have never seen equalled; certainly our cook is more than steward, he is -a _chef_! And the bottle of brandy is brought forth (out of bond, one -shilling a bottle and not bad at that). Each of us has a little, and -it is sent to the fo’c’sle and comes back still half full—one bottle -for fifteen men and the bottle not empty! and a box of cigars goes from -mess-room to fo’c’sle likewise, and comes back half full, so our crew -cannot be said to be extravagant; then, to complete the celebration, -Nansen, the steward, sits on the main-hatch and plays the ship’s -melodeon, and Rolf, the youngest on board, dances a pas seul on our new -floor—a dance between a mazurka and hornpipe, with two or three clean -somersaults thrown in. He is a pretty dancer, and of good family, I am -told, too lively for home, just the sort you need on board ship. He and -the steward of the pale face and yellow hair danced together. I could -just distinguish them in the dark from the bridge against the light -planks of our newly laid working deck. For a moment, whilst the skipper -played, my heart stood still! for the steward nearly went over our low -bulwarks at a roll from the swell—his exquisite pastry flashed across my -mind. - -We saw Sule skerry twinkling in the night a few miles to starboard. I -would like to make a visit there, it would be such a soothing place to -live on, the solitude must be so emphatic, for it is equidistant from -Orkney and Cape Wrath, and out of sight of either. In the morning the -light on Cape Wrath went out and we saw the beetling cliffs backed with -high, bare ridges of the Sutherland mountains against a yellow sunrise. -On a soft, rolling, rippling sea and far off, a mere speck beneath the -cliffs, we made out a fellow-whaler (only a steamer), with its long -trail of smoke beneath the cliff steaming east, and we thought she was -the Hebrides, one of the steamers of a small company, the Blacksod Bay -Company in Ireland, which I wish well. Evidently it was on its road -to Norway, so we gathered that whales must be scarce and the weather -probably bad on the Irish coast. - -Our saint has answered our prayer, and instead of the wild weather we -associate with these parts we go comfortably along at eight knots, with -the engine singing a soft song to its gentle beat. What a difference -between the lot of the motor engineer at sea and the steamer’s engineer, -the motor man in a pleasantly warm, spacious room, the other in cramped -space with considerable heat, and the clanging of stokers’ shovels. - -Past the E. of Lewis we motor steadily. One killer or grampus we saw, and -about a dozen dolphins in the three days’ run south, and very few birds. -So we felt confirmed in our belief that we should proceed to Southern -Seas now, instead of waiting for whales in northern latitudes. Evidently -the season here is over. - -Now we have Neist Light and its double flash, to port, and we pass -Dunvegan and wish we could see the familiar mountains of Skye. But the -light is all we have, and welcome it is; past it a little and we will -have the light on Hyskeir Rock to guide us on our way till we pick up -Colonsay and our old friend Ardnamurchan, and the light on its point -where the white-tailed eagles used to breed. - -Burns said: “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.” -If he had been picking up lights from Flugga on Ultima Thule down our -intricate west coast, with its tides and islands, on a dark night, he -would have held his breath with the thought of all the human effort and -forethought these lighthouses express of man’s humanity to man—to our -countrymen, to my Norse companions, to the Russian trader, whose light we -see to-night not far astern; nation to nation offering kindly guidance -and warning. So we have various colours in the night, the pale flashing -lighthouse we steer to, and two golden eyes from our galley casting -patches of light on deck, and on either side of us a phosphorescent Milky -Way with occasionally vivid flashes as we turn over a wave in the smooth -water. - -But it is to bed, to bed, for to-morrow we must be astir early, to meet -relatives in Tobermory, and anchor in its circular bay, where we have so -often anchored when we were young and unspoiled, and Mull to Ardnamurchan -in a dinghy seemed a long way, and whaling was as a tale that is told. - -At four o’clock in the morning we pass Hyskeir Rocks, pass them three -cables to starboard. It is dark and hazy but their light sweeps across -our deck: soon the lights on Ardnamurchan and Coll greet us; and as sea -and mountain and air faintly separate, we pass the light on the point and -pick up Kilchoan, and then the Tobermory Light. - -Ardnamurchan shows a rugged, mountainous outline against the morning -sky, and to a stranger coming from the sea, picking up the lights as he -goes, it seems inhospitable. But to the writer it recalls some similar -mornings—after smoky town down south—coming up for winter shooting. -What glens there are of birches for black game, corries for deer, lochs -for little brown trout and burns for sea-trout! My thanks to relatives -for the free run we had when we were young—Ardnamurchan Point to Glen -Borrodale, what a playground! North beyond the point and the hills above -Kilchoan we see the hills above Loch Aylort and the coast of Morar, -“Blessed Morar,” perhaps the most beautiful spot of the most beautiful -country in the world. Where else do you find stone pines, in deep heather -growing right down to a white coral strand, and glass-green sea-water. -Then Drimnin and Glen Morven appear west and south of Ardnamurchan, full -of memories of relations, of piping, singing, hunting and sailing. - -The relatives, we presume, are all asleep now, so we won’t awake them, -as we pass, with repeated blasts on our foghorn, as we half thought of -doing—no, we will later rouse them up with a Fiery Cross reply-paid -telegram from Tobermory to come across the sound to see this newest -whaler. Possibly we will, after considering mundane matters, such as -potatoes and marmalade for all hands, drop anchor at Drimnin or Glen -Morven and ask the relatives to step off and see our wonders on board -ship, but the anchorage at neither of the places is of the very best and -Tobermory is perfect. - - * * * * * - -My Norse friends fell in love with Drimnin and Tobermory and its round -sheltered bay at first sight: we had only too short a stay, for a wire -told us my cousin, Mr C. H. Urmston, a fellow-director in our Company, -would await me in Oban, so we up anchored, went over to Morven and dipped -our flag and blew the horn opposite Drimnin, and passed the Urmstons’ -house, Glen Morven, in silence, for we hear it is let to a stranger from -the south, and down the familiar Sound of Mull we proceeded on this -lovely summer afternoon to the Great Oban. - -By the way, I met two men interested in whaling in Tobermory! When your -mind runs on a subject, is it not odd how many people you meet who also -take an interest in same? This man is Yule by name; we met on the subject -of bagpipes; piping is the best bond and introduction to the best men! So -with two interests, whaling and piping, you at once get very intimate. He -came from the east coast—I never met a Highlandman whaler, and not often -a sailor (they are generally Captains or Chiefs, they have brains). - -“Did you ever hear the name of Yule as a whaler?” he said; and I replied -I’d heard more stories about Yule and whales and white bears and Arctic -jokes and adventures from Dundee to north of the Pole than of any other -man alive or dead. “Well,” he said, “that was my grandfather,” and he -referred me to his father up the close, to verify the grandfather’s -exploits. So if anyone who reads this wishes yarns true and hair-curling -about Greenland’s icy mountains, etc., let him call at Tobermory, on Yule -senior. No. 51, the third close past the post office. - -A fair lady at Tobermory graced our vessel with a fleeting visit. Miss -Sheila Allan, of the famous line of that name. She rowed from Aros -Castle in her dinghy and sprang on board, leaving her collie in charge, -overhauled our strange craft, fore and aft, sprang into the dinghy again, -a mere cockle-shell, and rowed off again half-a-mile to windward, against -a fresh breeze, as if it was the most ordinary everyday thing for one -of our ladies to do; many a fair Brunhilda could have done the same. I -did not tell my Norse friends that she was at all exceptional, so our -Norsemen have formed a lofty idea of Scotswomen as mariners. I wished -they could have seen her, as I have, out on the Sound of Mull in wind and -rain, fair hair flying, yellow oilskins dripping, racing her own cutter, -three reefs down, through the spray for the Tobermory Cup. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -The British fleet lay at Oban; I don’t think any wars-man on any of the -vessels would not have changed places with one of us; for to any seaman -there is an air of romance and adventure about a whaler. I’d have felt -distinctly proud passing down their line in our little vessel whose -object and capabilities any bluejacket could guess at—a motor, plus sails -and a small but sea-going hull, a business-like gun at bow, a crow’s -nest; and going south—that would appeal to their imagination. But alas! -at our stern hung a Union Jack made in Norway, that a Boy Scout would -jeer at. I am to blame. I’d taken it for granted I could get a Union Jack -anywhere, but the Norse idea of a Union Jack I cannot recommend. But the -warships politely dipped to us, and the crews crowded round their bows -and we could only imagine the smiles at our Jack. We may perhaps still -manage to get one of the correct design in the north of Ireland if we -call there. In any case, our mistake was accidental and temporary; but -each of his Majesty’s ships flew the Cross of St George with the Union -Jack device relegated to a mere canton, a deliberate violation of the -Treaty of Union, the first article of Treaty which stipulated that the -united crosses of both Scotland and England shall be used in _all_ flags -both at sea and on land. - -We spent the Sunday afternoon as John Knox and the reformer used to spend -it. I mean we enjoyed ourselves “out-by.” John Knox, you know, golfed on -Sunday afternoons, and ate oysters in a High Street cellar at night! So -we sailed, and then dined in the Station Hotel. My wife and my cousin, -Urmston, had come north to Oban to avail themselves of the chance of -seeing the St Ebba; and with a light, fresh breeze and smooth water we -sailed and motored over to Duart and South Morven, and Loch Linnhe, and -at night dined on shore as stated. The engine had worked perfectly; -Urmston, a born mechanic and sailor, was delighted with the whole -turn-out, so it was rather a jolly dinner and there were many yarns. - -One of the subjects that came up was that of wives at sea. “Ach, vifes at -sea’s no good,” said Henriksen emphatically, and I was rather surprised, -as I know Norwegian captains often take their wives to sea, but Henriksen -has been, as a boy and mate, a looker-on, and has seen trouble come from -it. - -“No, no,” he continued, “alvays bad veather and trouble ven veemen’s -on board. I tell you vonce a veeman come on board—I laff! We vas in a -barque and the captain’s vife she owned it—she vas very reech, and had -tree sheeps. She vas married tree times—the captain tell me dis, he vas -her tird husband.” Henriksen was serving his time on this barque as all -Norsemen do, on sailing-ships before the mast. At Boulogne they lay one -night alongside the slip, and all but he had gone on shore to the cafés. -He being youngest had to do watchman, and brewed himself coffee in the -galley and then dozed, possibly slept for “five minutes or maybe two -hours,” he said. “I do not know, and ven I vakes up I looks out and dere -is a light in cabin so I goes quiet and looks down the skylight and der -vas a great veemen! with luggage on de floor beside her.” - -Down to the cabin went Henriksen and addressed her. “Who is you, vat you -come here for without leave?” To which she replied: “I am the captain’s -wife.” But the boy would not be bluffed. “That is not true,” he cried, -“go away at once, you’se bad veemen, you comes here to steal, be off wid -you before I gets the crew or the captain comes.” - -And she looked round her and rose and reached to a young woman’s photo -on the wall and held it to Henriksen and he gazed and saw the truth; -this elderly spacious person still preserved some faint resemblance to -the buxom girl in the faded photograph. So Henriksen made his bow—you -know how the Norse bow, straight from the hips, and apologised and asked -forgiveness, which she very graciously extended to him, saying: “You very -good boy, you look after ship well.” So he chatted away pleasantly, and -got her coffee and food and retired again to the galley, and when he was -sound asleep again, the captain came from the town, jumped down on deck -and came growling to the galley: “Hillo, you’re a nice watchman! asleep -in the galley, when you should be on deck.” “Well, captain,” said the -boy, “I work all day hard, and all night I vatch and den comes your vife -and I cooks for her long times, what you expect?” - -“My wife,” whispered the captain anxiously. “Evan, here’s something for -you, put that in your pocket and keep it, and promise not to say a word -about my coming aboard.” - -Henriksen promised, and the captain turned and stole away along the dark -quay. - -In the morning a wire came to the first mate—I think it was supposed to -be from Antwerp—saying the captain was on his way home to meet his wife -in Norway, on which the fond creature said she would at once return home -to meet her good man, and she went. An hour later the captain appeared on -board, and they made sail for Valparaiso. - -My wife said: “That’s a most excellent story, Captain Henriksen,” at -which he protested solemnly: “No, no, dat is no _story_, dat is quite -true, I tells you.” And we had to explain the differences in our language -between the “story,” an incident, and the “story,” an untruth; if you -try, you will find it is rather difficult to do this. The language -question again!—how often it crops up. I wish I could speak Norsk -properly; I have to worry along with English. I was told to-day I can -speak that difficult language very well. We had all been speaking to the -lighthouse service captain for quite a long time when he complimented -Henriksen on his English and flatteringly told me I spoke it even better, -and I explained I’d made a study of it for about half-a-century, and in -fact had the honour of lisping my first words in his own part of the -country. - -[Illustration: THE “ST. EBBA,” MOTOR WHALER, IN OBAN - -Note the whale gun and harpoon at the bow and the oil boilers amidships.] - -That incident was slightly amusing: but halting English nearly got -our Swedish motor inspector, whom we met at Tobermory, into serious -trouble. He is such a nice-looking fellow, too, I felt quite sorry. He -waited there for our arrival peacefully for three days at the Mishnish -Hotel, putting in the time sketching. One day he made a drawing of Aros -Castle, the Allans’ mansion, and as he lay in the grass and ferns under -the birches his thoughts went back to his professional work and he drew -plans and symbols, and a native came dandering along, full of the kindly -interest the west highlander takes in the stranger (I like it myself, but -some people call it mere curiosity), and he ventured: “You will shust pe -arrived, maybe by the Lochinvar? Aye, aye, shust so, she’s a wonderful -boat. Aye, you will be from Glasgie? That’s a fine toon Glasgie. I wass -there for the Exheebition. Och, no, you will not be from Glasgie. From -Sweden! Do you tell me so? ma Cot! that’s a long way. I see, I see, so -you will be a foreigner. Weel, weel, I will wish you a coot day,” and he -went. But he had seen the symbols, and he knew the Fleet was at Oban, -and he had been reading the papers about invasions, so when he met the -policeman, who pays a visit to Tobermory once a year to sign his name, -he said to him that “there wass a lad at Aros, in the ‘furrns,’ drawin’ -plans and things—_would he be a spy_?” After due consideration the -policeman decided to walk round the bay. It is not very far round the -bay, not far for anyone but Tobermory natives, who are restful people. -I once saw them watching Aros Castle on fire with their hands in their -pockets, and it never occurred to them to trot round the half-mile to -help. - -Well, the policeman did not go quite round the bay, for he met the -young man coming back and he said: “It’s a fine day, Mister, for the -time of year, and you will haff been drawing?”—and asked very politely -if he might see the sketches; in the West we are very polite, for the -climate is so mild. And as the young Swede modestly refused to exhibit, -MacFarlane accompanied the visitor rather silently till they came to the -famous Mishnish (famous for drams since the Flood), and then the young -Swede began to see the humour of the situation, and allowed MacFarlane -to examine his baggage, and got him at last to understand, with great -difficulty, for he only spoke very little English, that he was waiting -for a Diesel engine motor-whaler called the St Ebba, and mentioned -this writer’s name, which made it all right with MacFarlane. And the -hotelkeeper, and one or two friends of the policeman and the hotel -proprietor came, and they had quite a pleasant afternoon and evening: for -as the sun shines there are soft drinks to be drunk and tales to be told -in the Mishnish Hotel in Tobermory’s sheltered bay any day of the year -round. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -[Music] - - “It was a’ for our richtfu’ King - We left fair Scotland’s strand, - It was a’ for our richtfu’ King, - We first saw Irish land, my dear, - We first saw Irish land. - - “Then right he turned and round about - Upon the Irish shore - He gave his bridle rein a shake - With ‘Adieu for ever more, my dear,’ - With ‘Adieu for ever more.’” - -No one knows who wrote these words—some mournful Jacobite, perhaps, -who felt as the author does; for though the night is perfect, with the -golden harvest moon reflected in a sea like glass, we cannot but feel a -little sentimental on turning our backs on relatives and on our dear West -Highland strand (especially during the shooting season). - -The tune fits the words, does it not? I think it is a recollection of -an old sea-chantey I once heard—coming back to mind to suit the words, -and what might seem to be the mournful cadence of our Diesel engine and -the sighing of the glassy water as we surge gently across the swell. I -wrote before of the musical notes of our engine. I do not think my cousin -Urmston or Henriksen notice it much to-night, for they are too absorbed -in whale talk. My cousin left desk, and shoots, and engagements, to come -with us to the Irish shore to see us as far as Belfast, and to go over -our business papers, but pipes and whale talk and more pipes and more -whale talk, and minute examination of the engines, seem more to their -taste at the moment than business papers by lamplight. Belfast docks -will be more the place for business than the Sound of Islay, with Jura -and the day fading and a night full of the yellow light of the harvest -moon. A joyous change for the family lawyer, is it not—from the city to -the coast he dreams of in town—from the busy office to the quiet of the -Highlands and islands—from affairs of companies to the picking up of the -lights on Islay and the Mull of Cantire? We hoped for his sake to see a -killer at least, or something to fire one of the guns at—several finners -have been seen lately on the Scottish coast. But as the morning dawned it -grew rough with thick haze, and it was all we could do to pick up Black -Ness and then the entrance to Belfast Lough. We are not proud, so we took -a pilot and felt our minds at rest as we steered up the three miles of -buoys which mark the channel almost as close as lamp-posts in a street. - -If you have not seen Belfast I give you my word that the first impression -is astonishing. You can hardly believe you are not dreaming. The iron -network of building leviathans in course of construction is overpowering, -enormous, so vast is the perspective of not merely one or two great -iron ghosts, but streets of them, high as buildings in New York, one -beyond the other on either side of the river, fading into smoke and -distance, and the noise of iron hammering and banging is universal, so -all-pervading that you hear yourself speak quite easily. We felt like a -mere speck crawling up the grey river. By-and-by we noticed little mites -moving about in these gigantic structures of iron filigree-work, high up -on stagings, or higher still on vast cranes, up in the sky; these were -men, twenty-six thousand of them in one yard alone! We met them later, -in marching order, hefty fellows, blue-eyed, drilled Ulster Irishmen, -stronger looking than Scotsmen. Later on we saw them sign their National -Covenant. - -These are descendants of the people who gave Scotland its name. Few -there are who know this. Men learn about the Kings of England and of -Israel, with their dates, at public schools, but never a word are they -taught of the far longer, far more dramatic and interesting succession of -Scottish kings, previous to their succession to the English crown. Not -one in a hundred knows that the old name for Ireland was “Scotia,” that -it was not till the seventh century that the Scots of Ireland gave their -name to Alba, to the United Scots and Picts of Britain north of Tweed, -our Scotland of to-day. But we are verging toward dangerous ground—let us -get to sea again and continue to chronicle on the rolling deep, and let -_Erin go bragh_. - - * * * * * - -Erin goes fast away on our right—a violet line between white-capped -greenish waves and a grey, windy sky. We came down Belfast Lough -against dead head-wind and proudly passed much larger sailing craft -than ourselves waiting in shelter for fair wind, and having hunted for -a boat in which to deposit our pilot! We got out to sea, set sail, and -have again become a sailing-ship with a strong breeze on our quarter. We -knocked off eleven knots an hour, leaving tramps and such-like behind us. -But what an awful appearance we have! Four days alongside the quays in -Belfast, with coal-dust flying everywhere, have made us like a collier, -rather hard lines, considering we make no mess coaling ourselves as -others do. What a change there will be in the amenity of seaports and all -towns when oil takes the place of coals. Imagine a clean town—Edinburgh, -for example, and the beauty of such a dream! - -It was the air pump and the connections between our oil tanks that -brought us into the thick of great events—into “Ulster Day” and the -signing of the National Covenant, and a small matter (hunting for some -flexible iron tubing) brought us into the great and beautiful City Hall. -I am sure few people have heard what an exquisitely designed building -this is—indeed, what a very handsome town Belfast is, taking it all -round. And the people! how I wish my northern countrymen knew what they -were like in the mass. How very like themselves, both men and women, -but perhaps rather bigger and stronger than the average Scot, and as -reliable-looking, and yet perhaps a little happier than we are, even in -their anxious times. - -I don’t think our Norse crew found Belfast altogether a bed of roses. -Some had shore leave, with five shillings each to spend up town. Our -cook, or steward, told me of their adventures. He heard of them from the -watchman, who was made their confidant. Now they are ship’s property. -Seven of them, all young fellows, “very greenhorns,” said the cook, -washed, put on celluloid collars, brushed up, and sallied forth at night, -and they had barely got to the bridge along Queen’s Quay when three of -them had given their five shillings to maids of Erin, fair, frail things -in shawls, and the coy creatures fled and the three came home to the -ship lamenting—so the watchman said. The others, to a certain extent, -enjoyed all the _tumasha_, and, to be sociable, bought a penny Union Jack -buttonhole, badges that almost everyone was wearing; what they signified -they don’t quite know yet. It was jolly lucky they weren’t killed. -They went up Bally Macarack Street, in the heart of the Roman Catholic -district, and were mobbed by Nationalists, fifteen girls and a dozen men. -Happily the police arrived in time. The tallest of our crew got a severe -kick on the part he sits on, and the smallest got a “shock,” as he said, -on his eye, and they say: “If we lies here in Belfast one years we no go -shore again! No fears; dem’s folk’s mad, dem’s crazy! What’s all that -for-dumna ‘Ulster’ dems shouts all de time?” - - * * * * * - -We are picking out our course to-night (Monday) on the chart rather -comfortably in the cabin. It is smooth and we are in mid-Channel, in -the north-west we have Holyhead Light. We forecast a run of luck for -ourselves. We’ve had our share of head-winds and little difficulties -since we left the south of Norway, so with the compasses we mark out six -days’ run as long as to-day’s run, which will bring us to Azores in six -days, or seven days sure, if we have a little strong fair wind—we won’t -think of nasty rough weather. - -But “Just about here,” the compasses pause, “I was three weeks,” said -Henriksen. “That Christmas was the roughest time of my life,” he -continued, puffing at his new calabash. - -“We was on the Kron Prince three weeks out from Cardiff, seven feet water -in the hold and the pumps won’t work.” They had reached the Azores and -drifted back to the Bay, then to the Irish Channel, and got shelter, I -think, in Bridgewater. - -“Captain and mate they’s on deck, with revolvers, but we get ashore and -run away. We was not going in that for-dumna sink ship, I’se sure. No! -tree hours at wheel was my last watch, one hour pumping, cold, wet, then -I finds in corner of fo’c’sle three biscuits, one half-cup tea cold, dat -decides me!” “How did you get off?” I said. - -“With a runner—runner come alongside: we cuts square hole under fo’c’sle -head, captain and mate, they looks all round deck, but not below bows, -and we slips out, eight of us and our bags.” - -Perhaps these eight were justified for the Crown Prince got a new crew -and sailed, and was never heard of again. - -Henriksen had three guineas sewn in the waistband of his trousers, and a -lot of sense besides for eighteen, also his mate’s certificate, although -he was only a sailor on board, and he reflected, as he went ashore, on -what he knew of runners and their ways: how the sailor is kept by the -same on the credit of his next two or three months’ advance wage, and -then goes to sea with precious few clothes and say five shillings to land -with at the next port, and has therefore to go to another runner until he -gets another ship, and so may be at sea two or three years with hardly -the sight of pay. So on getting ashore Henriksen made a clean bolt to -the nearest railway station, jumped into first train, taking ticket to -first station, leaving his bag with the runner, of course, but keeping -his mate’s ticket. Where did he say he got to? I forget, somewhere near -Liverpool, but five or ten miles he did free of charge as the guard was -interested in his recital. - -From Liverpool he booked third class to Belfast. It was a wild crossing -and he met, strangely enough, another runaway, an Englishman, and isn’t -this the making of a story? They befriended a would-be second-class -passenger and his wife, who were obliged, by overcrowding, to go -steerage, and both these people were helplessly sea-sick, and their poor -children just rolled about the floor till the two young seamen took care -of them, and held them in their arms all night. The father pressed a -whole £1 note on Henriksen, which he refused, as he had plenty of his £3 -remaining, but the Englishman was stony, and he was persuaded to take ten -shillings, and the parents gave each of them their address. - -Afterwards Henriksen called on them—and such a fine house it was! -Henriksen reflects now he might have called on these old friends in -Belfast this journey. “They must be old people now. Next time I come to -Belfast,” he says, “I calls—maybe they’s in life.” - -At Belfast he went on a local tramp, then got berth as second mate, and -had twelve months at sea without a day ashore. For it was to Bahia that -he went, where you anchor almost out of sight of land. For I forget how -many weeks he lay at anchor, then sailed to another port, twelve men -in the fo’c’sle, seven with monkeys, the rest with parrots, fancy the -racket! then to Mobile Bay and then back to Troon, “two houses and a -wall,” as he describes our charming little Scottish seaport, then home -to Norway. That is all you sometimes see of foreign parts if you go down -to the sea in ships. Nine months at sea with one night ashore is the -writer’s longest spell of salt water, but Henriksen tells me he knows -of a man being twenty-seven months at sea without getting on shore. I -think I must make a special book of Henriksen’s adventures. As told to me -they are interesting, but our surroundings count for a good deal: over a -chart in the little lamplit cabin or on our quarter-deck (three steps and -overboard), the moon overhead, and our sails looking dark and large, and -our Æolian engine singing its steadfast song. - -Though only a little south of Ireland, we have the real swell of deep -sea; rolling low hills that leave no level horizon to us, for we are so -close to the sea-surface, long, gentle undulations that suggest a perfect -golf-course for elderly people. - -We have a steady air from the north-east like the Trades. Possibly we -may never have to shift a sail till we reach the Azores, and certainly -to-day there was that in the light at midday, the sharp shadows on -faces as we took the sun’s altitude, that, even with a pigeon-grey sky, -reminded me of southern light that I have not seen or felt for several -years, and we did things with our coats off, and brought our rifles on -deck for an overhaul. - -Our Norwegian heavy bores for sea-elephants cost £3, and as far as I -can see are extremely accurate at the short range. I have tried them at -one hundred and one hundred and thirty yards and they do not burst. It -will be interesting to compare the effect of my higher velocity sporting -mauser, a 375, with their work. Possibly the larger bullet of the Norse -rifle, about 500, may be more useful for this huge animal at close range. -The Norsemen are sure of this, but I back the bullet with the higher -velocity every time. - -There is a gale this evening and we are running with reefed foresail. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -It is a strong N.E. gale, but “Muckle word pass ower,” as the children -were taught by a certain dominie in the north to repeat when they came to -a word beyond his knowledge, so “Muckle gale and pass ower,” we say, and -try not to think of it. Why dwell on the unpleasing side of the sea. It -is beastly all the same, and trying to one’s nerve. - -We have no canvas on her now, just tumble along before the wind, with -bare poles, through the grey seas, the wind passing through to our bones, -wet with spray, weary with the motion. Henriksen says: “To-morrow ve vill -be into the feene vedder.” I don’t know which is best, to be alongside an -optimist or a pessimist in a gale at sea. An old skipper used to murmur -to me in evil, dangerous times: “Hoot-toots, we’ll be oot o’ this intil a -waur” and I begin to think this grim pessimism was really more comforting -than Henriksen’s sanguine forecast of fine weather and blue seas which, I -think, are far off. - -All the same I notice to-day that as we bury our stem and the water roars -over our deck, the little light which comes through the seas into our -round bowley aft has a watery tint of blue instead of the green it had -yesterday. That is, I take it, because we are out into the deep sounding -beyond eighty and two hundred fathoms that encircle our shores past -the great Sole bank, on the S.W. of England and Ireland, and now have -somewhere about two thousand fathoms beneath us. We thought of heaving to -last night and had a trysail ready for the aftermast. It was very black -and awesome, but we managed to hold on our course. It is rather risky -heaving round head to wind after you have run till the sea is dangerous. -If you do not put down the wheel at the right moment you have a chance of -getting one of these black seas and their huge white crests full on your -beam or bridge and perhaps becoming a wreck in a second. It was as if -the lights of cities at night showed every instant round the low horizon -every now and then, to be blotted out by black hills, the light of the -phosphorescent white ridges of foam. - -Seizing what we think is a lull between big waves we scramble across -the wet deck forward to our small mess-room, pause as we hang on and -swing, till the iron door is almost upright and dive in. The door shuts -with a clang.... How the wind whistles as the new-comer opens the little -round-topped iron door! But once inside there is peace and warmth and -lamplight and steamy air from the cooking stove, and we have sardines -and bread and margarine for dinner, for it’s too rough for cooking more -than tea. Then out into the black, wet, slippery deck again. Phew! How -it blows, and how difficult it is to see now! Then to the bridge again -and the St Ebba beneath us, a patch of black with two lights like eyes -shining aft from the galley, a mass of dark against the wicked white of -the surf which we tear in the dark sea—a black cat on a white bearskin, -in a half-lit room. I suggest to the styrman (Norse for first mate) and -captain as we shiver (I do at least) on the bridge that a Rolls Royce -motor-car on a hard, dry road isn’t so bad, and they shout with derision. -“No! No!” the St Ebba for them, driving before a gale. I wonder if they -really mean it! Anyway I must pretend that I like it too. - -A chunk of green sea came over our poop and bridge last night, banged -on our iron cabin door which faces astern with a thunderous shock and -swept over the bows. Some went over the bridge, and a lot came down to -the cabin, enough to be unpleasant. Out came styrman like a rabbit from -his bunk, and I’m pretty sure both the writer and captain’s colour was -not suggestive of pure joy. In a brace of shakes, after this big wave -broke over us last night, Henriksen was at the wheel and the engine going -again—the engineer had stopped it for some reason, perhaps to let our -decks clear off the sea. Then sacks with waste and oil were rigged out -on either bow, and we continued, the seas breaking angrily but out of -reach of us. So we drove through the night and are satisfied, and won’t -do it again. We did ninety miles in the night with practically only two -seas aboard, and we do not believe there’s a boat floating of our size -or bigger that would do the same, and we forecast our style of stern and -lines under water becoming the fashion. - -This morning we have a bit of foresail up again and an experimental jib -as storm trysail on our mainmast, and it seems just to be right.[9] - -[Illustration] - -I thought I had missed sport by writing these notes and not turning out -early, for when I did put up my head into the wind and spray, the mate -was silhouetted on the bow, harpoon in hand, with figures grouped round -him, holding lines, in attitudes of intense expectancy, and there were -dolphins springing alongside. But it was too rough. Several lunges were -made by various members of the crew with our little hand harpoon and its -long spruce shaft, but they were misses all. The sun shone about midday, -a small incident, but after three days’ storm and heavy seas it was a -cheering sight, and the sea became blue, but always too rough to get a -harpoon into the dolphins. They appeared again at night. The sea was full -of phosphorus, so we could see their brilliant tracks shooting round -backwards and forwards like the trail of rockets. Though I have been -amongst hundreds of whales at different times and seasons I have never -had the luck to see one going through a phosphorescent sea; but Henriksen -tells me a year or two ago, off Korea, he tried to harpoon one in the -dark, aiming at the glare as it passed alongside. He could scarcely see -the gun and fired a bit too far back, I think at the light, instead of -ahead of it, and missed and saw the yellow blaze of light under water as -the shell on the point of the harpoon exploded. “Ask me if that whale -went fast,” he said. - -It is Sunday, the 8th October, an idyllic Sunday; there’s a grand, -blue, rippling swell, and enough air to keep our sails spread, so we -roll gently along, a block creaking occasionally and our little engine -throbbing beautifully. But there is a slight feeling of annoyance aft, -and it’s easily understood. Our skipper has his idea of what Sunday at -sea should be when there’s no whaling or hard sailing to attend to, and -I agree with him. He thinks all clothes-washing and drying blankets and -mattresses should be done on Saturday, Sunday should show clear decks, -shaved chins and, if possible, a change of clothes and mind. But most of -our crew apparently have been brought up to the common idea of Sunday as -washing-day and have hung up shirts and clothes of all kinds everywhere. -Henriksen endures the un-Sundaylike display but vows “never again.” Next -Sunday we will be neat and clear, or all hands will be working double -tide at flensing or hunting whales—we shall see! - -Meantime we have had days of quiet ship work, the sea getting more -blue each day, and winter clothes shedding. On this account we held a -_shoppie_ on Friday—got out the captain’s slop chest from the hold. This -is an old sailing-ship custom. Six of us carried it aft to quarter-deck, -unlocked it and took all the contents into the little cabin, and wasn’t -it a well-stocked shop—jerseys, trousers, boots in cardboard boxes, caps, -shirts, woollen gloves for the cold northern seas, and white and blue -dungaree suits for tropics, and scented soap! It was new for me to see -scented soap on such a business. Henriksen and the first mate have a busy -afternoon with their coats off and pipes going, looking up prices and -calculating the ten per cent. profit—a small profit to cover risks—and -good articles. I’ve seen fifty per cent. made off very inferior goods. -And the crew come down one by one and buy what they need or can afford, -and “ask me” if the atmosphere doesn’t get thick towards lamplight time. - -There was not much sale in the way of winter kit. The heaps of mits and -thick woollen socks will not be appreciated till St Ebba gets far south -towards the ice edge. - -With our present crew of Norsemen it is not so easy to get interested in -them, individually, as with sailors of our own race; still the few words -we have of each other’s language, eked out with signs and drawings, go -far—drawings especially; indeed, from the captain downwards, painting -excites far more intelligent interest among our crowd than they would -with my own countrymen. Our old Dundonian whalers were neither very -musical nor artistic. Here the skipper plays Grieg, and has a lively -interest in every æsthetic aspect and every change of form and colour in -waves and sky, and has actually taken up water-colours and playing on my -bagpipe practice chanter, but I fear that for neither of these will he be -able to spare time, for a skipper is, or should be, practically on duty -all the time. But his first attempt at water-colours—a blue sea and white -breakers under a blue sky—was not half bad. The blue sea was there all -right, but the rhythm of the waves and the half tints, who can do them -justice?—Wyllie, to a certain extent, but I cannot remember anyone else, -unless Colin Hunter, and he is dead. - -It is a real day of rest, contemplation and dreaming. Our greatest effort -has been to rig a line for dolphins. Both the trolling tackles we had out -were carried away last night, so I unearthed a tunny hook I had fastened -to a wire rope with a strip of aluminium to act as spoon bait. Now that -is trolling astern for the benefit of any wandering albicore, tunny, -bonita dolphin or such-like. I expect the crack of the breaking fir stem -boom, from which the line trails, will wake us from our dreams. - -You may dream on board a whaler! dream at the wheel on such a day as -this, or in the crow’s nest, or sitting on one of the boats, for you are -so cut off from the world of people who stop dreams—nurses, mothers, -policemen and preachers. Alas, when you think of it, what genius has -perhaps been nipped in the bud by the reprehensible habit of such -well-meaning people. Where would art, science and literature be to-day, -we reflect, had dreaming not been discouraged by those who took charge -of our tender days. Mercifully, with the advance of years, some of us -learn to dodge these interruptions by going to sea, perhaps—where one -may dream or follow out a train of thought, as it were, on the sly. For -dreaming is following out a train of thought. Newton dreamed when he saw -the apple fall. Mercifully he had got beyond the nursery governess stage, -or his line of thought would have been nipped with: “Johnny, do wake up -and come along now, don’t dawdle there, what are you dreaming about?” -Watt managed, on one occasion, to dream on the sly and watched a boiling -kettle, and was it not either an Angle or a Saxon chief who dreamed and -let cakes burn and so united the tribes of Southern Britain? Moral, when -a small boy dreams over dessert you may morally rap him over the knuckles -and he will eat his dessert, but you may have spoiled the greatest -mathematical genius of our age. - -So we muse or dream on ocean’s bosom, and read a little of monastic -times, since we are on the St Ebba, and disagree languidly with Froude’s -conclusions on Erasmus and Luther, and occasionally we cast an eye -round the empty horizon. When suddenly, from starboard, come leaping -dolphins, breaking the smooth monotony of the blue water. They sweep to -our bows, we dive from bridge to bow, seize the hand harpoon, and all -our little community wakens up and collects on our bows. Here they come -to starboard! and we get all clear for a lunge at one—no easy matter -as our sails are down, and we are doing eight knots by motor and roll -heavily. Swish, swish—two leap near our bows and the writer nearly goes -overboard in an effort to drive the young pine-tree and harpoon home, but -it misses by an inch and the frightened dolphins dash astern and come up -to port bow as if we were stationary, and so we pass the harpoon over to -Henriksen. He waits his chance and drives home a very clever thrust and -away goes the line and Henriksen very nearly after it, and all hands get -on to the rope, spring at it like ferrets at a rabbit, active as cats, a -heap of them tumbling aft along bulwarks till amidships somehow or other -the kicking dolphin is lugged over the side amongst the struggling young -sailors, and one with an axe chops its tail quiet, and in a second or two -our first cetacean, the destroyer of lovely flying-fish, breathes no more. - -I should think it must weigh about two hundred pounds. Henriksen takes -the opportunity to demonstrate on a small scale the process of flensing -the blubber according to precedent, and his own plan, so that some of -our hands, new to whaling, may know what is wanted when we get hold of -sperm or the large finner whales. It is rather like a demonstration by a -surgeon to students, so rapid, but more of this method anon. - -Yes, we find remains of exquisite flying-fish inside the mammal, and yet -none of us have seen flying-fish about here; are there then flying-fish -here, but deep in the sea, or has the dolphin brought these from farther -south? - -Alas! that the deck of the St Ebba should be stained with gore. The -best of the meat we have cut off, two long strips down the back, -perhaps thirty pounds each, and into vinegar and water they go, enough -fresh meat for all hands for several days, and the oil of the spec or -blubber will probably amount to a gallon—one gallon clear profit for -our shareholder—one little drop of the vast ocean of whale oil we hope -to collect some day for the furtherance of British industries, and the -manufacture of margarine and olive oil in Paris, and the hundred and one -other purposes for which whale oil is used. - -We have not exactly broken the Sabbath, for though we are a British ship -the crew is Norse and the Norwegian Sunday begins on Saturday afternoon -and ends at two on Sunday. - -Henriksen is rather pleased that we have a young crew for our new kind of -ship and methods, as older men would be more difficult to train to our -special needs. - -We see a large steamer, French, Italian or Spanish, in tow of a Liverpool -tug, grey-black funnel—white ship. We have seen only four craft since we -left Belfast. - -_P.S._—All hands have dolphin steak with fried onions for supper. It is -not nearly so good as whale meat, but better than cormorant by miles—in -fact, is quite palatable. - -Who said that the romance of the sea has gone, that steam has driven it -away? But that is not true; it is just as blue and full of fresh life and -romance for all of us as it ever was. The new land or new port is just as -new to me as it was to Romans or Carthaginians. - -With every new type of vessel there comes a fresh aspect of the romance -of the sea. - -Our new type will revive or open a new chapter of sea life. No more black -coal and smoke, but a clean, silent engine, petroleum plus sails; sails -must come back; look at our run down here, half sails, half motor; the -modern steam-whaler could not have done it, even the old sailing flyers -could not either. - -I think we could have converted any disbeliever in the romance of the -sea if they’d have come aboard last night, when Henriksen and I had our -southern charts out, studying the lonely islands away down there. - -Visiting the islands of the world alone would fill books of sea romance; -think of them, the thousands there are, some of them never visited. -Those in the south of the Antarctic edge are described in the Admiralty -books we have in such terse, dry words as these: “Of no interest -geographically”; “Dangerous”; “Only of interest to sealers”! “Provisions -for ship-wrecked crews were deposited by H.M. (? ship) in the year ⸺” -before the Flood! And they say: “There are only kergulen cabbages—a red -root like a carrot” on one, and wild pigs on another; and on another the -beach is covered with innumerable sea-elephants and penguins. Ghost of -Robinson Crusoe, what else can a man want? Why, even these islands, the -Azores, so close to home, how the prospect of seeing them fills us with -eagerness! What will the hills be like, and the people, and the fruit, -and the wine, and birds, and flowers, and fish! We long to see them with -the utmost impatience now that only a narrow strip of rough blue sea lies -between us and them, to-night we may fetch its lights—to-morrow we will -see the land in full sun for a certainty. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -A new land, new to us, only a faint tint above the horizon, but land it -is, we know; merely an outline of faint soft blue-grey mountains over the -sparkling morning sea. - -All night we waited and watched for its lights, but not till daylight -did we have the pleasure of seeing “land”! Land rising out of the waters -after even a week at sea is very gratifying, like food after hunger, like -health after illness. - -We have made a good land fall—we find ourselves heading straight to the -centre of San Miguel, the largest island of the Azores group, within a -few yards of the point we aimed at from Belfast; thanks to three skilled -navigators, for we would have passed the islands miles to W. if we had -not corrected compass by sun bearings, a procedure which demands very -scientific knowledge of navigation. - -So it is a case of a shave to-day, and getting out thin land clothing, -with an occasional turn on deck between the operations to gloat on the -blue hazy mountains. - -We must bring a harpoon or two on deck to show our real character, for -our queer craft, with its three guns forward, might make the Portuguese -wonder what our intentions might be, especially as our full papers are -being mailed out to Cape Town, and we must try to avoid any more red tape -entanglements. - -Gradually the hazy land is lit by the rising sun; some rays penetrate -the veil of clouds that hangs over the mountains. We see greenish tints -and white specks, and with the glasses make out that these are houses, -apparently farms with a light and dark green tartan of fields and hedges -round them. - -Above the little fields are peaks with scrub or trees up to the clouds, -below the cultivated land there is a steep coast like North Devon, -covered with shrubs and cliffs, on which the sea sends up white shoots of -foam. - -As the sun rises the horizon becomes quickly blue—southern blue, but -towards the land the clouds still keep the light subdued over sea, hills, -glens, and peaks. The sea has awakened but the land seems still to sleep. -Dolphins come from seaward and welcome us, and alas, one poor fellow goes -away blazed with a harpoon mark; he was very nearly becoming food for the -poor human creatures on board St Ebba, but the harpoon drew! - -This island, St Michael or San Miguel, is undoubtedly like Madeira, -without quite such extremely rugged peaks. - -We plan staying one day in port to overhaul the engine, and there to get -a large-sized chart and local information about whales, then to patrol -round the islands for a week, and, if whales are here, perhaps longer. If -not, we go to Madeira, thence southwards with the advancing season. - -How exquisite is the colouring of the white and pink houses against -the green and violet of the hills. Now the sun is in full blaze and -the sea intensely blue. We drop sail and fly a little white flag, with -blue square in centre for a pilot, and swing in from the south to Ponta -Delgada, and with the glass make out a pilot’s flag and a six-oared grey -pilot boat coming towards us over the little blue waves. The light grey -long-boat swings alongside; the crew are in pale blue uniforms, with dark -blue berries, their faces brown or sallow, eyes, hair, and moustaches -black as coal. - -We got a slight shake after the pilot came aboard, we had stopped our -engine for him to come alongside, and in trying to start again found it -would not work. However, fifteen minutes of the little steam-engine we -rigged up in Belfast brought up enough air pressure to start them. In the -seven days’ run from Belfast some fouling must have collected somewhere, -possibly in the cylinders. The interval I put in usefully, talking to -the pilot by means of some half-a-dozen words of Spanish and Portuguese -and a good many English, plus sketch-book and pencil. With the last I -find, after years of practice, a great deal can be expressed—half-a-dozen -strokes gave an idea of the lie of the islands, and a dot or two from -the pilot showed where he knew whales are occasionally being killed by -local shores’ boats, so we feel that at last we are actually on fishing -ground. His pilotage was very simple—he merely guided us to buoys, to -which we made fast inside the breakwater. - - -PONTA DEL GADA SAN MIGUEL AZORES - -I have read about and seen many places generally recognised as being of a -singular beauty and interest, but never of this jewel of a sea town. For -an artist it is a dream of delight of the most delicate colours reflected -in a sunny sea. The houses are such as one may see in Spain or Italy, -white, or of all the lighter variations of shades of pinks, white, pale -greens and cinnamons, and they are built up to the water’s edge with -only a margin of black volcanic rock showing between them and the sea. -Most of them have their backs to the sea and have picturesque balconies -and landing slips, but in the centre facing the harbour there is an open -plaza with a church and tall square tower, and at its foot bosky round -trees, dark green against the white walls, all reflected at the water’s -edge. - -After being visited by port officials, doctors and Customs officer we -went to the plaza in our boat, and a Captain Pickford, of a neighbouring -vessel, who kindly had come on board to leave his card, as it were, -said, as we swung into a gap in the white sea wall into a small inner -harbour: “This is rather a pretty bit we are coming to”—and I looked, and -my breath almost went with the unexpected beauty. The dock or basin we -swung into in our boat is built of black stone whitewashed to the water’s -edge, with two flights of steps for people to land by. It is only about -ninety yards square—houses of a slightly Venetian style on the land side -rise from a double arcade, one arcade rising from the water with another -inside it at a higher level, windows look out from the shaded inner -arcade, white pillars of the arcades and arches support a house faced -with blue tiles, with pointed windows and adjoining houses of pale pink -and yellow tints. In the deep shadows of the alcoves and in the sun on -the steps there were figures, men, women, and boys, mostly resting, some -in brilliant colours, some in sombre tints; and these and white boats at -their moorings were reflected in the waving dark ripples of the basin. -For an artist I would say this hundred yards of light and shade and -colour is worth all Venice. - -Perhaps the colour of the light is the charm of the Azores; it is -that Gulf Stream rich, colourful light that to me seems to increase -south-westerly as you follow it, say from the west of Kirkcudbright to -Spain, and westwards, till you come to the Saragossa Sea—a quality in the -atmosphere that makes the night here redundant with colour and the day -superlative. - -Why do you not see quite such soft richness of colour in the air farther -east? There is greater velvetyness of colour here in the Azores than in -Madeira, or the west of Spain, or anywhere in the Mediterranean, or the -Far East. - -I could sit here for weeks, day and night, watching the changing effects, -the queer parrot-coloured weathered boats, with their furled-up white -cotton sails coming alongside the steps; the steps are greenish black -volcanic stone, whitewashed, and the stone shows here and there, and the -white is of infinite variety of tints and the sunlight is so soft and -mellow that patches of colour, say a man’s pink shirt, or a patch of -emerald-green cloth, catch the eye with their soft intensity and your eye -goes back and forwards revelling in the pleasure of the soft clash of -battling colour, and tints. - -The boats that come in from the blue are vivid in colouring, brilliant -emerald, yellow, and scarlet, with thick white cotton sails. The largest -are three-masted feluccas, long and narrow, with sails like swallows’ -wings. Each has a crew of at least eleven men and boys, with brown faces -and black hair and beards. They go bare-footed, and wear a peaked pointed -knitted cap exactly the same as we have in the Fair Isle off Shetland; -and each figure is a joy for ever of sun-bitten, faded-coloured garments -of many colours. Then think of these figures in the blue night moving -noiselessly with bare feet, unloading short yellow planks for pineapple -boxes in half electric, half moonlight, the velvety shadows of the -tropics and all the vivid colours of the day still distinct, but softened -down to a mothlike texture, and the blue tiles on the house above the -arches glittering in the moon’s rays. - -If you add to these sensations of colour, and the perfect stillness, the -scent of pinewood planks and the perfume of pineapples you have an air to -linger over, a delicious intoxication. - -Both the people of Ponta Delgada and the town itself are very clean. -Living in the Portuguese Hotel costs five shillings per day, with -extremely good feeding—beef from oxen on the hills fed on wild geraniums, -heath, and hydrangeas, and fish of many kinds. - -[Illustration] - -I tried my trammel net for fish alongside in the bay. I set it with the -second mate’s help; it is forty fathoms in length, and by midday there -was quite a good catch of many-coloured bream, and those exquisite -silvery fish, about the size and shape of a saucer, that are such -excellent eating. The trammel net is quite new here, and is new to my -Norwegian companions and to the natives. I find it of much use on our -Berwickshire coast for supplying the house with fish. It consists of a -wall, as it were, of fine net hung between two nets of very large mesh; -with corks on top and leads below. It can be set either standing on the -bottom or hanging from the surface—the fish swim against it, make a bag -of the fine net through a mesh of either of the big nets, and in this -pocket they stay till you overhaul your net, possibly once a day. - -Here we found a worm like one leg of a star-fish made such havoc with -our captive fish in the net that we had to overhaul it every four -hours or so. On the second evening I got three splendid fish, like -salmon, of about six pounds each, with large silvery scales and small -heads—cavallas, I hear them called. - -Whatever their name may be, of one thing I am certain, they make splendid -eating, and taste like small mahseer—of course everyone knows their taste! - -[Illustration] - -I rigged up a bamboo rod, using cast of Loch Leven flies, with the wings -cut off, with small pieces of sardine for bait. We made quite good -baskets of young bonita, and tunny, and sardines: tunny fry, of course; -a two-year-old tunny would snap strong salmon gut and a full-grown tunny -takes a rope as thick as a stylo pen to pull it in; and lots of time. You -can even take them on a tarpon line if you think life is too long. - -A thing I could not understand about this small-game hunting was the way -certain silvery fish eluded our efforts to catch them. Whilst other fish -ate the finely chopped sardine meat we threw over, and young mackerel -and herring, etc., calmly took our hooks baited with pieces of sardine, -these flat silvery fish like saucers on edge almost at once grasped our -idea—they eyed the bait and hook, sailed along the gut of the dropper, -examining it closely, sailed up the gut of the cast and said: “No, no, -we will take bait without a hook, but not this.” I wonder why their -perception should be so much keener than those of the other fish; -probably none of them had ever seen a hook in their lives. - -But this writing about small fry is “wandering from the point,” as -the cook said to the eel; let us get back to whaling or at least to -whale-hunting. - - * * * * * - -We are off to the west end of San Miguel to go round it and beat about -the north side in search of the whales which everyone tells us are to -be found there, and the view of glens and woods and fields bathed in -sunshine under the cloud-capped hills is very sweetly refreshing. But -luxurious rolling on the blue seas and all the sweet scenery hardly -take away the unpleasing taste of last night. The engine overhaul was -only finished last night, so we intended to up anchor this morning at -daylight. Henriksen and I went ashore and waited for the Consul about -some affairs at Robert’s Café, a large, quiet café, with wide-open doors -facing the sea. As we sat there rather silently, away in the velvety -blue night, out to sea beyond the breakwater, several rockets rose and -burst in a golden shower and we heard the continuous blast of a ship’s -horn making signals of distress. We jumped! so did the other two or three -cigarette-smoking habitués of the café, and all got on to the sea-front, -and the horn continued. - -“That’s a wreck,” said Henriksen. - -“Yes,” said I. - -“Wat we do?” said Henriksen. - -I paused for half-a-second—I couldn’t advise—Henriksen is in command. - -So I waited for this fraction of a second—it felt like a whole minute. - -He thought and must have thought hard; for there are many things to put -together in such a moment—owners’ risks, personal risk, honour, risk of -fines or imprisonment for leaving a Portuguese port without clearance, -the chance of saving lives; and last and least—salvage. - -“Yes,” said Henriksen, “we goes help—_we’s British ship!_” and we turned -and ran; he blew on his whistle as we ran, and our engineer and some of -the crew, who had just come on shore and were entering a café along the -promenade, recognised the whistle, and before we were up to them they -were back into our boat and we jumped in and pulled off. We got on board, -slipped our anchor and chain, marked with line and lifebelt for a buoy, -got out side lights and started the engine, and were round the outer end -of the breakwater within thirty minutes from the moment we left the café! -and I say we felt proud of St Ebba. The big town clock on the church was -striking eleven P.M. - -No other vessel in harbour was under steam so we congratulated ourselves -on having a motor-engine and so being able to get under way so rapidly. - -[Illustration: THE ARCADES AT THE INNER HARBOUR, PONTA DELGADA, AZORES] - -[Illustration: TUNNY ON THE BEACH AT MADEIRA] - -Till we came to the end of the breakwater, the distress foghorn signals -continued. As we swung round it they ceased! - -Out to sea for a mile or so we steered, looking vainly for lights to the -horizon and the S.W. and saw nothing. Then looked behind us, and there, -on the most unlikely place in the world, were the lights of a ship, on -the breakwater rocks, close to the fixed shore light! - -Round we turned, going our best speed, and stopped when we had got as -close as we thought advisable in the darkness, shoved over our flat dory -and rowed off with a lantern in the bow. - -The steamer was rolling gently on the rocks; we rowed close and the -writer in the bow hailed them on board and offered a tow off into the -harbour. The crew we could see, and they preserved silence for some time. - -“Hullo!” we shouted. “On board there, were you sending up distress -signals?” A reluctant “Yes” and “Who are you?” from the gloom on deck, -where there was a little light that showed some Dutch courage going -around. And we answered, and asked in turn: “Where’s your skipper?” - -“Below with owners.” - -“Well, tell him to speak”—pause—then came the skipper’s “Hullo! what do -you want?” - -“What do we want!” we repeat very angrily. “Weren’t you firing rockets -and blowing yourself inside out with distress signals?” - -No answer. - -“Were those distress signals?” we ask again, and there’s a reluctant -“Yes” and still another “What do you want and who are you?” - -“We’re St Ebba, whaler, motor ship, two hundred horse-power, and tons of -cable, come to tow you off into harbour—half-an-hour will do it—there’s -an hour of flood yet and you can float that distance.” - -A long silence.... Then: “We don’t want help—you’ve come along for -salvage.” I was dumbfounded. - -I need not prolong the interview; the crew said they’d like to be taken -off, they’d got their bags ready, but their skipper wouldn’t let them. - -The lamp showed her name on the stern in fresh gold letters—the B—enido, -London—we knew a little about her, for a neighbouring steamer’s engineer -had been asked on board for engine trouble; and only a few hours before -the rockets went up he’d been speaking to us about her. He said she was a -new ship (two thousand tons?), Spanish-owned with British captain, on her -first voyage, engines made on Continent, hull in England, and she was all -wrong. - -She had left the harbour only a few hours before she was wrecked. The -skipper set the course S.W., and a one-eyed nigger at the wheel steered -N.E. - -So we pulled back to the ship and told Henriksen of our abortive -interview and he went off again with me and two men. - -It would be pretty hard to put into words our very natural keenness and -the wrath at the unaccountable apathy of the British captain of the -Spanish-owned ship. But the result of the second interview was the same -as first. They were going to cling to the rocks—we were to mind our own -business. - -We thought we ought to stand by all night for the sake of the crew on -board her, for I’ve seen a vessel go on to rocks in a similar position -and lie comfortably till the tide turned, and when the water receded heel -right over and go straight down in a second. - -When daylight came her stern had sunk till the deck was level with the -water and lighters were coming off to take some of her cargo. We could -have towed her off at first without much trouble and long before her -plates were seriously damaged by the continuous rolling that followed and -the falling of the tide. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - -So we left our wreck, meditating on the ways of a wicked world, and went -on our own business to hunt round the south coast of San Miguel or St -Michael (we call the island) to the eastwards. - -Parts of the coast we pass are very like Madeira, which is said to be -like a crumpled piece of paper lying on the sea. You calculate how many -hours it would take to ride a mile as the crow flies, round the bays, -over the tops and down the sides of the glens or ribieras. - -[Illustration] - -What lovely places there are to ride or drive to on the island, between -pine-trees, heath and hedges of hydrangea. There is one road where you -can drive continuously for twenty-one miles, with hedges of hydrangeas in -full bloom on either side. - -Whilst we go whaling, keeping a bright look-out for sperm, I must try to -remember some of the inland charms and the show places of the island, -such as the Seven Cities, an inexplicable name for two lakes and woods in -a crater’s valley, and the Hot Volcanic Springs in another valley which -cure all ills. I would like to remember the low two-storeyed houses and -narrow sheets of Delgada pink and white or pale blue, and the green -balconies and red-tiled eaves showing against a narrow belt of blue -sky. The rooms or cellars of the ground floor are arched and the narrow -footway is made of a mosaic of round pebbles and quartz. There is a quiet -mystery in these narrow lanes in the hot midday, when the green shutters -are closed, and more mystery again at night when all the blinds are open -and there is lamplight and faint music from mandoline and guitar. - -[Illustration] - -The shops of Ponta Delgada are in these arched caves which support the -dwelling-houses and balconies, and they have no signboards! If you wish -to find a shoemaker you must walk looking into these caves. Ah yes! -I’ve seen one signboard, a scarlet swinging hand representing a lady’s -glove—now that’s worth remembering. Find that and keep it to starboard, -till right abeam, then swing to port and you will find on your left a -cave-topped restaurant, the Atlantico, clean and cool it is, with walls -painted delicate green. There are six little tables in the front part, a -desk and an arched hatch behind, at which lolls the cook, a jovial sort -of unshaved burly pirate, with, of course, a cigarette, but veritably a -_chef_. And behind the desk, sometimes for a moment or two, is your host, -a highly polished Sancho Panza; here is a jotting of him. He speaks a -little French and gives you provender fit for the gods. I mention this -place as cafés are rare things here, for the people as a rule feed at -home. - -[Illustration] - -Into this haven I came one night after the spell at sea of salt beef and -margarine, and who can tell the contrasting charm of the crisp rolls and -real butter and vino tinto! And as I rested and made furtive notes of the -patron there came music from above or some room near—a piano of early -nineteenth century—or was it a spinet or guitar playing the air of one of -Moore’s melodies. - - “All that’s bright must fade, the brightest still the fleetest, - All that’s sweet was made but to be lost when sweetest.” - -It is used in Indian as a bearer’s tune, and these are what I can recall -of the words from the long ago. It’s a sweet air and surely the words -are distressful enough to make a young man sad, and an old man smile. -I wonder what Portuguese words the fair (I mean dark) beauty next the -Atlantico put to the air—I must call again. Some of these native women -are very pretty, but they are much more guarded in the use of their -eyes than are their Spanish cousins. There’s a queer dress some of -them, mostly the seniors, wear out-of-doors; when they come out, which -is very seldom. Here is a jotting of it on the next page—it is of dark -blue cloth. The younger generation wear rather neat up-to-date French -dresses, but you see very few townswomen, they stay indoors, but many -countrywomen come into the town in the daytime and a group of them -sitting with baskets and fruit, with their vivid kerchiefs and shawls, -make a colour, light, and shade, enough to make a painter’s heart leap -with joy. - -[Illustration] - -We hunted round the east end of San Miguel and saw dolphins and some very -small whales. - -Then we went north and chased some small whales, one, the biggest, almost -white. It was getting late, the sun setting behind the cloud-capped -island, still we stood by the guns—skipper, first mate and the writer -each at his gun, ready for a chance shot. These little whales move too -quickly out and into the water to give a fair shot. - -The little excitement helped to raise our spirits from the damping -disappointment of the wreck. We now drift, and expect the light wind -to take us down to some shallower soundings which we see on the chart -several miles south and east of San Miguel, where we hope to find whales; -for they are in the habit of frequenting the edges of “banks,” when say -two or three hundred fathoms change into a thousand fathoms. - -The way of a man with a maid is perhaps a simple problem compared to the -ways of whales. Who can tell how they guide their course, year after -year, past the same points, travelling, for instance, off the Shetlands -always N.E. along, you may say, a definite line. - -Our plan for next week or so is to beat up the seas north of San Miguel, -going about twelve miles, spying six miles on either side, then taking a -right-angle course for other twelve or twenty-four miles, and so spying -a large tract of sea, and by this simple means we can keep our position -easily; and we keep the ordinary four hours’ watch; later, when we get -whales, “if” I should say, we will have all hands on deck all day, and -only a watchman on deck at night to attend to the steam cookers—but when -will that be? There is a new moon to-night and I turned some silver -leiras and a sixpence in my pocket, and will play the pipes—they may -bring us whales—bagpipes make both salmon and pike take vigorously; I can -bring witnesses to this! and they have, beyond doubt, an effect on the -wind. - -... An exquisite morning; at eight o’clock comfortably hot—wind westerly -and we paddle away east from San Miguel. The island is getting low now -on the horizon, but we still see a glimpse of sun on its highest land -beneath the shadow of the great cloud cap—a glimpse of fields and faint -white specks for cottages. Yes, my first impression seems still to hold—a -land you could live and love in, with such exquisite sunny soothing fresh -air; from the little glimpse we had of its people such ideas seem tenable. - -We drifted all night, with riding light, taking things easy. Our busy -time is still to come, perhaps that bank we are drifting towards, out -of reach of shore whaling-boats, may show us some plunder or profit -per cent., and if it doesn’t, well, we have other islands to discover -and circumnavigate. “Discover” is the word I want. Once, long ago, -the writer, with others, discovered new vistas of land and mountain, -uninhabited grand mountains and glaciers in seas of table-topped bergs of -huge proportions, and undoubtedly the sensation was not to be forgotten; -but praise be, a new land to the writer, with new people to him, and new -habits and customs, is still of the greatest fascination, even though it -has been known, like these Azores, for six centuries. - -I question if Columbus enjoyed the first sight of the Norse Vinland any -more than we shall enjoy the sight of the next island we come to of this -archipelago of nine islands. - -Fayal, for instance, and Pico—we have seen post cards of both, and each -looks perfectly charmingly fascinating. Pico must be like Fusian, the -Japanese peak. - - * * * * * - -Truly this sea, between the Azores and Africa, is well called, by old -shell-backs and South Spainers, the Ladies’ Gulf—most days fine, and -blue, and then a tempest. The rocks Formigas we aim at lie between San -Miguel and Santa Maria to the south-east. But the wind now blows hard and -the sea runs too high, so we turn and pound back to patrol the north side -of San Miguel, where we will get a little slant of shelter from the land. - -As the wind is westerly we cannot help recalling what we call “our wreck” -the B—enido, on the rocks of the breakwater, for a south-westerly wind is -just what is needed to pound her into scrap iron; whereas she might have -been floating to-day in port if she had accepted our polite offer of a -tow. - -A turtle is all we have seen this morning, and we have been looking out -hard—one man in the crow’s nest on the foremast, and two on the bridge, -and the writer in main rigging. The turtle was a browny yellow patch near -the surface of the deep blue sea. We turned back to try and harpoon it, -but it had gone down. - -Though there is little life to see in ocean to-day it is pleasant enough -sitting up in the shrouds watching the horizon, or sometimes casting an -eye down to see St Ebba dip her bows under, and the burst of white spray -that have made us again put covers over our three guns. The movement, -sitting on the shrouds as we buck into the short sea, is rather like a -side-saddle canter on a beamy carriage horse. - -Before sundown, the wind keeping hard, we close in with the land, getting -into smoother water. As we go some small whales appear, about fifteen or -twenty feet long, and keep under our bows, and nearly give us a chance of -putting in a small harpoon. They were whitish on back, with under side -dark, marked along the sides with criss-cross pattern, as if slashes of a -knife had been made through the dark skin. - -There is a South Atlantic whale with its back marked in somewhat similar -manner. I have seen a few in the Weddell Sea, amongst the Antarctic ice. -_Ziphius novæ Zealandicæ_,—possibly this is the same, which would give a -wide distribution. - -I think this is as elaborate an impression as I dare to make without -drawing on what I think it _might_ be like, or _faking_, to use the -artist’s term. But they kept so much under water, and only came to the -top for such a rapid breathing-space, and it was so rough that we did -not blow any powder—better luck next time. - -Two and a half miles off shore we heave to, lash the wheel, and drift -slowly out to sea and close our eyes for a little, they are sore with -gazing across the blue in salt spray, wind and glare of sun. - -Three little white and pink towns above a coast of cliff are to windward, -and a little more to the south-west there is the volcanic mountain of -the Seven Cities, with the lakes in its crater, a place of great beauty -but suggestive of Martinique, especially so to-night, as there is an -off-shore wind blowing from the south and an immense pall of cloud -flowing over it and us, shadowing the little towns at its base, Ribiera -Grande, Calhetas Morro des Capellas, and our little selves out at sea. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - -I see I have gushed a little about the blue sea in the last chapter. This -begins with storm, and gale, and courage running into water in the grip -of the elements. - -Just now we are rolling in a loppy swell, high and irregular, but there’s -no wind to speak of. We are right round to W. and S. of St Michael and we -see the island faintly to north to windward, distant some eight miles; -it gives us shelter from the remains of a north-east gale that sprang up -last night, and is only now dying away this afternoon. - -Between the time it rose and fell we had too much time to think and -little enough to act. - -As I said over the page, we were last night drifting north, with a -land wind from the island south of us; and at about ten, I and Captain -Henriksen had turned in, planning and hoping for fine weather and whales -in the morning; at one-fifteen I heard the whistle in his cabin blown -from the bridge and guessed a change had come—the wind had gone round—he -was on deck at once, I waited a little and followed. And sure enough, -without the least warning, the wind had gone right round to north-east -and was rapidly rising, driving us towards these beautiful villages and -cliffs and bay and volcanic mountain dead to leeward in pitch dark. Only -the village lights and a small shore light could we see, bidding us -anything but a welcome. - -The half-hour we spent drifting towards the cliffs, speculating whether -our so far rather tricky motor would start, was memorable. The waves -rapidly grew large and fierce in their sweep, the phosphorescent crests -in the blackness repeated the lines of lights of the villages. - -... Fortunately the engine started all right, or these notes would have -to have been continued about mermaids under the surf; I suppose all -hands knew that if the engine didn’t start we would be drowned under -the steep cliffs. They have failed us once or twice lately, but this -time Hansen did his possible, and poked about, heating the cylinders -with the hand furnace, whilst we grew a little cold drifting to the surf -and rocks. In half-an-hour he turned on the air and they went off with a -welcome clash. All hands must have felt as I did, a great sense of relief -when they started, but there wasn’t time to speak. The writer took the -wheel, whilst Henriksen and his brother made a rapid note in the cabin -of the course and position, and we swung round into the rapidly rising -sea, heading north to get weathering to round the mountainous west end -of the island, and plugged into wind and sea, completely smothering -ourselves in foam. The writer, struggling at the wheel on the bridge, had -an unconscious impression of the crew below busied in making fast the -main-hatch, and stowing away movable objects as best they could in the -darkness, and seas that broke over us in wide white bursts, sometimes -hiding everything from the bridge except the upper part of our foremast, -its shrouds standing out black above the foam, through which we saw -faintly the gleam of the galley ports. - -What wild waves broke over us, leaving our deck full of seething foam, -with balls of light running about in the form of lumps of phosphorus. The -north-east wind and rain tearing past was a little cold, and got down -one’s back, but every slop of sea on our faces was almost alarmingly hot -in contrast to the wind. - -It seems to me that a higher, quicker sea rises in these warm latitudes -than in the colder northern or southern high latitudes, in the same time -and with same force of wind. Possibly the greater density of the cold -water may account for this. - -Not till four-thirty did we make our weathering, and got clear of -the island, and safe from what seemed at first to be quite probable -destruction. - -By six-thirty A.M. we were past the light on the west end of San Miguel, -at least we believed we were—it was not visible; being at an elevation of -three hundred feet, it was, of course, obscured by the low clouds; it is -no use putting lighthouses very high, as witness Sumburgh Head, south of -Shetland; I have been within two miles of it in clear water, and it was -invisible in the clouds above, and we only heard its bray! - -Then our guiding angel, to play with us, stopped our engine. But in spite -of her, we got it to go again, and crept into the lee of San Miguel, on -one or two groggy cylinders, and rolled about in the downpour of rain, -and the poor engineers are now sweating again to get even one cylinder to -take us back to Delgada, where we will have an overhaul; and Henriksen -and I, poring over our sodden chart and the well-washed cabin amongst -sea-boots and oilskins cast aside this morning, decide that the weather -of the Azores is not suited for whaling at this time of the year. If -there were harbours or bays or lochs such as we have in Shetland we would -stick here, but long, black nights to windward of islands, with strong -gales starting from anywhere, and only one day in five smooth enough for -even our St Ebba to whale in, “is not good enough.” - -Now the engine is going; bravo, stick to it! Very, very slowly and -gingerly—with three cylinders—we crawl away with a fearful roll to -Delgada again. - -But the day fades before we get opposite Ponta Delgada, a yellow sunset -and rain clouds and cumuli to west, the pin-point of light on W. of -the island beginning to show, and another pin-point on Delgada about -ten miles to windward, so we stop engines, hoist foresail, and drift, -rolling very gently and quietly, waiting for dawn, and the local pilot’s -awakening; we could go into the breakwater ourselves, but his services -are compulsory. - -All is very quiet and peaceful to-night, and no references are made to -last night. Sailors have nerves as well as other folk, and I daresay -all on board will take a day or two to recover from the excitement and -drenching, and the bitter, nauseating feeling of being up against one’s -end on a storm-beaten coast in black night. I have a curious feeling -that even writing about such a recent and painful situation is almost -indelicate. To put in time Henriksen draws on his recollection of killers -or grampuses attacking a whale, and I help it with what I have seen of a -similar incident. He saw this particular incident off Korea; I have seen -several whales being attacked both in northern and southern latitudes -amongst the Antarctic ice; in fact, I once could have jumped on to the -back of one as it rose right under our stern and gave a huge blast or -sigh, with a pack of these black-and-white marauders surrounding it! - -[Illustration] - -That was a night in the Antarctic worth recalling. It was a still day, -far inside the pack ice. I remember being lost in admiration of the quiet -blue lanes of water, blue and violet, and the many pearl-like tints of -the ice, and as I looked northerly I was astonished to see penguins -jumping on to the floe ice in a great hurry, down the sides of one of -these long lanes. Penguins do not show themselves in the water, they -suddenly leap out like trout and disappear. In this case they remained -on the ice-floes, skedaddling to their centres in an agitated manner. -Then the cause of the emeute appeared—there were hurried blasts from two -whales coming down the lane towards us, and behind them the splashing of -a pack of black-and-white killers. On they came, the penguins popping -on to the ice edges, jumping two or three feet clear of water, and I -had time to get into our mizen rigging and get a fine view of the first -whale, a hundred feet long, as he sailed under our keel. The next one -rose to blow immediately under our counter, and anyone standing at our -wheel could have jumped on its back. - -I did not see the end of the chase. I expect the whales were making a -flight into tightly packed ice, under which they could possibly go to -greater distance than the killers without breathing—at least that is our -explanation of their manœuvre. - -These, of course, were finner whales, we were hunting for Right whales, -the difference between the two in shape, etc., I have referred to at the -beginning of this book. - - * * * * * - -Delgada again. Here are some oddments in this chapter. I notice I put -down in my log that I suffer from sore feet—sunburned insteps—and -see Portuguese doctor, you go bare-footed on such boats as ours in -sub-tropics, and this was the result. - -[Illustration] - -I met the captain of our wreck, the B—enido, a Welshman, in a tight -place, and almost as silent on shore as on his ship, but I felt sorry for -him. - -The engines were thoroughly overhauled, and favourable was the verdict -of the engineers on them—which was satisfactory for all hands; the first -engineer, a Swede, would like to take three hundred shares in our Company -if he could get them. He is so confident about our engine, possibly he -may more correctly be described as sanguine. - -We entertained British Consul Rumble to dinner, a return compliment for -several courtesies from him, to-night at eight P.M., and he is just -departing; my feet are very sore. We caught about fifteen good fish in -the trammel-net, and a lot of sardines in a fine bag-net which I bought -here for the ship; it is spread from an iron ring and catches a few of -the more foolish fish; we also caught a ray, or skate, yesterday, about -eight feet in width, in the trammel-net. Some people would venture to eat -it, we did not, it was so black and ugly. - -Our engineers and officers have worked very hard all week, overhauling -the engine, taking it all to pieces, reassembling it, and working till -one o’clock each night. So we promised them a jaunt on shore to the Seven -Cities, the wonder of the island. - -So this Sunday morning I saw six of our crew off for a drive over the -island, the captain on the box, a burly figure compared to the little -Portuguese driver beside him, two engineers, two mates, and the steward, -all in neat Sunday dress, inside an open antediluvian barouche held -together with string, the springs down on the axles, and a huge heap of -ragged maize tied behind to feed the scarecrow horses. I was to have -gone with them but there was not room, and I found it impossible to get -more than the one machine on this Sabbath morn. All the rest were laid -up or had gone off with Sunday parties. To get the one, I’d to run from -pillar to post, and use soft, persuasive language, and listen to infinite -reasons for there being no possibility of getting a trap at all. - -But it was worth the trouble of hunting for the carriage to see my six -good shipmates drive off in great form with a crack of the whip, rumbling -over the cobbles, and waving hats to the writer, who suddenly felt -somewhat lonely. - -But to-day, Monday, there’s nothing to keep me on board, I have done my -painful duty; I have drawn in best style our registered number on our -sails above reef points, according to act, and on tin plates for stencils -to paint the same on St Ebba’s side to port and starboard. - -On our fore quarter, there is now L H, which signifies Leith, and -256, each letter the thickness—number of inches and fraction of an -inch—ordered by the Board of Trade, with the distance between letters and -figures all according to the law of the Medes and Persians. - -It went decidedly against the grain to stamp our yacht-like craft with -such vulgar herring-fisher’s symbols. And putting black paint by mistake -on a white sail is enough to make a yachtsman weep. What benefit can be -derived by anyone by the above procedure I have yet to learn. - -So to-day I also must go and see these Seven Cities. No one knows the -reason for the name; my messmates tell me it is a volcanic valley almost -circular, with a double lake at the bottom, and round the lakes are -smaller extinct volcanoes covered with foliage. - -[Illustration] - -Arming ourselves, therefore, with a sandwich of goodly proportions, and -a bottle of vino tinto from our friend Sancho at the Atlantico café, we -sallied forth in solitary state in an old brougham, one artist whaler, -three horses and a Portuguese driver, and a bundle of maize straws -astern, and drove and drove, always uphill, through little whitewashed -villages and narrow lanes, between low stone walls, and crops of Indian -corn, rather dry-looking, with pumpkins and gourds on the stubbles; past -many farm carts, loaded with golden maize or pumpkins, and with groaning, -squeaking wooden discs for wheels, till high up we came to little grass -fields and hedges of bramble, and loose stone dykes with bracken and -canes on them, and where the air was fresh as in Perthshire, and there -were very wide views of the blue Atlantic. The drive felt long, but a -sketch-book going, helped to make the road feel tolerable, but it was -quite an hour and a half before we came to our change place, Lomba da -Cruze, and mounted a stirrupless pack-saddle on a donkey, and began an -hour’s uphill climb through cuttings of lava deposit, overhung with -brambles, many laurels, heath and ferns. - -[Illustration: KILLERS ATTACKING A FINNER WHALE] - -Possibly this stylo sketch in sketch-book may be a sufficient description -of the Seven Cities. Imagine two green absinth-coloured lakes, green -foliage, and a few white houses at the bottom of a crater; with this -sketch you have the scene, and you can fancy the charm of the fresh, keen -air up the mountains combined with Sancho’s great ham sandwich and tinto, -but heaven fend the reader from the pain of a wooden saddle on a donkey -riding down such a hill again. - -The road home was wearisome to a degree, hundreds of local squires or -farmers, and everyone lifting hats, but why? Who knows? The effort -to respond was quite ridiculous. Someone should invent an automatic -hat-lifter for royalties, Norwegians, and natives of the Azores. Groups -of women were on either side of the road shelling yellow maize, sitting -like Indians; and at last and at length we got into Delgada, having had -more than enough of cultivated maize lanes and lava dykes. - -Then to Portuguese shipping agents and to business accounts, not a -pleasing part of whaling. It is difficult to settle our affairs, on -leaving port. For instance, the harbour trustees, or whatever they are -called here, wanted to charge for the morning’s incoming pilotage after -we had gone out to save a wreck, but we barred that. “You old mens sleeps -here ashore,” said Henriksen. “We’s go out, slips anchor—dark night—risks -our ship, you charges us! might have been Titanic and we save thousands’ -lives. You say you haves many tow-boats! why nones go out? What about -insurance, heh?” They quietly dropped the subject. - -But now it’s time to go and put aside the above reflections and -disappointments so far; we have hope, and months, possibly years, and -certainly long seas in front of us, to gain or to lose in. - -So we up anchor at night with a light air from the east, and several -weeks’ sailing in front of us to Madeira and Cape Town, and whales on the -road, we hope. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - -Farewell, Ponta Delgada, with your pretty streets perfumed with fir -planks and pineapples; farewell, San Miguel. How sweetly the delicate -tints of your capital—pale pink and blue—show in this early sunlight. - -Your great clock on the white campanile marks six A.M. and the sunlight -glitters already on the blue tiles above the arches of the inner harbour. -That is the place for an artist who would paint in highest toned -water-colours—flowers, fruit, wine skins, white walls, and blue sea. I -will grant you all this, San Miguel, but there’s a grim side to your -island—cliffs and a lee-shore on a black night, and I seem to recall a -wreck and rockets, distress signals all a fraud, and then there are those -moonlike craters, your beauty spots. You and the Inferno, Saint Michael, -seem to be somewhat neighbourly. And your people we recall, how kind to -the stranger, a few of them, dark-haired girls in white dresses on green -balconies seemed pretty enough, but in the country how close they seem -to the soil, worn and aged, one good-looking among a thousand sad women, -one pretty child in thread-bare rags healthy, amongst so many who looked -pinched and hungry. - -No, we do not drop tears at leaving you; but think hopefully of Madeira -and Funchal to the S.E., where we may meet white people of our own race, -and where I have seen whales; and perhaps we may have a day or two in the -boats, off shore twenty miles, in the heat and blue rollers, fishing for -tunny. A two-hundred-pounder, with the hard line cutting grooves in the -gunwale as it whizzes into the depths, is good hunting. - -I pen this farewell to the island in my bunk, looking out at the port, -determined not to go on deck and see any more departures—that hurried one -in the night watches to save a wreck was quite satisfying, so “we” doze -and let the town and the island go by, and think of Madeira and the Cape -Verde, and hope that some day soon our little expedition will begin to -pay, and try to forget that so far we have only incurred expenses—five -shillings here and five pounds there—pilotage and telegrams, and a -thousand trifles that mount up alarmingly without one penny of return. - -Thus musing somewhat sadly, and all the time listening to the beat of -our engines, I notice they suddenly go a little slow, and a tide of -depression that even the joy of leaving port will not quite raise, floods -my spirits. Yes, they are dead slow now—something wrong again!—and I -harden my heart and turn out and find we are heading back for the distant -island—more weeks of detention, I can see. But—what is this—everyone is -intently looking forward with craned necks! - -Great Scott! There are whales—SPERM—as you live! At last—whales! One -little blast on the calm grey ocean a mile away, then another, eight or -nine. Nine times several hundred pounds sterling rolling round, each -about a mile apart. Are we really in our senses—are we really to strike -oil? Heaven be praised—it is not the engine—it is all right. - -We’re after one. - -Henriksen made a bee-line down to his cabin, got out powder and had the -harpoon-gun loaded and ready in two shakes. - - * * * * * - -It is difficult to write about the day now, we are tired, the work has -been great and our first whale worth, say, some hundred pounds, enough to -cover our outward-bound expenses; it seems hardly believable. - -It is true we have only one of these sperm. We could, I believe, have -killed several, but for a completely new crew[10] at whaling; we thought -one would be enough for us. It is a bit awkward with one fish running a -line, to tackle a second that perhaps goes in the opposite direction, -and the flensing at sea for such a small crew is such a big work that we -simply stuck to the one. - -We chased it for hours; there is no good in chasing one and then rushing -off to the next that appears; by a fluke you might strike across the -stranger’s course and get him on the rise, but the best plan is to study -the movements of the whale of your choice, and by judiciously following -it learn its movements so as to cut across its course and get in your -harpoon at the right time. - -It is difficult to describe the intense excitement of chasing whales, and -the more so when your interest in it is even more than the hunting—when -you have shares to make profit on, for friends interested in the bag. - -At about seven-thirty we saw the whales, and by nine we had been three -times almost within harpooning distance, say within forty yards, when -always the whale “tailed up,” and took his final dive. A whale comes to -the surface, blows and takes in breath, several times, just going below -surface between each blast. After it feels refreshed it goes below on -its business for a dive of, say, twenty minutes or half-an-hour, and may -appear any distance from the spot it went down at. In this last dive it -raises the after part of its body with a slow elevation, a sort of sad -farewell to the hunter. Certain whales, such as the sperm and narwhal, -and Right whales, lift the whole tail out, but others, such as the -finners we hunt off Shetland, only show the ridge in front of the tail; -and seldom show their tails or flukes until they are harpooned. - -One thing that comforted us greatly was that we knew from this whale’s -movements that though he avoided our treading on his heels, as it were, -he was never scared or gallied by our engine or propeller’s beat. - -It would take volumes to describe the different ways of each kind of -whale. The sperm whale usually feeds in something of a circle, so you -keep cruising round the inside of the circle. - -For hours we chased, very seldom speaking, eating brown bread, and -drinking coffee, standing on deck, sticking to the neighbourhood of our -first acquaintance, balancing the prospects of our expedition’s failure -or success on the way this one whale took our approach. Sceptics had told -us the beat of our motor would frighten a whale more than the slower -revolving screw of the steam-whaler; we play our one card that it will -not, so to-day our anxiety can be understood. - -[Illustration: CUTTING WITH A SPADE INTO THE CASE OR HEAD OF A CACHALOT -WHALE] - -[Illustration: THE TAIL OF A SPERM OR CACHALOT WHALE SOUNDING] - -There was too much at stake on this occasion for the writer to do the -harpooning, so Henriksen took the gun and harpoon. The actual firing and -hitting a whale any good pistol-shot can do. But manœuvring the vessel, -stalking the whale, as it were, needs a good deal of experience, and -it goes without saying one must have perfect sea-legs, indeed, that is -perhaps the greatest difficulty. It takes a great deal of experience -to be unconscious, when there is a roll on, of any effort to balance -oneself, which is, of course, absolutely essential for a successful shot. - -[Illustration] - -At last the grey, blunt-headed whale rose almost in front of us a little -to starboard, blew his blast and went under for a few yards and rose -again dead in front of our bow; higher and higher his back rose, then -_Bang!_—and we were fast and the line rattling out. - -That was a grand boom! and a straight shot. A great surge followed as -the whale went down, and out went the five-inch rope—for but a short -distance, though it was a heavy rope, spun for far more powerful prey -than the sperm or cachalot, and we soon began to reel in, and the writer -with a long lance ended the valuable animal’s troubles. - -I noticed, as the point of the lance went into the whale, that its -silky grey skin was marked here and there with series of circles, -something like Burmese writing magnified. I take these to be the marks -from the suckers on the tentacles of the great cuttle-fish on which -the sperm feeds, and here and there, over its great sides, were deeper -scrawls—light-brown-coloured lines on the greyish skin which may have -been made by the cuttle-fishes’ parrot-like beaks. Two of its companions -came alongside it while it was still alive, and tried to help it by -shouldering it away from us. - -Had we only had a bay to tow these whales into we would have easily taken -more, but we did not quite know how the Portuguese would have welcomed us -had we towed their bodies back to Ponta Delgada after killing them, if -not exactly at their own doors, still within sight of their town. - -The big grey backs with their blunt noses looked intensely interesting -when we first came amongst them—cruising about and puffing little forward -jets of spray almost without the least regard to our presence.... - -We have waited several months for the sight, and I am inclined to think -we feel repaid—that is, looking at the matter merely as hunting. - -... Somehow I feel at a loss here how to describe the accumulation of -feelings at the end of the long waiting and planning. We feel we are -right on the high road to success, our engine worked perfectly, our -vessel was apparently calculated to a nicety to approach and kill whales, -and to keep the sea almost indefinitely. - -Big finner whaling, such as I have described in a previous chapter, is -much more exciting than killing these sperm or cachalot, for which our -tackle is unnecessarily powerful. But after all, in the pursuit of any -kind of game, it is the hunting that counts as sport. The killing with -any modern weapon of precision is nothing, it is the getting there that -counts, and we have had many months both planning and hunting before we -got this, our first bull sperm; also it is of greater value than the -largest finner; and that must be our first consideration. - -We found no ambergris[11] in this one. It disgorged several cuttle-fish -but they were not lost, for the sharks soon came round, and nothing comes -amiss to them. - -[Illustration: “STARBOARD” TRYING TO GET OUT OF THE LASSO] - -[Illustration: CUTTING UP SPERM BLUBBER - -In the waist of the “St. Ebba.” The boilers are in the background.] - -Ambergris is found sometimes in sperm’s intestine, sometimes thrown from -the whale into sea. It is used as the basis of scents. At present its -selling price is 100 shillings per ounce. A whaler a year ago secured -some from one whale, sold it for £20,000. - -All afternoon we worked, cutting up the whale—first of all we made a cut -round its shoulder and fin, or hand—a whale has bones like those of a -hand inside the fibrous fin. In fact, the whale’s anatomy is similar to -that of a land animal, not like that of fish. The hip bone and thigh are -only floating rudimentary bones. - -We cut a round hole through the blubber, round the fin or arm, shoved -a strop or loop of rope through from the under side of the blubber and -pulled that taut on to a sort of button of oak called a toggle on the -outside surface of skin. Then, with the winch’s hook and chain hooked on -to the strop, we pulled away, by steam power gradually raising a strip of -blubber about two feet in width and of about eight inches in depth off -the whale, as the body slowly revolved in the water, cutting it clear of -the flesh with the flensing blades from the dory or flat-bottomed boat. - -From the illustration you may form an idea of how the blubber is “made -off.” The head and tail parts were treated separately. Finner whales on -a landing-stage on shore are stripped or flensed from end to end with -an instrument like a sabre on a long shaft, but if we have to strip or -flense one at sea, we shall have to do so in the same way as this sperm -whale. - -We worked late and turned in, all very tired. The sharks that came round -us to feed on our whale were a new experience to most of our northern -sailors; they grew quite excited about them; some of them, instead of -sleeping, stayed on deck to kill sharks. To kill one single-handed seemed -to be the great ambition. - -The first mate at breakfast to-day related how he harpooned his shark, -fifteen feet long, in the morning watch, dropped a running bowline round -its tail, and with a tackle got it on board by himself, and Henriksen, -his elder brother, quietly described a cross with his knife’s point on -our galley roof! - -But it was quite true; and other men did so—a seaman-like piece of work. -The harpooning is easy as shelling peas, but to make fast the line to a -belaying pin and get a running bowline round the tail, and then hitch on -a tackle and purchase to that and heave the shark outward single-handed -needs sailorlike neatness and quickness rather than great strength. - -We let the youngsters have their fill of shark-killing; when each has -killed or helped to kill one, the novelty will wear off, and they will -get accustomed to their company, and will not stop work to pay them more -than a passing attention with the flensing blades. - -At early dawn we recommence at the whale; our crew have not yet quite -mastered the process, but they will do it. We have strong winches if few -men, fifteen is our complement, about sixty used to tackle the job in the -old style. - -With practice and our captain’s ingenuity and determination we will get -_Case_, _Junk_, and all on board before midday meal. It is a thorough bit -of sailor’s work, every dodge of purchase block and pulley needed. - -We have the junk now on board; it was a big hoist, and at the next port -of call we will get some extra thick wire back-stays to strengthen our -masts, and so heave the next head on board with greater ease. - -It is a marvel this case or long forehead of spongelike spermaceti oil, -only covered with thin soft blubber skin. - -The mass of fibrous tissue is even fuller of liquid oil than a bath -sponge could be full of water. Whilst it was still warm we pumped it out -with flexible steel pipes, but it condensed and choked the pipe. But when -it grew colder we could just handle it. I should think it produced about -two tons of liquid oil. - -Now we have the long under jaw of white leather-like quality, with its -double row of ivory-white teeth, on board. - -This is where our plan of campaign differs from the most recent whalers; -they either tow their prey ashore or into harbour alongside great -floating ship factories of several thousand tons, to be cut up and boiled -down. We cut it up at sea and take the blubber on board, melt or cook -it, and sail away. - -[Illustration: HAULING SPERM WHALE’S FLIPPER AND BLUBBER ON BOARD THE -“ST. EBBA”] - -Our deck is now like a marble quarry, with great white chunks of fat in -the moonlight, and dusky figures cutting these into blocks of about a -foot square to go into our two pots. - -To-day steam was let into them at one hundred and sixty pounds’ pressure, -and the cooker has to watch two taps running from these, each now pouring -out beautifully fine sperm oil. - -Our whale cooker is little more than a boy, but he is a bit of a chef -already, having studied whale-boiling in these very remote frost-bound -islands, the South Shetlands previously referred to. - -He stands by the two pots on either side of our small ship amidships, one -to port, one to starboard; now and then he dips a bright tin ladle into -the oil that keeps running out into an open tank, and sniffs at it, and -pours it back lovingly, examining its colour, which is like pale sherry. - -There is no smell actually about our cooking process, till the water -that is formed in the pots by the condensing steam has to be blown out -of the bottoms of the pots. Then the blue sea gets a yellow scum and the -atmosphere is pervaded far and near with the smell of beef-tea—the smell -alone would make an invalid get up and walk for miles to windward. - -At night it comes into my port under the blanket and permeates my being; -we wish all whales at the bottom of the sea, but _toute passe_ and in a -minute or two the air is fresh again, and there is nothing left but a -greasy feeling. - -Each pot holds about fifteen barrels. I think this whale’s blubber will -fill them several times and produce, say, seventy barrels, at five -barrels to the ton, and the ton at £30. This whale ought to be worth -moneys, so we see a fortune increasing by leaps and bounds, and we put -aside all thoughts of more delays and difficulties and losses. - -It is sweltering hot on our lee side, the side on which we are flensing -the whale. Our men take to drink!—a pale pink tipple brewed in a large -margarine tin and ladled round; I think it must be one part red-currant -wine to five of water; I have tried it once or twice and always just -miss the taste. - -Blue sharks have pretty colours, especially when they are freshly -caught, steel-grey and violet on their back, changing to green and -white underneath. The long emerald-green eye in the grey skin is most -effective—wicked-looking to a degree! Who has described the exquisite -colour of the shark’s pilot fish, with its upright stripes blue and -white, like the wings of a jay, and who can tell why they swim in front -of his nose—is it to give the shark a squint? And why do they sometimes -change (there are generally two of them) and take up positions on either -side of his dorsal fin, and move as the shark moves exactly, never -getting an inch from the position, and then, without rhyme or reason, -they will both swim away somewhere, and come back again? - -I think the grimmest aspect of sharks is in a quiet moonlight night, when -above the calm water you see their dark fins quietly circling round you, -and sometimes there is a whitish gleam as one quietly puts its head up -above the moonlit water and quietly takes hold of a lump of whale fat, -and breaks the stillness by shaking it like a tiger! - -Still another half-night at our whale—the deck full of moonlight and dark -shadows, great cubes of sperm white as marble, gleaming knife blades, the -light glinting on oily hands, arms and faces, greasy thumps as chunks of -blubber are heaved across the deck towards the cooking pots. Two dusky -figures stand on top of these, silhouetted against the blue sky and -stars. We work by moonlight, for dark nights we shall have an acetylene -flare. The spermaceti of the head we handle in buckets and bailers. It -seems a question whether to bail the clean, slippery oil with buckets or -grasp it with both hands. All hands work very hard, for every handful, -every chunk represents profit to them, and they joke all the time, with -never a swear word, as far as I can hear. The captain smokes and looks -on and smiles at some of their remarks. He keeps his eye on everything -without interfering unnecessarily. The mate, his young brother, and his -men want to show what they can do, though this line of business is new to -most of them. - -The cooking pots worked all night, and in my watch below, half awake, I -dreamed of a hundred kitchens cooking beef-tea, then turned over with -a sense of great satisfaction at having seen our show well started—the -motor is going all right and we have proved we can approach whales as -well as with a steam-whaler—a great satisfaction—and have proved we can -flense a sperm at sea with such tackle as we have: and both the approach -and the flensing before we left home were said to be impossible. - -It is true that our flensing took a long time. But in the case of Right -whales, Australis, if we are lucky enough to fall in with them, it will -pay at least to take their whalebone at sea if nothing else. - -On the old sailing-ship whaler, with large decks and powerful masts to -use tackles from, and a crew of fifty men, more rapid flensing could be -made than we can manage with only fifteen all told, including engineers, -and a very small ship. - -Our plan now is to try round about the Azores, if the weather is good, -for another whale or two, then to proceed to Madeira, about two days’ -sail—I have seen several kinds of whales off its north coast—and then -hunt south and west of Africa, down to the Cape, and then to the Crozet -Islands for seals, or to the Seychelles, north of Madagascar, for sperm -and blue whales, and possibly thereafter to New Zealand. Some islands we -have information about south of New Zealand for Bone whales or Australis. - -St Ebba got a few more whales in the latitudes of the Azores and Madeira, -but the weather got too rough, so she continued southwards. - -Possibly the end of the last chapter was rather oily and whaley, and -smelt perhaps a little of filthy lucre. Perhaps I may be allowed, -therefore, a chapter on flowers and Madeira—a day or two on shore and -some tunny-fishing for a change from whale-hunting; though I must -say that no two whale-hunts are quite alike; each has its particular -thrilling interest, more especially the big finner hunting, for they are -ten times more powerful than sperm. But repeated description, without -depicting boats flying in the air and whales standing on their heads, -and so on, must become tiresome reading, so as I cannot, from a casual -habit of accuracy, invent thrilling incidents, let us to tunny. Tunny -are not half bad fun when you have one on, but the waiting out on the -blue rollers in a blaze of sun twenty miles from shore is trying, but -when one comes on and your coils of line are whizzing out into the blue -at a fearful rate, there is quite a lively time, almost anxious—for you -have to be careful not to get caught by hands or feet in the coils of -the line, which is pretty thick, just the thickness of this rather thick -fountain pen with which we continue these notes. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - - -The St Ebba killed a few more whales in the seas between the Azores and -Madeira, but they were of no great value—seihvale and small sperm—and -the weather became tempestuous, so she proceeded southwards. The island -of Madeira is thirty-five miles long and six thousand feet high. It was -very hot on the south side amongst the sugar-cane crops and vineyards. -But on the north side, with wind off the sea, high up in the mountains -and riding through oak woods, bracken and heath and roaring burns, it was -delightful, and probably more healthy than the slack air and life you -have down at Funchal. - -Funchal, the capital, is much the same as Ponta Delgada in the Azores, a -white town with red-tiled houses and green blinds round a blue bay. But -it is merely an open road-stead and has not nearly such a picturesque -inner harbour as Ponta Delgada. It is a very quiet town; the only sound -is the twittering canaries, and the occasional _Hush_ of the Atlantic -surge on the boulders. - -There is quite a large contingent of British residents who have gone in -for gardening strongly at their quintas. So that Funchal, in almost every -month of the year, presents some astonishing flowery spectacular effect. - -Geraniums are the least sensational. They pour over the walls of the -lanes everywhere. I noticed one evening a high white wall in shade lit -up with pink from the reflected scarlet of geraniums that hung over the -opposite wall. - -The jackaranda is the most amusingly pretty flowering tree. One morning -you notice its bare indiarubber-like leafless branches, a few days -after the bare branches are covered all over with bunches of Neapolitan -violets—at least, they look exactly like them, and a day or two later the -street is carpeted with the fallen blossoms and the golden brown oxen -of the carros[12] go wading through them, leaving dark tracks where the -little polished pebbles of the cobbled road show through the violet. - -I tried tunny-fishing off Madeira on several occasions. Perhaps this is a -subject more suitable to introduce in a whaler’s log than descriptions of -flowers and canaries. - -On one occasion I persuaded a hotel visitor to accompany me, with a crew -of Portuguese. - -The tunny, or tuna, is a mackerel; there are several kinds. Those I saw -ran from about twenty pounds to three hundred pounds. - -You have to start before daybreak for the fishing from Madeira, which -is apt to put off intending tunny-fishers, but “41,” as I shall call my -friend at Reid’s Hotel, after the number of his room, agreed to risk the -briny and an early rise—I doubt if he will do it again—blue Atlantic -rollers and a sub-tropical sun are somewhat trying. - -Here are notes from my sketch-book of our day’s proceedings, begun, I may -inform the sympathetic reader, in the Palace Hotel before daylight. - -... All is still—it is only three hours past midnight, the people -in this caravanserai are all asleep—we alone are awake in the great -empty dining-room—the night waiter and the writer—the writer cross and -thirsting for an early cup of tea—the night porter does not understand -this, but—he comes from Las Palmas, that is all I can learn from him. -He is limp of figure and has black eyes and hair and his sallow face -only expresses dull resignation and an unfulfilled desire for sleep in a -corner: he is young, but I think no smile has ever passed over his chilly -countenance in this life. He does not even move a feature or express -the least remorse when I tell him it was No. 41, not 49, he should have -awakened—fancy “49’s” feelings! so, to make sure, we go together and -pull out No. 41—“41,” in pyjamas, and red-eyed, seems to have forgotten -altogether that he was to go fishing with me. Fishing at ten P.M., with a -pipe and a grog, and fishing at three in the morning are so different! -So the writer and the mirthless waiter sit down again in the vast empty -dining-room and wait whilst “41” gets into his clothes.... Now we are -ready—an hour later than the end of above paragraph, but still tea-less. -My fishermen and interpreter have been waiting under the palms in front -of the hotel, smoking cigarettes and talking quietly and with interest, -even at this dark hour of morning. We give them our thermos flasks, with -only cold coffee in them, and our provisions for two days, in baskets, -and with them we steal into the night round the hotel gardens and -terraces, trimmed with tenantless wicker-work chairs, under the palms, -pale in the faint moonlight, down the steps, over the cliffs with care, -through an iron gate, we must look like conspirators, but we only feel -sleepless; down and down, till we come to the bathing steps and dimly -discern our boat and men rising and falling in the grey foam. We embark -with difficulty, with our provisions, and row off. The moon in the -west breaks a little through the clouds and cheers us with its broken -reflections on the long swell. “41” is in the stern, the writer in the -bow, four rowers and the interpreter between us. - -[Illustration] - -We pass under the cliffs to the west of Funchal Bay, rowing steadily with -two long sweeps, two men to a sweep, close to the surf on the rocks, and -pass a blow-hole in the rocks, where the rising surge makes a fountain -of fine spray through a hole in the rocks, very like a whale’s blast. It -is blowing intermittently, dimly seen in the moonlight. As we pass the -outstanding rocky island opposite it we catch a faint land breeze and -step our mast and set the mainsail and slip along in absolute silence. - -It is a long sail, we have nearly twenty miles before we get to the place -the tunny frequent. - -We pass the fishing village of Camara da Lobos (place of the seals), -several miles to starboard. It nestles round the head of a bay—the deep -glen behind it in shadow, the white houses in moonlight—a few yellow -lights move about, our crew live there. - -Under the cliff of Cabo Girao we closed our eyes for, it seemed, a -minute, and opened them to find a change. The sadness of night was gone -and it was all hilarious blue day. - -How quickly the night goes, even in the sub-tropics; as fast as it falls, -almost in a minute, the moon’s sheen on the swell is gone, and the -glorious sun shines again, from behind us over the east end of Madeira. -Due west there is a lapis lazuli blue sky over a bank of pink cumuli, the -full, golden moon seems to stay one moment in the blue before it sets -behind the bank of cloud; then all the sea and sky is the blue of the -tropics again, as it was yesterday and the day before—great swells of a -rippling blue sea, and a blue sky, and that is all, excepting our little -selves and our green, red and yellow boat in the immensity. - -The features of our crew are now clear to us, and they unwind the cloths -they wore round their heads for protection against the moonlight and -night air. Alas, “41” still tries to sleep, and so does the interpreter; -I fear the motion is the cause—the rise and send of a small boat in -the Atlantic is very trying. Ahead of us there is one sail like our -own; we see it now and then as it rises on a blue swell; now the top of -the white sail catches the golden light of the sunrise, then far away -beyond it something, a mere speck, appears for an instant, then another, -there are boats out there fishing; it comes quite as a surprise to find -fellow-creatures out so far from shore in small craft. We cannot count -them, for we only see three or four at a time, as they appear in turn on -the top of the swell. Now the sail in front drops, and the boat is like -the others, with the mast down, and oars out, and little figures standing -out silhouetted against the sky for a second, then lost to sight. In -another ten minutes we have joined the fleet, and dip our sail and stow -our mast away. - -[Illustration: A SLEEPING BEAR AND CUBS] - -And the colour of these mariners! We can hardly begin to fish, so great -is our desire to gloat on the appearance of each boat—its weathered -brilliant colours and its crew as it appears in its turn over the back -of a blue glittering swell. Camara da Lobos men all wear wide straw -hats, with a broad black ribbon round them, so their brown faces are in -shadow; their shirts, originally white, are tinted like old ivory by -many washings and voyages, so were their cotton trousers, and tattered -and patched most wonderfully. The boats are striped yellow and blue, -with perhaps magenta, and blue oars; coarse enough colours they would -look under a northern sun, but here, with the complementary tints from -the strong light, and all repeated by reflections in the blue sea, they -become a sight to rejoice anyone with half an eye. The fishing, however, -soon engrossed our attention. - -As a preliminary to tunny-fishing you have to catch large mackerel as -bait and smaller mackerel to throw out into the sea when the tunny comes -along in order to keep them in your neighbourhood. For the small fry we -fished with a yard of cane and a yard of line and a small hook baited -with little cubes of mackerel. The captain chopped up some of these into -a fine paste on a board with a machete and put the paste into the water -to draw more fish; as it faded away down into the clear green depths, -swarms of these little fish, about four to the pound, dashed to and fro, -eating it, and every now and then one would take our bait, when there was -a flash of silver in the water, and out he came to join his neighbours in -a bucket. - -Another of our crew, “Bow,” we will call him, rigged a longer hand-line -and fished deep, and soon pulled up some magnificent spotted mackerel. -This bait-catching was apparently the object of the early morning -start—large mackerel for bait for the tunny, and small fish to catch -the mackerel. The small fish, when they are let loose, are supposed to -hug the shadow of the boat and so keep the tunny in the neighbourhood: -besides this purpose, they form our principal food at midday. - -These large mackerel were kept alive alongside on tethers, hooked by the -nose—with a rather clever rustic swivel on the line—kept alive to be -used for the tunny. But usually a big basket is kept floating alongside, -into which are put the live bait, large and small. There was so much -going on; so many little fishing dodges new to me that I must have missed -much; what held my attention were the great coils of strong hand-line, -thirty fathoms in each, thick as the average man’s little finger, with -brass-twisted wire trace, fifteen plies, each with thick iron hook at its -end. - -After we had caught enough mackerel we went several miles farther out -to sea, and the two men in the stern each made fast a large mackerel to -his line—put the big iron hook through its nose and a fine wire twisted -lightly, from the shank to the neck of the barb to prevent the fish -working off. - -Finally we had four of these live baits and strong lines at different -depths, drifting astern; and two men at the oar gently paddled to keep -the boat in position and the lines up and down. For hours we sat so, and -thought tunny-fishing uncommonly dull. - -If one could speak Portuguese it would help to pass the time. What fun -it would have been to get the local “clash” from these pleasant-looking -men, all in tatters, miraculously stitched together. How curious would -have been their views of life and their experiences and traditions, but -my interpreter was sick as could be, and made neither moan nor attempt at -translation, so the crew chatted and better chatted between themselves, -and laughed occasionally, and so passed the time, whilst the writer -patiently and silently held a line for hours, waiting for the huge tug -that seemed never going to come. - -But the next boat to us soon got one—a whacking big fellow; he fought -them for an hour and a half and they gave him twenty strokes of a -bludgeon on the head in a smother of foam alongside the boat, and -pulled him over the side with two huge gaffs and ropes, and then sat -down exhausted. He was about two-thirds of the length of the boat and -must have weighed well over three hundred pounds, and was worth £3 at -the market, to the two men and two boys who got it. Lucky fellows! They -lifted the boat seats to show it to us, and there it lay, a silver and -blue torpedo-shaped fish with huge deep shoulders. The natives call the -tunny albicore. We congratulated them and gazed at it, and listened to -their gasping description of the fight, how it had sounded seven times -and taken out a desperate number of lines. Then other two boats lost one -each—that is, they got into fish that were too big for them, and made -their lines fast, and the fish broke away. Time was their consideration; -they prefer several smaller fish of, say, one or two hundred pounds to a -bigger one that may weigh five hundred pounds but will take the whole day -to play it. - -[Illustration] - -It got tiresome as the hours went by with never a soul to speak to, for -“41” and the interpreter were both still ill, and the sun got very hot, -so we decided that after midday meal we would up stick and make sail. -A flat hearth of charred wood was laid amidships. Three small boulders -were laid on it and sticks between, and these were lit and a great tin -can of sea-water was set on the stones to boil, with the fish, and sweet -potatoes, in it, and a right hearty meal we made, with fingers for -knives, and the blue Atlantic for a finger-bowl, and the appetising -meal was washed down with water from a barrel and some ruby red vino -pasto wine fit for the gods.... Ah, well, better luck next time, we were -saying, as we were about to haul in our line, when the tug came, a most -tremendous tug! - -We are fast in a tunny at last! and a pulley-haul fight begins—what -a weight it is! You feel as if you were pulling up the bottom of the -ocean for a second, and then that it is pulling you, willy-nilly, into -its depths, therefore you let go line, and jam it down on the gunwale -to check it, and it runs, squeaking, out, cutting a groove in the wood. -I cannot tell you how much stout line went out—there were many lines -the thickness of flag halyards of thirty fathoms each, attached to each -other—but the whole stern of the boat seemed filled with wet coiled-down -line when we had been pulling in for a few minutes, and then, in a -minute, it was almost gone, and then wearisomely two of us pulled it -in again, hand over hand, with much gasping and tugging, more and more -line is coiled up in our stern sheet, but still no sign of the fish. -As the fight—pull devil, pull baker—proceeded another man managed to -pull in the other lines all in a heap, and we were able to devote our -united attention to the fish. It seemed strong as a horse and took us -practically all in charge, and we had to be nimble to let the whizzing -loops of hard line get away clear of our feet and wrists. We were pretty -well blown, cut and sore, by the time its efforts lessened. Then we got -in coil after coil, six coils in hand then lost two, then eight and lost -one, then set teeth and pulled steadily with both hands between times, -and at last and at length, the silver glitter we expected showed deep -down in the blue. Even then there were many more coils to bring in; the -water being so intensely clear, the enormous mackerel showed many fathoms -down, swinging round and round.... The latter part of the fray needed -instantaneous photography to depict it—what with the tunny pulling and -our weight all leaning to one side to get the line in, and then to gaff -the fish, and the roll of the sea combined, too many things happened at -one time to be very clearly remembered afterwards. We had two gaffs—huge -affairs—and as the tunny dashed here and there we managed to get one -into it, then the second, and we lurched half-seas over; the tunny was -kicking up a smother of foam all the colours of the rainbow! Then with -the gaffs we pulled its head out of the water up to the gunwale, and -banged it twenty times with a wooden thing like an Indian club till it -was still, or only quivered, then a lurch from a blue sea seemed to help -to get half of it on board, and a big heave and it all came in, and we -lifted a seat and put it along the bottom and raised ourselves and waved -our hats. It was quite as good fun as any salmon-fishing I have ever had, -and nearly as exciting as whaling; that is, during the actual playing, -but the previous waiting was trying beyond words, you get roasted by the -sun and bitten by salt spray and stiff and cramped—you “chuck and chance -it,” and chuck but once in half-a-day and may have to wait days and days -before you catch your first tunny. - -Getting all the lines clear again took a long time and neat and patient -handling; we did not help at that, we were rather tired. But we watched -the iridescent colours of the tunny fade; in half-an-hour its brightest -blues and shimmering pinks and silver were almost gone, and changed to -dark green on the back and dull silver below. Fifty-four kilos we made it -out to be—five feet three inches long, with enormous girth. Unfortunately -I lost its chest measurement, but think it was four feet three inches. -The three-hundred-pound tunny we saw caught close to us was worth £3 at -the present market value. - -At four we gave up. The everlasting rolling in hot sun on tossing sea, -however beautifully blue, as you lie drifting, becomes very trying in -a small boat; besides, the native fishermen themselves all knock off -between three and four. But we must try again, and some day, when we -thoroughly know the ropes, we will get a small sailing craft and try the -business single-handed, for there is a lot of fun, in my opinion, to be -had fishing so, for trout or salmon—to play your own salmon and gaff it, -or manage your boat and trout and land it, say a five-pounder on fine -tackle, is excellent, but to land a tunny single-handed, doing your own -sailing and gaffing, would be—just sublime! - -It was pleasant sailing back to land close-hauled with the fresh breeze, -which had risen with the sun and turned the smooth swell into crisp -waves with blue breaking tops, that soft and white breaking sea of the -Trades that is more caressing than threatening. Most of the other boats -gave up fishing at the same time, about three P.M. The skipper gave me -the tiller; neither of us could speak the other’s tongue, but there is -a quick understanding between all of us who sail small boats, and both -skipper and boat seemed to become old friends to me. They are better -sailing craft than I had fancied, though they do not draw much, for they -have to be beached; but they have two bilge keels, which make them sail -pretty close—they all sail closer and are “lighter in the mouth” than I -had expected. You notice in the drawing they have a high stem and stern -post, and the rudder ships just as it does in the boats of the north of -Norway. The sail is simple, a large square dipping lug—the canvas from -Dundee—the tack is made fast at the stem, or a little to either side, and -the sheet is simply rove through a hole in the gunwale of the sharp stern. - -We got ashore at last and “41” and the Juan Fernado, the interpreter, -revived and spoke again as we got into smoother water. - -We climbed up the cliffs in the late afternoon and “41” had to explain to -José, the major-domo of the hotel, why we did not stay out all night, as -we at first intended to do—“No room in boat,” etc., etc., he said, and -José smiled his genial smile and said: “Told you so, told you so, eet ees -dee same ding always, gentlemen do come back so; dey not like de smell of -de feesh, dey say.” - -Now there is the moon again, I declare! I began this chapter by its -silvery light before dawn, and now it appears again as I wind up my notes -at night; it surely has done its round at an unusual pace; it seems to -me only a minute or two since it went down in the west, ruddy as a new -penny—it had only a small gallery then—mostly fisher folk; this evening -the hotel people are all watching it from a verandah; they will be late -for dinner, so beautiful is its yellow glory and its track across the sea -from the Disertas to the foot of our cliffs. I must make a study of it -to-morrow and will need a ruler to draw the black shadows of our masts, -so straight are they along the path of gold. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - - -After killing our first bull sperm off the Azores we killed a few more -whales, north of the Line, rorquals and small sperms of no great value. -Then, owing to the warm water of the tropics not cooling our engine -sufficiently, we had more engine trouble on the voyage from the Line to -Cape Town. One day under sail and engine, the next drifting and tinkering -at the engine. At the Cape, however, relief came; a Norwegian expert -at Diesel motors was sent out and he diagnosed the trouble at once, -increased the flow of cooling water, altered the screw slightly and got -the St Ebba into splendid trim, and the old engineer, a Swede, went home. - -Under sail and motor our little vessel did a record passage up the -Mozambique Channel, in heavy weather, past Madagascar to the region of -calm seas round the Seychelle Islands, five degrees south of the Line. -We would rather have gone south instead of north, to the Crozet Islands, -for the sea-elephants which we know are there, but, owing to the last two -vessels that called there having been wrecked, insurance rates became -prohibitive; so we acted on the alternative plan we had formed in Norway, -and went to the Seychelles to find if my old whaling chart said sooth -about the sperm there. I had also heard from old whalers that there were -many blue whales, and these we knew had never been hunted, and the sperm -we counted on having increased in numbers; since the sperm-whaling was -almost given up forty years ago. Our forecast was correct; we found both -sperm and rorquals in great numbers. - -We set to killing and flinching (or flensing) the sperm whales at sea. -But we soon realised that for one we killed and flinched at sea we could -take and utilise a dozen with a shore station; for the labour, French -Creole, on the Seychelles is plentiful and cheap. Besides, we were losing -not only much oil, owing to the warmth of the water, but also the use of -the bodies of the whales. One of these drifted ashore beneath Government -House. It was very high, and we were politely informed that—that was the -limit! - -So we applied to the Seychelle Government for licences for a large land -station in order to utilise both the blubber and the entire bodies of our -whales. Licences were granted to us and we purchased the land site for a -station; and now we are running our little Company into a large affair, -with both British and Norwegian Directors and capital, and the station -is being prepared—a complete land station, to work with several whaling -steamers; capable of turning out, by the latest processes and modern -machinery, several hundred barrels of oil and bags of guano per day, the -guano being produced from the whale’s bones and meat after all oil has -been extracted. - -[Illustration] - -Now I have come to a point in this relation of the history of the St -Ebba when I find myself in the position of a historical painter who was -decorating a building in New York with a historical frieze of American -history, and he stopped. “Why,” said his patrons, “do you stop?” “Why,” -he replied, “because—you haven’t got any more history!” So our St Ebba’s -history must also stop in the meantime. Possibly we may join her again -and go on with our narration, and paint blue seas and coral strands -fringed with waving palms, and hunt whales where there are never gales, -and turn turtle and catch bonita and tunny and so on. Meantime we leave -her at anchor in the Seychelles in charge of the mate, engineers and two -men. The mate writes that his crew strike at turtle soup more than three -times a week, and Henriksen has gone to Norway about the outfit for the -new station and steamers for our developed Company. - -Here it was the writer’s intention to bring in some notes about whaling -in the Antarctic regions, 1892-1893, partly because they might contrast -interestingly with the following recent notes on the Arctic seas, but -this promised to make too large a volume, so we miss the Antarctic and go -direct to notes about hunting and drawing in the Arctic. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - - -Now we come to notes about the Arctic regions, whales and bears, promised -in the preface to this collection of spun yarn, as a sailor-man might -call it. Long ago the writer, as a very small boy, vowed to go North and -bring back bearskins. His instructress failed to excite his interest in -short sentences, such as “THE CAT ATE THE RAT,” so she gave him a little -square green book by Ballantyne, called “Fast in the Ice,” and he at once -made rapid progress, and he promised his instructress that he would go to -Greenland some day and bring her white bearskins—now he has got them; but -it is too late! - -With this brief introduction we come to the subject of a little North -Polar expedition we arranged this year (1913), six of us, to hunt for -whales, musk oxen, walrus, seals and bears, or anything else of value in -the way of heads or furs, which we could find. - -I need not go into the financial aspect of the concern, but I may say my -principal object was to study the Arctic regions as compared with the -Antarctic and to make pictures of the northern ice, and animal life. - -Dr W. S. Bruce, my companion of long ago in the Antarctic, came to see us -off at the Waverley Station, and gave me a volume by that very remarkable -Englishman, the whaler Scoresby, a scientist and whaler of the Arctic. -That and Dr Bruce’s own splendid book of reference on the Antarctic and -Arctic (“Polar Research”), and my friend Captain Trolle’s work on the -Danish expedition to East Greenland, formed our Arctic library. Trolle’s -description of the Danish expedition came in particularly well, as our -intention was to visit the part of North-East Greenland, north and east -of Shannon Island, which they charted in 1906-1908, and where, alas! they -left their first leader, Captain Mylius Erichsen. - -“We,” I had better say here, will often stand in these notes for my -friend C. A. Hamilton of Cochno, and Dunmore, Stirlingshire, and myself; -we have done a little whaling together, and he gave me his good company -a few years ago through the rough and smooth of hunting black bear and -caribou in the barrens of Newfoundland. The rest of our party were -four Spaniards, one of whom, F. J. de Gisbert, made the bundabust for -this voyage, chartered our diminutive whaler, at Trömso, provisioned -her and arranged about captain and a Norwegian crew. De Gisbert is to -lead the proposed Spanish National Polar Expedition, and is at present -building his vessel, which ought to be second to none, as a floating -oceanographical laboratory and ice-ship. It is to be a four or five -years’ drift across the Polar basin east to west, somewhat after the -manner of the Nansen expedition, benefiting from their work, and carrying -out still further observations with a staff of Spanish naval scientists -specially trained in the various branches of natural science in the high -northern latitudes. - -It is a long road to North-East Greenland by Trömso and the north of -Norway, and so many people are familiar with the Norwegian coast that the -reader may care to make one jump right north and join us on the Fonix, a -few hours out from Trömso—to join our rather curious little party in the -cabin of a very small whaler; so we will avoid wearisome detail in the -latter part of this book about fitting out our vessel, such as those with -which I have perhaps burdened the first part about our St Ebba. - -So we raise the curtain in the cabin of the Fonix; De Gisbert and Archie -Hamilton are at chess, whilst the writer and our young Spanish comarados, -two brothers Herrero and their cousin, Don Herrero Velasquez, are playing -cards, drawing, and speaking in French, English, and Spanish, separately -or all at the same time. - -To add to the vocabulary, Svendsen, our skipper, comes in with his collar -up, from the cold outside, and taking Gisbert’s guitar trolls out Norse -sea-songs. Three of us “touch” the guitar, and we also have bagpipes and -a mouth-organ. It promises to be quite a homely and musical party. - -The engine goes beautifully quietly—but we know from the wind and the -low glass there must be a heavy sea outside the fiord, and we are heavily -laden with coal on deck! - -The evening passes with snatches of Spanish songs, and bits of sailors’ -chanteys, and we have one bottle of rum between us all as a libation for -a successful voyage and a “full ship.” - -Then, alas, we strike the rough sea outside the fiord, and roll and pitch -as only small whalers can. But still the three cousins trill away at -songs, bravely, bravely, though they grow more pale. Then they retire -one by one to their minute cabins; turn their keys and shut themselves -in their bunks and hide discomfort. How they live without any air is a -wonder—and after two days they turn up again, smiling. - -A word here about our little whaler, the Fonix, and her build. She is -just a handy size for dodging in and out amongst the ice, and she is said -to be strong. She was built in 1884 for bottle-nose whaling, and for use -in the ice—ninety-two tons register, two pole masts and a funnel, one -hundred and forty horse-power, eight and a half knots in calm water, over -all one hundred and ten feet, with broad beam, her sides are sheathed -with greenheart and oak two feet thick; her ribs are eleven inches by -twenty inches broad, with only five and a half inches to six inches -between them at bows. The forefoot has a five-foot thickness of timber -and the usual belts of iron round the stem or cut-water, to protect it -when ramming ice. - -Between 3rd and 6th July we are all seedy, there is no gainsaying it, -the writer perhaps makes the best pretence not to be so, and is rather -envied; and several of the crew are down, it is not nearly so bad though -as last year on the St Ebba, where, out of a crew of fifteen seasoned -hands, the skipper, first mate, and writer, were all that could stand -a watch for three days after sailing. That was, however, in a pucca -gale. Still, on the Fonix, we managed a game of chess or two between -the appearance and disappearance of our señors, and worked a little at -Spanish and strummed mandoline and guitar—Gisbert playing the mandoline, -the writer accompanying him on the guitar, whilst all well enough joined -in the words. - -I was never with such a musical party. The steward also plays the guitar, -and, with a wire arrangement attached to its neck, holds a melodeon or -mouth-organ to his mouth and makes a very clever but horrible orchestral -effect. - -To-day, the 7th of July, Monday, we are into calmer water, grey sky and -cold—we passed a little ice at night and met our first ivory gull, it is -the harbinger of the North Polar regions, as the white petrel down South -tells of the ice edge. Last night we drew lots for watches, Hamilton and -I take ours together—we take the second six hours watch—Don José and his -brother Don Luis[13] take the first six hours, and their cousin, Don -Luis[14] and De Gisbert take the third; this arrangement allows us a -change of six hours each day. The idea is that the two on watch are to -risk their lives against any whale, bear or ferocious animal that may -turn up on their watch. To cheer us up on this somewhat quiet evening, -Gisbert yarned to us about his previous trips to the Arctic; and told -us about some of the ice-protected vessels that lay round us in Trömso. -One of them, the smallest, a mere twenty-tonner, with a crow’s nest at -its short foremast, he told us, came back from the ice _single-handed_ a -year ago! Another, a yacht-like auxiliary schooner, with fiddle bows, but -heavily protected, a year or two ago was up at the west ice—that is, east -of Greenland—with a party of Germans. They became overdue and a search -party in another small vessel set out, which called at Jan Mayen Island -on the way north, but found no signs of the lost party; so they pursued -their way north into the floes—hunted about till they burst their ship -up, and only one man returned. On comparing dates the first party was -found to have actually called on their return journey at Jan Mayen and -left only twelve hours before the relief party called. A letter left at -the hut on the island to this effect would have saved fifteen lives of -the rescue party. - -As we are going to the “West Ice,” north-east of Greenland, such stories -give a sense of anticipated troubles to our little trip—if, however, one -only thought of the dangers of life, who would go motoring or eat a fish -or go to bed? - -De Gisbert has picked up several stranded sealers, on his previous -expeditions north; a lot of these set out in poor vessels with no -equipment; for fur-hunting, for blue fox, bear and seal skins; and they -often came to grief. A party of four wintered in Spitzbergen, badly -provisioned, and when he fell in with them, one lay dead, a second was -in the last stage of scurvy, and the other two were barely able to come -on board and tell their tale. De Gisbert took the sick man and isolated -him—and a distinguished doctor on board said he had not a chance of life, -half his face was gone. He asked for beer, and the doctor said: “Give him -as much as he likes to drink. He is a dead man.” So he got that light -Norwegian _ol_, more and more of it; he drank one hundred and fifty-six -bottles in five days, and recovered! - -Another troublesome sealer he took home had gone crazy on board a small -boat on its outward voyage. De Gisbert hails all sealers and gives them -tobacco and their longitude and latitude, and possibly a bottle of -whisky, all of which things they are generally quite without—as often -as not they carry neither sextant nor chronometer. He was asked to take -this man who had gone crazy back to Norway, and as Gisbert was on his -way south, to save them their season’s sealing, he humanely did so. The -man partially recovered and was let loose, and messed forward, in the -fo’c’sle. But suddenly one day, at meal-time, he went mad again and -cleared everyone out of the fo’c’sle with a knife in his hand; and they -had to lasso him through the fo’c’sle skylight! Naturally they put into -the first Norwegian village they came to up north and asked the police to -take over the lunatic; but the police besought Gisbert to take him on to -Hammerfest and they would telegraph and have him met there. He did so, -much to his own loss of time, and at Hammerfest one small boy came off -in a boat to take, single-handed, the raving lunatic, who required two -strong men and a strait jacket: he died two days after. - -De Gisbert talks of his plans for this coming Spanish Polar expedition -and finds the writer a sympathetic listener, for have we not worried -ourselves over similar troubles, the raising capital and planning of an -expedition to the Far South? - -We sight ice in the afternoon, and grey and cold it is—alas, that the -thrill of the first sight of ice should not repeat itself. My young -friends do not seem to be greatly impressed, not so much so as we were -years ago, when, after a three months’ voyage, the mist rose and we had -our first vision of the marvellous architecture of Antarctic ice. - -Here it is not so impressive as in the South, but beyond doubt it -can show its teeth quite effectively. Curiously it is often the old, -experienced deep-sea sailor who feels the greatest sensation on going -into the ice for the first time. All his life he has religiously avoided -knocking up against anything in the way of ice or rocks, so when he is -called to go straight in amongst ice-blocks it affects him more than -it would a landsman. I know of such a captain and his first experience -up here. When he had brought his ship into the ice, the crashing and -thumping got on his nerves so that he retreated to his cabin, and bolted -himself in, and had to be fed through the skylight for three days. This -is a true bill. - -[Illustration] - -We have got some sail set to a westerly breeze and go so steadily that -we can vary our amusements of lasso-throwing, etc., etc., with fencing. -The señors are interested in fencing but are not very good, but they -are good shots at clay pigeons; that is another side-show we have, De -Gisbert is quite a showman at it. With a five-shooter shot-gun he throws -three clay pigeons up with the left hand and shoots them all before they -reach the water. But at fencing the writer has rather a pull, the last -three years’ practice in Edinburgh with our most perfect teacher, M. Leon -Crosnier, ought to have some effect. - -[Illustration: A DEAD BEAR BEING LIFTED ON BOARD BY STEAM WINCH AND -CHAIN] - -In Gisbert’s Spanish Polar expedition next year, or the year after, all -men will fence for health’s sake. But who will instruct? that is the -art—fencing without an instructor is hopeless. - -A seal or two appear to-day and some little auks. - -We get the lines and harpoons ready for our two bow whale-guns, and other -harpoons and lines for walrus boats. “Chips,” the carpenter, is busy -overhauling old oars, and making new oars. - -So if all goes well we should soon be fast in a whale, or walrus, or up -against a bear. - -But we strike the ice rather far east, over two hundred miles from -Greenland coast! Gisbert has tried before to get into Greenland to south -and west of Jan Mayen; this time we hope to get in from farther north, -about seventy-five degrees, and hope to strike Shannon Island or that -neighbourhood. We have some slight hope of meeting Eskimos, and possibly -musk oxen. Captain Trolle of the Danish navy was up here in 1906-1908, -and charted the coast of North-East Greenland. He took command when the -leader, Mylius Erichsen, lost his life in the interior. He says there -is a hut on the island, one of these lonely dwellings visited by human -beings once a century, generally under pressure of circumstance. - -At afternoon café we overhaul cameras—like the rest of their outfit, the -cameras of the Dons are of the best, as neat as can be: and we pull out -all the books on recent polar work, which we and De Gisbert have between -us, and discuss the writers we know. - -Small floes are now on all sides, and mist. We run through one small -stream of ice, shoving the pieces aside, leaving our green paint behind -and some splinters on the jagged ice feet, and it is rather a sensation -for my friends, their first experience of ice—then we heave to and -drift. By-and-by we spot a hooded-seal and our first watch goes to the -bows in the faint hope of getting a shot from board-ship, as we think -the movement in the small boat would spoil their aim, and the seal -understands and pops off the ice when we are eight hundred yards off; so -we retire to the cabin and the stove; for it is beastly cold and damp, -and write up journals and almost wonder if we are not rather fools to -come so far for such disagreeable circumstances. Still in the back of our -minds we remember what a difference a little sunlight makes in a polar -scene. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - - -My first impressions of the Arctic ice compared to Antarctic ice are -distinctly disappointing, which reminds me of my friend Dr Bruce’s first -impressions of the same. He had been in the Antarctic, then came up here -to join the Jackson Harmsworth expedition. For several days they had been -going through ice when he remarked: “I would rather like to see one of -your polar icebergs.” “What!” they said, “you have passed a dozen of them -in the last two days. Why, there is one now,” and they pointed to a piece -of ice about seventy feet high, and about two hundred feet in length. -Bruce was silent. I remember one of the first considerable bergs we saw -in the South was over two hundred feet in height and more than nine miles -long—we only saw one end of it! He had not quite realised that an Arctic -berg was so small a thing compared to the majestic Antarctic bergs he -had been familiar with off Graham’s Land, and in the Weddell Sea. When -grounded and shoved up, the Antarctic bergs are sometimes several hundred -feet in height, and have, we know from soundings, a total thickness of -about one thousand feet. - -As we sat looking at the rather gloomy view—grey sea and bits of bluish -ice—one of us spotted a black speck away down to leeward and the first -watch bolted for their rifles and we steamed down. Pop—pop—went the -rifles, the mausers at about fifty yards. A lucky shot drew “first -blood”—a small one-year-old hooded-seal. Great was the rejoicing in our -little community, and we forgot the cold and dreary aspect, and dropped a -boat and the seal was aboard and flinched in no time. - -Then the writer turned in for one, also Archie, and the señors made merry -with a tiny drop of whisky and soda, and were very well pleased. In my -dreams I heard another shot and the engine stopped, and we crunched -up against ice, so I knew another seal had gone to the happy hunting -grounds; I showed a leg for half-a-minute, not more, it was shivering -cold on deck. - -Young Don Luis Velasquez had got the seal through the head, first blood -for his split new rifle, telescope sight, etc. - -On this almost mild morning of pigeon-grey sky, light and fine rain (8th -July), we are passing through a wilderness of ice pans and small floes -and the soft grey sky is reflected on the rippling lavender-coloured sea. -The ice pans are mostly blue and white, like blue muslin overlaid with -white, which shows almost emerald-green under the water. On the pans are -fresh-water pools reflecting soft grey of sky, each pool surrounded by -a rim of pale cobalt. So I wonder if there is any blue paper on board -to paint on, with white body colour; that might secure the effect most -rapidly. And on some of the floes are seals lying at rest, whilst others -disport themselves as dolphins do in the sea, but we stop not for these, -for the lavender sky is deep in colour away ahead, so we know there is -more or less open water free of ice, possibly leaving a road for us to -Greenland’s ice-bound strand. That is our object, slightly uncertain of -attainment, as it depends on the drift of the polar ice from the North. -In some years you can make the land easily—other years it is unattainable. - -We keep a sharp look-out from the crow’s nest and bridge and deck for the -blow of a whale; possibly we may spot a Nord Capper, or even the scarce -Greenland Right Whale Balæna Mysticetus, and lift £1000 or so. We have -tackle for them, but the finner whale on this trip we must leave alone, -he is too monstrous strong. I have written about their capture in the -first part of this book. - -Here we may meet a large male polar bear, for they venture far afield. -Nearer land we are likely to fall in with family parties, females and -cubs. Where the seals are, there are the bears. It is a very curious -thing about seals of the Antarctic sea as compared with these Arctic -seals, that you very seldom see them in the South showing their heads -above water; either they are under water or entirely out and up on the -ice. I have seen many thousands there, and only remember seeing about -a dozen heads above water in several months. And here again, or round -our coasts, seals constantly show their heads above water. Another odd -difference is that in the Southern Polar ice-seals make for the middle -of the ice-sheet if they feel any alarm. They expect no harm to come to -them on the ice. In fact, you can go up to them and touch them. Here they -waddle off as fast as their flippers and caterpillar-like movements will -take them, and get into the water for security, the reason being, that in -the North they have bears and men and land animals to contend with, and -neither man, bear, nor any other land animal exists down South. There the -enemy is in the sea, the _orca gladiator_, the grampus killer, which has -most awful jaws and teeth, to judge by the huge wounds one finds on the -bodies of these very great seals. - -All day we go under steam through the ice-floes, on each quarter a -different effect—north-east there is dark cloud, with an ice-blink, a -light streak on the clouds telling of a field of pack ice—ahead there is -darker lilac sky, telling of open water, to our left and the south-west -there is white ice and white sky, blending in a blur of soft light, so -we know there is endless ice there. All of us, from the cabin boy on -his first trip, enjoy the colouring, these exquisite blues and greens -of the ice-tongues under water, and of the blues of the under-cut ice, -reflected on lavender-tinted ripples. I eagerly make notes in colour, for -my recollection of Antarctic ice tints is fading. Yes, blue paper would -be the thing to paint on. Is it increase of years that makes me fail to -see quite such great beauty here as in the South? I incline to think -the colouring here is not quite so varied, possibly owing to the lesser -variety of ice-forms. One might compare the simpler, flatter forms of -the ice here and the fantastic shapes of the Antarctic, as the lowlands -appear in contrast to the rocks and hills of the Highlands. - -My first impression of Antarctic ice in the Weddell Sea was of bergs -bigger than St Peter’s, miles in length, a hundred and fifty feet high, -with lofty blue caves into which you could sail a ship, the sea bursting -up their green depths from a huge glassy swell, around them small ice -like ruined Greek temples, floating lightly as feathers, such marvellous -forms! Here the ice is pretty, very pretty indeed, but there is nothing -awesome or staggeringly wonderful in its design. - -We steamed north-westerly all forenoon; a thin haze came down in the -afternoon and the sun through the haze on the ice-floes gives quite -a fairylike appearance, even to our somewhat rugged figures, when we -scatter over the ice-floe, which we did, and enjoyed the feeling of -land, as it were.—Bump! That would have upset an ink-bottle; now we lie -still, up against a floe with the Fonix’s nose against the dazzling -blue under-cut edge, and we throw the ice-anchor and wire-cable over -the bows and hammer it into the ice. Later we towed her stern round and -lay broadside to the floe and put out planks for a gangway, and filled -up our water-tanks from a pale cobalt pond of fresh water. We broke a -bottle of champagne at this point of our proceedings—and we all agreed -it tasted rather better in the snow than down South, and we shot at the -empty bottle, and practised lasso-throwing, getting our eye in against -a rencontre with seal or bear. Our little white ship that seemed so -insignificant down in Trömso now seems to rather dominate the ice and -seascape—twenty people inside the little vessel, engines, harpoons, -rifles, coals, heat and food, quite a concentrated little cosmos of life -and human contrivances—our all, in this wide, empty Arctic world. - -Later we pushed on and the mist obscured our path again, so we tied up -against another floe, with shallow lakes of pale Reckitt’s blue on it. -Far in towards its centre two seals lay on the snow, mere black dots, -which I was about to go after, when, observing a smile on the face of -Larsen, a typical blue-eyed hirsute Viking, I consulted with him and -gathered it was “no use.” “Hole in de ice,” he said, “dey go intil!” -Stupid beasts! I thought, there are points in favour of the great tame -creatures of the Antarctic which one could approach and pat on the head -before turning them into produce for patent leather, margarine, and -olive oil.[15] - -We had a pull of about a mile in the evening in our whale-boat—three -double sculls—and attempted to approach four seals on the floe edge, but -they dived into the water. A young member of the party came up and had a -look at us, and Archie put a very pretty shot from the moving boat into -its head at about ninety yards and we pulled it aboard before it had time -to sink. - -On the 9th July the air and mist were still southerly, and there was -nothing doing except painting ice studies, firing at marks with our -various rifles and pistols, shifting from one floe to another and -drifting southerly at about twenty miles per day on the cold current, -that brings the polar ice and water down past East Greenland to keep the -people in the British Isles from becoming too slack. Our Spanish friends -are brisk as can be in the cold and damp, busy all day stripping rifles, -and pistols, and cameras, and putting them up again with great deftness -and neatness of hand and clever nests of tools. - -At _aften-mad_ a tiny seal (Vitulina) put its innocent little face up -astern, and Don Luis boldly seized Gisbert’s mannlicher and snapped a -bullet into it; the telescope was sighted for a thousand yards at the -time, but he got it all right. - -Gisbert and the skipper in the afternoon overhauled plans for the Spanish -Polar Expedition. I read some of the endless literature on the subject, -and pray inwardly that I may not have to endure any more of either Arctic -or Antarctic winter weather, it is the summer and the long daylight of -either end of the world that I like. Heaven knows why the night was -invented. The comfort of awakening at midnight to find the sun shining -and no need for candles or matches is to me beyond words. - -This day, the 10th July, has been more exciting—as I write we are -circling round a great polar bear that has taken to the sea—we keep -closing in between it and the ice-floes and it goes snorting along, -horribly disgusted at being out-manœuvred. It is our third to-day! -The mist lifted a little in the afternoon—it was charming colour as -it lifted and faint blue appeared overhead, and the pools in the ice -were most delicate yellow set in snow of faintest pink, each pool edged -with emerald. Why the snow takes the delicate tints in northern high -latitudes, may someone else explain. My devoir was to attempt its colour -in paints, a much more difficult thing than circumventing this poor old -yellow bear that I hear snuffing and puffing over the side. My companion, -Don Luis V., writes his notes beside me, and runs out occasionally to -see the bear that is waiting till the gun of the watch (Don José) comes -off the floe; it is his turn to shoot. Don Luis got his first bear this -afternoon. We were plodding along beside a fairly big and rugged floe, -say a mile in length, with a seal or two on it, when someone spotted the -pale yellow object far away on the violet-tinted snow, and as it was his -watch, he and Gisbert and their men set out over the floe to stalk it. - -The pale yellow coat of a beast on a white floe is less easily -distinguished than, say, a man in a black coat, and top hat and umbrella. -But unless one is colour-blind one cannot accept its colouring as -protective. I must argue this out with my friend Dr Bruce when I return -to town, for I see that in his charming and instructive book, “Polar -Research” (which everyone should read who is the least interested in -either Arctic or Antarctic regions), he thinks the tint of some piece of -ice, coloured yellow by algæ, is so like the colour of a bear that seals -may be misguided enough to mistake him for yellow ice. No, no. Bruin’s -black nose and eyes you can see for miles, and so too you can distinguish -his lemon-yellow coat, almost green in the shadow with the snow’s -reflection. - -As proof of even the bear’s belief to the contrary of this protective -colouring theory, he will hold his yellow paws over his black nose, -so I am told, when stalking a seal; and I can vouch myself that one -endeavoured to hide both his black nose and yellow body when he stalked -me. - -[Illustration: RELOADING GUN WITH HARPOON - -Note the explosive point of the harpoon is not yet screwed on.] - -[Illustration: TOWING ARCHIE HAMILTON’S BIG BEAR’S SKIN - -Hamilton and Gisbert are in the rear.] - -The most prominent thing on a floe, bar a bear, is a piece of brown ice, -or yellow ice patch, the first coloured by land streams, the second -coloured by sea algæ. You swing your glass round and round the horizon, -with nothing to mark your direction on some days, when the sun is behind -clouds, and keep time, and mark your place, by a yellow or brown patch. -Therefore for a bear to resemble either is to court observation. - -The next most interesting thing to stalking a bear, or being stalked by -one, is to watch and criticise a stalk from the superior position of -looker-on. It was the greatest fun imaginable to watch with the glass the -little dots of figures, mere black specks, wandering over the distant -floe. Of course, from your position on the bridge you can watch both -the movements of the bear and the hunters, and sometimes their cross -purposes make you laugh at the poor human mistakes. In this case the -hunters came off best, but without the vessel the bear would have had -the best of the competition. He got down wind of the group of hunters, -Don Luis Velasquez, De Gisbert, and two men—sniffed the air and came -hurtling along in the opposite direction and took to sea, half-a-mile -from the Fonix, which we had anchored to the floe, and off it swam to a -neighbouring island of ice, about half-a-mile away, so we up-sticked and -headed it round till the hunters came off the floe in the boat, and the -poor yellow fellow got first a bullet in the neck, which enraged it and -changed the colour of the sea, then, after several more shots, a lucky -one in the brain ended its charmed life. He may have left no friends, but -he died without enemies to be afraid of, bar man—and we did not even find -a flea on it; which was disappointing, but what was to be expected. - -We think the Eskimos have met the bears here, owing to the bears’ -retiring manners, which are not characteristics of these polar bears in -less populous parts of the polar basin. It is not a fortunate ending to -a stalk to have to shoot your game in the water. Still our friend fired -several shots before he got the deadly one into the brain, but there is -some excuse—a heavy tramp over snow-fields after a beast that, say what -you will, takes a little nerve to approach for the first time, and then -the bobbing boat might upset even a very experienced shot. - -It was a great lift getting his body on board, we hooked the chain of the -winch round its neck, let on steam, and up it came to the boom on the -foremast, and hung dripping over the deck. - - * * * * * - -I will here quote a line or two from Scoresby’s book on Greenland. He -was the wonderful combination of almost a self-made man, a recognised -authority as a scientist and splendid whaler. - -I make this quotation to give some weight to the serious side of polar -bear hunting. Nowadays it is rather the fashion to minimise dangers on -land or sea. And in the time of Scoresby it was also more or less the -fashion, but he frankly says: “I do not try to minimise the risks of -sea life and whaling,” and he gives due thanks to his Maker for many -hair-breadth escapes which we to-day might put down too much to our own -efforts and straight powder. - -“When the bear is found in the water,” he continues, “crossing from one -sheet of ice to another, it may generally be attacked with advantage; -but when on the shore, or more especially when it is upon a large sheet -of ice, covered with snow—on which the bear, supporting itself on the -surface, with its extended paws, can travel with twice the speed of -a man, who perhaps sinks to the knee at every step—it can seldom be -assailed with either safety or success. Most of the fatal accidents that -have occurred with bears have been the result of rencounters on the ice, -or injudicious attacks made at such disadvantage.” - -I am inclined to think that each person feels differently about -approaching a bear on the ice; depending on temperament and age. -Personally I feel a faint chill—such as you have before diving off a rock -into the sea, and after success something of the glow you have after you -come out. But I rather think that younger people have a similar sensation -before and after, only stronger. In fact, so strong as at first to make -them a little pale, to upset their aim, and afterwards to make them -gloriously jubilant. - -The naked feeling, I am sure, is there, clothes and ordinary surroundings -are of no account, there is the snow, the sky, and the big bear hundreds -of times more powerful than yourself—and there is your rifle. Before you -dive into the sea, you know you can swim a stroke or two; before you -wander over the floe to Bruin, you know all you have to trust to is your -aim, and your rifle. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - - -I continue these bear-shooting notes this evening, Friday, 11th July. I -know it is evening from a faint blush of pink on the snow that is just -perceptible; without this I would have lost all idea of time, for since -yesterday it has been all bear-hunting and no sleep. Now we have a bear -alongside, all alive-o! He is tied with a rope and is swimming just like -a man, hard astern, trying to tow our little whaler from the floe-edge; -and he roars every now and then in angry disgust, and then turns up his -hind quarters and dives and swims a few strokes under water, only to be -pulled up again on the rope or lasso. He can swim apparently without -fatigue for many hours, occasionally taking a dive as deep as the lasso -will allow him. We hope to get him to our Edinburgh Zoological Park, -where he will be much appreciated, especially by myself and other artists -and children and seniors. - -He is the last of six bears in twenty-four busy hours. Don Luis Velasquez -and Don José Herrero each got their first bears, one after the other, but -unfortunately both were in the water. Don José’s, the last, led us a very -far chase over miles of floe and ice-covered sea. - -The most fascinating part of the day was watching the bear’s abandon of -movement and joy as it did its evening saunter over the floes, utterly -oblivious of our presence and probably full of young seal fat and joy; -when it came across the stem of a drifted pine—it was as good as a -circus. How it joked with the pine log, on its back on the snow, played -the guitar with it, caressed it, then spumed it in disdain with its -great soft hind foot, only to take it up in its teeth again to wave it -slowly about. In the middle of this solitary play, however, the bear’s -seventh sense told it there was something impending and he left his -cherished stick and paddled off leisurely down wind and floe—then he -got the wind of the guns and went off pretty fast for a mile or so, -occasionally stopping to sniff the breeze. At his easy rate of motion -he quickly left Don José and his contingent behind—little black spots -in the world of white plains and hummocks. Did the reader ever see a -bear fairly out for a walk, and notice the extraordinary resemblance -there is between the movements of a bear in the open and those of a -ferret—shorten the ferret’s body and its tail and you have something very -like a microscopic bear, the long back, the way they each wave their -snouts and stand up on their hind-quarters to sniff the breeze—beyond -doubt, it is funny. I do not think it is really undignified, but when -someone says that its movements suggest its having received a violent -kick on its hind-quarters, you cannot get the idea out of your mind; and -whatever its sex, or however big and powerful he may be, you must smile -at the way he carries his tail down. Is their strength not marvellous? -A large fellow here was waiting for a seal at a hole in the ice, and a -blue seal (Phoca Barbata) just showed itself, and apparently to take the -chance, with one swoop of his forearm and claws, the bear threw the great -six-hundred-pound seal well on to the ice, and with a forefoot on its -back, broke the head off at one bite and drank the blood and wolfed up -every bit of skin and blubber; for the meat or cran, and bones, the bear, -like the human, has no use, unless he is hard pressed. - -Of course it is a big old bear which can do such a feat, possibly twenty -years old and much bigger and broader in the quarter and shoulder than -you can expect to find in Europe in confinement. Archie Hamilton got -such a veteran this morning, quite comfortably, after twelve-o’clock -breakfast. With De Gisbert and some men they sallied forth over the -floe we were up against to deprive two bears thereon of their skins and -lives—that is, if the bears did not in the first instance deprive them of -theirs. - -It was fascinating watching the little figures growing smaller and -smaller in the distance, and to watch the soft, pale yellow heap that -represented the ice-bear. I have a splendid glass, and at half-a-mile -can distinguish the gloriously luxurious rolls and movements of the -great fellow and note the black nose and black soles of his feet as he -stretches himself, and scrapes a bed in the snow for his midday siesta. - -With the glass I see Archie get into soft snow and stoop and point the -rifle and get up, and I wonder why, when he does this again, and I swing -my glass on to the bear and notice a flush come over its yellow back, and -there is a spout of red from its side; though I see so clearly I hear no -sound of the shot. Five times Archie hit his Majesty, all in more or less -deadly places, but he came on and girned at them and wanted to chaw them -up, a fighting bear. Five 350 magnum bullets shattering bone and muscle -actually knocking over the big beast, yet not destroying its fight, gives -an idea of the muscle of such a full-grown snowy chief. He measured, as -he lay, eight feet two inches—that is, from nose to tail; standing up on -his bare feet, he would have stood ten and a half feet and his estimated -weight was one thousand and twenty pounds. As our estimate was founded on -steelyard weights of many other bears and their measurements, this may be -accepted as correct. - -Personally, a foot or a point or two about a beast, or a ton or two’s -weight in a whale does not matter to me very much, it is the fun of the -stalk that counts—be it for a rabbit, bear, or fingerling trout, the dew -on the clover or the icicles on the berg—and how you get your beast, -and what you see on the way to it, for things get impressed on memory -by the excitement of a stalk, in a way they would never be at other -times. If you have to crawl, for example, through a shallow blue pool on -a snow-field in the early morning, as was my experience to-day, to get -within shot of a bear that suspects you, you note the queer blue tint of -the pool that soaks through your waistcoat—that it is sometimes blue, -and sometimes purple, depending on the angle at which the light strikes -the ice crystals under or on its surface. And there is plenty of time to -speculate why you do not see such pools on the floes in the Antarctic. - -From the ship when we spotted the bear alluded to above, and until it was -killed, in fact, we thought it was very large, but it turned out to be -not half the size of the big fellow C. A. H. has secured. - -He and De Gisbert and I set out after it together. But the only way, I -thought at the time, to get within shot without scaring it was to do a -regular deer-stalk crawl of a hundred yards to get behind an isolated -piece of rounded snow, just big enough to cover one person. So I left -Gisbert and Hamilton behind a bigger hummock as covering party and -proceeded at great leisure, ventre à terre, to approach the said piece of -snow, I do not think that ursus got my wind, but possibly the noise of my -elbow crunching through a hard crust of the snow drew his attention, and -I saw a black eye and the dark ear of the right side of his face peering -round the little lump of snow, then his black left eye looked round the -other side of the hummock, and then both eyes and black nose were gently -raised over the top—we were stalking each other! - -[Illustration] - -From subsequent experience I have learned that my stalking was rather -wasted, as a bear will always come to the attack if you are alone. I -liked his expression, what I saw of it, but either he did not like mine -or he got an inkling that there was a covering party in the rear, for he -suddenly seemed to think of something and turned and very sedately walked -away to the left, with his head down. So I, also sedately, I hope, sat -up on the soft snow and pulled at his shoulder at about fifty yards, and -he collapsed, and then got up and pelted away to the right, the writer -following, both of us tumbling and pulling ourselves up again in the soft -snow and hummock. It took other two shots (375 cordite), both fairly well -placed, to end its troubles. - -The stalk and trying to sit up on the snow crust to draw a bead on the -light primrose fur of the soft-looking beast, how vividly that will make -all the delicate mother-of-pearl tints of the ice scene remain in my -memory! - -It is a wonder that animal painters, some of them quite distinguished, -do not as a rule take the trouble to go and study their animals in their -proper surroundings. What numbers of pictures we see of snow-leopards, -bears, and such-like, done excellently up to a point, but with none of -their natural atmosphere. The white bear with its pale primrose colour -needs the shimmer and pearl-like tints of its natural surroundings, the -blues and greens of the floe, veiled a little by fine snow or mist, -and the hard ice, to set off its rounded soft furry form that hides -such terrible strength. How could anyone, for example, hope to paint a -caribou, with its glory of russet horns, unless he has seen its grey face -and white neck amongst silver birch stems and the red glow of maples? - -To do the ice-bear justice, you should first splash on to -canvas the shimmer of mother-of-pearl, then inset the comic -kicked-on-the-hind-quarter figure in yellow, give the humour and preserve -his strength and majesty at the same time, so you’d have a masterpiece. -At a school or zoological garden or museum you can learn anatomy and -painting, but outside work is essential for the true animal painter. -There he must forget bones and muscles and get the envelope of air and -colour of the animal and its surroundings. - -But to come back to our bear-hunting. As our party returned from the -hunt, the men spread out left and right, covering about a mile, and so -roped in a younger bear, which had been hanging about to leeward of the -old male bear which Hamilton shot. Why it did so we cannot say. It was -cheery work for the men, running about as beaters sometimes do at a drive -when a hare gets up and tries to get back. It was a little shy of them, -but did not seem to mind the ship; in fact it came right up to us and we -got a boat down. It then tried to run down the floe edge and outflank -beaters, but Larsen, a long, fair-haired, blue-eyed fellow, got ahead -and fired bullets into ice in front of its nose—range about four yards, -and it got disquieted and turned back to the ship, then slipped over the -floe-edge into the sea, and we rowed after it, and a sailor made a dozen -poor attempts to cast a lasso over its neck; he bungled it over somehow -and we towed it, using dreadful language at us, alongside, and afterwards -got it on board into a cage. - -[Illustration: THE LAST CARTRIDGE - -A fighting Bear. - -_From a Painting by the Author_] - -I think this recapitulates our bearing for twenty-four hours rather -concisely. It does not quite convey the slight chill you feel at setting -out, on however beautiful and silvery a morning, at, say, five o’clock, -after being up all night, to wade across ice and snow to face the -horrible and dangerous Ursus Maritimus, or white monarch of the pole, and -it does not give the calm sense of conceit that you feel when you have -succeeded in slaughtering the same, and preserving your skin; it would be -bad form to express such sentiments loud out. The only sign our Spanish -friends showed was that they were a little sallow when they set out, and -a little warmer in colour on their return. A. C. H. quotes Neil Munro to -express his feeling. “Man,” he says, “am feeling shust sublime—could poo -the mast oot o’ the ship an’ peat a Brussels carpet.” No wonder, lucky -fellow, a one-thousand-and-twenty-pounder for his first polar bear. His -first black bear we thought mighty big a year or two ago, away back in -the barrens of Newfoundland; it weighed three hundred and eighty pounds. -Which is best to eat, polar or black bear, it is hard to say. I vote for -black bear pre salé and fed in the blueberry season. Still, the meat of -the polar bears here is extremely good and feels strengthening. One needs -strengthening. Yesterday was high summer, just touching freezing, but -still and a little sunny; to-night a gale from north-east and cold, and -ice driving gently round us. - -But I am not complaining! No—I’ve been a summer and autumn in Antarctic -ice. After the bad days and black nights there in January and February, -nothing north of the Line need be considered as intolerable. - -One note before winding up this day’s reckoning. If you wish to think -of the Arctic or Antarctic, you must think in colour somehow or -other. If you think in black and white you miss the idea, and form a -wrong impression all in black and white, just as I used to have from -engravings, and which it is very difficult to put aside. North Polar and -South Polar regions are essentially places of very high-toned delicate -colour, almost the only black is what you bring with you; mother-of-pearl -and birch-bark tints you have, and grimness there is in dead earnest, -dangers and minor discomforts, but it’s all in lovely colour in high note. - - * * * * * - -It is my watch and Gisbert’s to-night, but I am going to turn in after -writing this; two nights without sleep make one feel inclined to ride -out this gale behind a floe in one’s bunk—pipe, matches and book, and -practice chanter, all within arm’s-length, and jolly comfortable it is; -for, as Marcus Aurelius puts it: “If a man can live in a palace, he can -live there well.” - -[Illustration] - -I forgot to say we got our Bruin on board, after a terrible fight and -some blood lost, human and bear’s. We got a strop round his waist when -we had pulled him alongside with the lasso, and hauled him up in the air -by the steam-winch, the chain and hook fast in the strop. I think this -little drawing explains the method; it’s a most kindly and considerate -treatment. I mention this to ease the mind of some people who concluded -that a picture in this book of a bear hung by the head was a live bear -being lifted on board instead of being a bear that had been shot for an -attempt on our lives on the ice. Whalers and sealers and bear-hunters -I have found just as humane and gentle a people as those who stay at -home and often criticise them unkindly. We led the lasso under the floor -bars of a big wooden cage which we made to-day; three men hauled his -head down. Then we lowered him into the cage, and whilst he tried to -free his head, battens were rapidly nailed on over his back. So he is on -board, but not all right, it is quite possible he may pull away a batten -to-night. He is busy carpentering, and has already got one spar off. I -would prefer his going overboard to looking me up in my bunk. - -It blew all night, so we all rested and had European breakfast at leisure -at nine. I did a picture of a bear I saw yesterday, Archie’s bear. It is -munching the head of a young hooded-seal, Cystophora Cristata, of which -we saw over forty in one lot yesterday. I also did a picture, from notes -at the time, of the jolly lonely bear playing with a piece of drift-wood, -lying on its back and tossing away the wood with his hind foot, just -before he got up, suspecting there was something in the wind, and before -going off over the floe down wind at that easy gait that leaves poor man -such miles behind whenever there is soft snow to negotiate. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - - -No whales yet, never a blow, no chance to use our harpoon-guns from the -ship’s bows or from the boats, so we keep their covers on. What patience -is needed for whaling! Two seasons ago a friend of mine, a captain of a -Dundee whaler, was up this north-east coast of Greenland with a big crew -for three months, and got only one whale and one bear. Then, with luck, -you may get several in one day, I have never yet seen more than three -killed in the twenty-four hours; but I have done nine months’ whaling -with three whalers and killed none! That is rather a record. - -... The wind is easterly, the worst we could have for getting in to -North-East Greenland, for it is driving the floes inshore. We are once -more anchored to a floe and wait till the weather clears, for it is too -windy and misty to make good progress. We are still about seventy-five -degrees north and a hundred and thirty miles from the coast, and there is -an unusual amount of ice between us and it, so we may not reach it after -all. - - * * * * * - -Whales at last! Narwhals! the fellows with long ivory horns. The steward -spotted them first as he was cleaning a dish at the galley door; he came -running aft with a blush of excitement on his face, and we saw their -backs, three of them, and dashed for the whale-boat, but before we got -away the whales had disappeared! It was ever thus. They are the most -illusive whales. “A uni, a uni,” I have heard our Dundee whalers shout -down south in the Antarctic, and they too disappeared without scathe. - -But are there narwhals in the South, you ask. Well, this is all I can -say, our men said they saw them. I did not. Their word “uni” stands for -unicorn or narwhal. - -De Gisbert’s experience is similar; he has only killed females with -small horns or no horns. But with the beginner’s luck, a friend of his -in his first season in the Arctic—Count Thurn—got one with an immense -horn of splendid ivory; we must have patience then. Does the reader -know what they do with these horns? No one here can give a definite -opinion. Scoresby, the celebrated English Greenland whaler and scientific -observer, suggests that it may be used for killing fish for their food. -He found a portion of skate inside one, and as they have small mouths -and no teeth, he concluded the horn must have been used to kill the -skate. His undoubted ability and his education in science in Edinburgh -University give considerable weight to his conclusion. - -The little excitement of narwhal-hunting broke the stillness of rather a -monotonous evening of mist and fine rain. Pretty enough, though, for a -little sunlight penetrates the mist, giving the snow the faintest warm -flesh tint, a pleasing contrast to the green and blue underside of the -snow blocks on the floe to which we are anchored. We can study these -delicate snow tints through our cabin door, as we sit at meals, always -hoping that a whale may blow in the still water, or a bear may cross -the delicate tints of the middle distance. Our language at table is in -Spanish, French, and Norwegian. Archie and I sometimes speak in our Doric -for a change. The talk is generally about whaling or hunting of various -kinds; here and there, east, west, north, south, Norway, Alaska, Bohemia, -Arctic or Antarctic, with a certain amount of more or less scientific -discussion about natural history and the elements. De Gisbert is the hub -or centre of the party; he drops from one language to the other with the -greatest ease. We talk a good deal about the coming Spanish National -Polar Scientific Expedition which he is to lead, and to which the writer -is asked to give a “Scotch escort” to a point with an unpronounceable -name east of the Lena river; no polar sprint this, but a serious effort -to read the inmost secrets of the North Polar basin, by every means -known to modern science. An attempt to find answers to all the riddles -put before mankind, the why and wherefore of tides, ocean currents, -temperature, colouring, electrical currents and air currents—information -about subjects we know a little of, and, possibly, secrets of nature not -yet dreamed of. - -Then we turned in early for us, for last night’s damp and mist and the -quiet of the sea seemed to make us somnolent, so by twelve o’clock we -were mostly to bed, except the steward, whose galley is next my bunk. He -and the first mate and cook, a female cook we brought from Trömso, were -having a quiet concert. They made a group like a picture of the Dutch -school; the steward in half light, in a white jacket, trolling out an -air to the guitar, our jolly, beamy _vivandière_ and the mate sitting -opposite, almost (or as you may say, quite) on each other’s knees in the -tiny quarters, cups, dishes, and vegetables round them. - -The steward, Pedersen, was pathetic to-day about the _vivandière_, he -noted a chip in a cup at breakfast and gazed at it mournfully and sighed: -“She is so mush too sdrong dis she-cook of ours.” She is strong, and -red-cheeked, it is true, and very beamy and has a laugh and a word for -everyone. She was one of the few who were not sick coming over from -Norway, and though so broad and strong, she nipped about between the seas -like an A.B., and laughed when the cold sea-water came up to her knees. I -back Norwegian she-cooks against the field. - -I have written down what a tricky musician is this steward, he keeps -a music shop in Trömso in winter, his wife and kinderen look after it -in summer, when the midnight sun appears, then he attends princes and -humble people like ourselves, who go in search of whales, or adventures; -or scientific data to this “end of the garden,” where you have sun and -winter in midsummer, fog, snow, drifting ice-floes, sun, heat, cold, -huge energy, a great deal of beauty, and astounding repose. But why this -restfulness here? we all did at least eight to ten hours last night. -Neither the writer, nor De Gisbert, nor some others of our party ever do -so much at a spell down South. And at any time in the twenty-four hours -one can be awake or go to sleep with equal facility—appetites go up -wonderfully, we simply wade through bear steak. I noticed the smallest -of our Spanish friends, who would blush to face a whole egg in Madrid on -a July morning, calmly got outside four this morning, each with its slice -of bear; he has slept a good deal since. We consider that he is a pucca -shikari and also a born actor; it is pure joy to watch his movements of -hands and face and body as he and Gisbert jestingly argue out a subject. -He told us last night how the wine tasters in South Spain can throw a -glass of wine into the air in a thin stream, and catch it all in the -glass again as it falls. You see he is showing how it is done. He threw -up a glass of pontet canet, but instead of falling back into the glass -it all went down his neck and wrist. We laughed some, then he dried -himself and went on to show us something else, every now and then popping -his head out at the cabin door to see if anything was stirring on the -ice-floes. - -[Illustration] - -Some of my friends plan making a great sanatorium up in these latitudes -on claims which we have pegged out in Spitzbergen, so that people who -cling to life may go there to get rid of tubercular complaints. There -is not an atom of a germ there, so people with chest complaints recover -there on the land. But you can have persistent colds on board a vessel, -I suppose because of germs belonging to it. Some vessels seem to breed -a plentiful supply. I know a vessel that carries colds for all hands on -every trip. It is, I believe, somewhat similar with scurvy. - -We got a very ugly brown shark this morning, one of those deep-sea Arctic -sharks (Squalus Borealis) that do not follow ships, but live away down -fifty fathoms deep and possibly eat cod. Why he came up it is hard to -say; possibly he scented seal. We welcomed him with a harpoon as he -swam alongside, and got a running bowline round his tail, and slung him -alongside, head down, till he nearly died. He was only ten feet eight -inches, a rough brown ugly beggar, not so fierce-looking or active as -those blue sharks we killed last year, off the Azores, for eating our -sperm-whale blubber. There is a Norwegian fishery for these sharks, for -the oil contained in their livers, which is used largely in commerce -as cod liver oil; chemically it is exactly the same. These sharks are -too big to pull on board the fishing-boats, so they are only hauled -alongside, when the liver is cut out and the stomach is blown up with -air, and stitched up; so they go off on the surface; if they went deep -down their relatives would eat them and neglect the Norwegians’ baits. -The vitality of this shark’s flesh tissue is remarkable. After this one -had lost its whole machinery, its flesh still lived, and after its head -was off, both flesh and head moved. A seal I shot this morning, after -rather an interesting stalk over soft snow and blue lakes, shot clean -through the brain, showed the heart beating a long time after. - -I once wrote rather a lurid and perhaps too colourful a picture of -seal-killing, in the South, and the paragraph has been made use of by -people who will not eat flesh, but wear boots, and they showed how cruel -sealers were, and wished to stop them killing seals—honest fellows, -risking their lives in Antarctic ice and Newfoundland floes to keep -their wives and children in life at home. The seal may lose its brain -with a crashing shot and then its skin and fat for olive oil, or for our -chair-seats, shoes and salads, but that it feels pain after the shock, or -that the sealers are to blame, I deny. - -Our port white bear at any rate approves of the seal and shark killing; -he hates the wooden cage, but doesn’t he swallow the seal’s blubber which -we squeeze between the battens, and he simply laps up the sharks’ foie -gras in heaps. He gave me such a scare this morning; I had forgotten his -presence and was counting the toes on a seal’s hind foot for pictorial -purposes and examining the formation of the dead bears’ heads quite close -to his cage, when he let out a roar within an inch of my ear. I confess -I was startled! He is only three to four years old, still he probably -weighs well over three hundred pounds and has a voice according. - -[Illustration: ARCTIC SHARK, _Squalus Borealis_ - -_Photo by C. A. Hamilton_] - -[Illustration: A MODERN STEAM WHALER - -The harpoon has just struck a Whale. The Dolphins give a sense of -proportion of the Finner Whale. - -_From an Oil Painting by the Author_] - -To shoot a seal this morning I used De Gisbert’s telescope-sighted mauser -rifle, a new experience, the accuracy is marvellous and up here that is -necessary, as seals are wary. Down South you pat them on the head if you -like before you shoot; they do not mind your presence in the least. I -find wading stockings are perhaps better than sea-boots for these melting -floes, as you go sometimes over the knees, in the blue water pools and in -the soft snow. Also you can turn them inside out to dry, which you can’t -do to sea-boots. - -The seal was fairly large and had three or four awful gashes, of a foot -or two in length, which were put down to either a bear’s teeth or claws. - -It snows to-night—it is dead calm, broad daylight, but cold and no sun -visible, floes all round and our hopes are going down; we fear we may -never see Greenland’s icy mountains and the saxifrages and poppies that -I have set my heart on seeing. So we sat and sat in the silence and -made belief that time was passing all right, and quite enjoyed a small -excitement. A squeak—I would not call it a squeal—from our “too-strong -she-cook.” She was cutting up a piece of shark for our dinner, and -suddenly noticed that it responded to her touch—sentience of matter, you -may call it. I felt it was most unpleasing for some reason—it was quite -white flesh like halibut, and lay in a small block on the bulwark rail, -and when you touched it it gave a squirm or movement of say a quarter -to half an inch. We all collected round; and at supper we ate it, some -of us did—I did not—at least only the tiniest morsel. It began to feel -rather dull, so I suggested to Gisbert we should get the foils out and we -would fence on deck in the falling snow, and Archie would photograph us -and we would send the result to “Lescrime,” and we were just buttoning -up our leather jackets for the fray, when young Don Luis Velasquez put -his glass up at our cabin door and spotted a bear on a small floe not -three hundred yards away, eating seal. We thought it was probably the -sealskin and blubber of my morning’s seal, which we had let go adrift, -owing to the sores the bear’s claws had left on it, making it dangerous -for the hands engaged to skin it. _Pusey_ finger we called the wounds in -the Antarctic which we got from cutting up seals that had been torn by a -grampus. Though colds are rare in Arctic regions, and consumption is said -not to exist, yet often sores take long to heal; cuts on the hands, for -example, often take a long time to grow fresh skin. - -So our quiet Sabbath evening became all excitement, and we dived for -rifle, pistol, and lasso; the lasso because we could see the bear was -not full grown, possibly a three-year-old, and we hoped we might get it -alive. As we raced down—four oars in the whale-boat—I endeavoured to get -some of the frozen stiffness out of the rope and got it into coils in the -bow, and before I had completely done so, we were down wind and near the -bear. It stared at us and made rather a sudden and alarming approach to -the floe-edge, as if it intended to come on board. I expected to lasso -it on the ice, but it plunged into the sea and came up within ten yards. -At the first throw the loop dropped neatly round its head and sank a -little, and a hard pull and a turn round the bollard or timber-head in -the bow made the bear fast. Cheers from the men and roars from the bear, -and Gisbert’s congratulations; he was surprised at such a cast from his -pupil. (But he was not half so surprised as I was.) It was very pretty -as it stood looking at our approach in the boat, faint yellow, darker -than snow; two black tashes for eyes, one for nose and two dark marks for -ears, and the red of the seal’s flesh and skin on the snow—very simple -colours, very delicate pale emerald-green and blue on the ice. When it -came running at us it was too picturesque! We towed it alongside the -ship, gnashing its teeth and roaring, where it swam about, expressing -its disgust, in language I dare not quote, at the rope round its neck -and its inability to tow the ship away. It may be too big and strong for -us to manage on board—probably measures eight feet from nose to heel and -is three to four years old; six-month cubs are what we can handle more -easily, and even at that age they are wonderfully strong. Gisbert told me -he lassoed a cub, and was throwing an extra hitch round its forearm, when -it got alongside him, put one hand on his chest, and he went down like -grass, and he is short and very strong, and is quite fourteen stone; he -got his arm rather badly bitten. All hands set to work to make another -strong timber cage, and they had it done almost before I had made a -picture of the bear as it looked at us approaching in the boat, and long -before Ursus showed any fatigue from swimming and roaring. - -Then there was wild work in the boat getting the strop round its -waist—oaths and foam, and flying ropes—donkey-engine—roars from the -bear—shouts from the men—steam, and bear’s hot breath, all mixed up. But -out it came, only as strong perhaps as two or three wild horses, and -we managed to drop it into the top of the cage, hauling its head down -with the lasso rove through the bottom bars of the cage, and banged down -battens on top, with great eight-inch nails driven in, by six or seven -strong Vikings, Gisbert leading and having all they could do. Then we -cut the lasso and he was free of the loop in a second or two. So we have -two live bears now, possibly polar cousins. The first is to port, the -second to starboard of main-hatch, and their deep voices give a strong -accompaniment to our progression. They have no qualms about eating; -they tear the timber of their cage and eat seal’s fat from our hand -alternately. - -It is my early watch to-day, three A.M. to nine A.M., till welcome -coffee-time. There is nothing doing, no whale’s spout and no bears -appear. Still one never knows, so Olaus paces the foredeck with his hands -deep in his pockets and Larsen works away quietly at the bear meat, -taking off every bit of the fat, so that it will be good for our table. -I write in our little chart-room on the bridge, with a view all round of -floes of ice extending right round the horizon; we are anchored to one—in -its shelter. The wind is falling and it is very quiet; there is the lap, -lap of the small waves against the green edge of the floe, the tweet, -tweet of some ivory gulls, and the homely barn-door-fowl-like cluck, -cluck of the fulmar petrels, as they squabble and splutter under the -stern for scraps of food, not forgetting the frequent low, deep growls -of the bear we lassoed last night. His companion, our first capture, is -asleep, possibly dreaming that it is free, poor fellow! So I study my -immediate surroundings without interruption. A flight of ivory gulls -has just come and has lit beside us on the floe. They are white as this -paper and yet not quite so white as snow; they have dark beaks and feet -and black eyes, so what you see when they stand in order on the pinkish -white snow is a series of almost invisibly yellowish white upright sort -of sea-birds, which you would not notice at all, but for their dark legs -and eyes and bills. - -If there happens to be one of the pale blue ice ponds just beyond them, -then you see them white against it distinctly, and the blue is reflected -under their bodies as they stand beside the pool, or when they rise and -flit over it it shines under their wings. They always stand bills up -wind, as if they had come from somewhere and expected something, but -are not particularly anxious about it. They do not seem to be excited -about the flesh we throw into the snow at this early hour; later they -all start to eat it at once. The fulmars seem to eat all the time. These -yellowish white birds with chalky-grey and brown wings are always with -us, round our stern, battling ever about scraps of seals’ blubber; there -is quite a homely farm-door sound about their cluck, cluck. Seamen say -they are reincarnated souls of men lost at sea—rather a far-fetched idea, -to my mind. Then there comes a Richardson’s skua. We need a specimen for -Edinburgh Museum, so I drop it on the floe with no compunction; it is -the sea-birds’ pirate and has a touch of the cuckoo’s plumage under its -wings. It neither reaps nor sows, simply lives by cheek. When a simple -fulmar has filled itself with what it can get, fish or fowls or little -cuttle-fish and minute shrimps, by dint of hard work and early rising, -then by comes Mr Skua of quick flight, and ingeniously attacks the fulmar -from behind and underneath, till it disgorges its breakfast and the skua -catches it up before it reaches the water! - -Though our ice-scape is very remote and far afield, and subdued in sound -and in colour, there is a great deal going on. At the floe-edge there -are reddish shrimps in the clear cold water, and if you take some of the -water in a glass, you will see still more minute crustaceans, a joy of -delicate coloured armour under the microscope. And there is inorganic -life amongst the ice; a blue block has just come sweeping past very -slowly—it is like blue and white muslin. But big life, bar our three -selves on deck this morning, there seems to be none. All the rest of -our crowd are sound asleep below decks. I think they should be up and -doing, for the sky is lifting and the snow ceased and there is more and -more animation amongst our bird neighbours. The ivory gulls find it is -breakfast-time and suddenly set to work, pecking at pieces of meat they -barely glanced at an hour ago. There is a promise of movement—possibly -of our finding a way through the purple leads, through these sheets -of ice-floes to Greenland in the west. Yes, there is more colour now, -the white night is changing almost unnoticeably, and the ivory gulls -begin to call before they take another flight (they speak just like our -sea-swallows or terns, a tweet, tweet). On first seeing an ivory gull -you are not greatly impressed; it is simply an entirely white gull. -But you recall Arctic travellers mentioning it, and the little pause -they make after its name; and when you see them yourself you realise -what that means ... that little creamy white body that reflects the -grey of the sea under its wing, or the blue in the pool on ice-floes, -its inconsequent floating white flight is the very soul of the Arctic. -As closely associated with the ice-edge there is another white bird -in the Antarctic, the snowy petrel, a delicate white spirit bird, a -never-to-be-forgotten touch of white delicacy in the almost awful beauty -of the Antarctic floe-edge, a small bird, white and soft as a snow-flake, -flitting amongst white and Doric ruins on the edge of a lonely sea. Here -the white counterpart is a larger, a more material creature on the edge -of a shallower, less impressive ice-pack, but the kinship is there. - -How I wish it was breakfast-time! two more hours before our “much too -strong she-cook” will give us _frokost_. - -At this point in these meditations we came across another bear; we had -let go our floe and were heading north-west, the day clearing (bump! that -was ice), when we spotted him on a small floe, across which he sped at a -good speed. At first we thought it was small enough to take with lasso -and keep alive, so we chased it, but it proved on close acquaintance to -be an old she-bear, and far too big and strong to rope, so we dispatched -it with my 38 Colt pistol with one shot in the centre of its white head -at ten yards, which killed it stone dead, much to the astonishment of -crew, who had no idea of what a pistol can do. Not an hour later, still -before the longed-for breakfast, we spotted a big bear on a floe to -windward, just five minutes after our watch was up, so it came in the -watch of Don Luis Velasquez, who came on at nine o’clock. - -It was fascinating, watching the great beast with the glass as it -sauntered to and fro on the floe, a seal lay on the floe not far out of -the line from windward, and we fondly hoped to see the bear stalk it, but -before it quite crossed the line of scent, and when not a hundred yards -from the seal, he evidently thought he would like forty winks, so he -shovelled himself a lair in the snow and turned in, but it was not quite -to his liking, so he got up and looked towards us, and either did not see -our rigging or did not mind it and lay down again, so that we only saw -his great yellowish back above a snow ridge. So Gisbert and Don Luis had -time for a tiny whisky-and-soda, but no breakfast, and set out with a -large camp-following, and we others went on with coffee and bear-steak, -and at our leisure went to the bridge and watched their long walk over -snow ridges and wreaths and blue-water pools. The ice-bear looked up -when they were about two hundred yards distant and began to come towards -them, then thought there were too many, and retired. He was pretty well -peppered by both rifles before he gave in, fifteen to twenty-five shots -we heard—the account varies, but he was hit several times. When you are -by yourself, or with only another man, the bear will face you and come -to the attack, so you get a better chance than when it is inclined to -retire, as it did in this case. This was another male of large size. I -made a jotting of him before he yawned and lay down to sleep, he probably -had breakfasted—at least he did not notice the seal distant from him -about twenty yards. - -There is much bumping to-day—floes are heavy and close and we have to -charge some which makes the splinters fly from our sheathing of hard -wood. It seems more hopeless than ever to reach the North Greenland -coast. The floes are so large and numerous, we fear that even did we do -so, a little easterly wind might hem us in on the coast against land -ice, where we might have to stay indefinitely. Still, two days may alter -the aspect of ice entirely: Svendsen details all this to us with the -stump of a pencil on the white wood of our new captive’s cage to which -he puts his black nose and ivory teeth and crushes splinters, now and -then using his claws. He must know us all now, but they naturally are not -very friendly yet and the deep, musical vibration of their growls coming -right aft from the waist, sound sometimes a little like curses “not loud -but deep.” We can stand that, but when the note changes to something like -“For the Lord’s sake let me out,” to freedom and the wide floe, we have -to harden our hearts and think of little children at home. - -At lunch we talk bear and other sport and Arctic cachés. The last a -subject that is fascinating. The first I ever heard of was from one of -Leigh Smith’s men of the Eira. We were in the tropics, he was steering -when he spoke of it, with longing. He had wintered with Leigh Smith in -Franz Josef Land before that part became popular, and as he steered he -told me how, before leaving for their forty days’ voyage in an open boat -to Norway (they had lost their ship in an ice squeeze), they buried -the spare rifles, musical instruments, and champagne. How one’s teeth -watered as we heard of these “beakers, cooled a long age in the deep -delved” snow, and little did my companion Bruce or I ever think we would -be near that caché; but five years later Bruce was up there, and found -the rifles, musical-boxes and champagne bottles were there, just as -described, but alas the bottles were burst! Gisbert tells me he also saw -the same caché ten years later, and he knows of a finer one still, still -untouched by the A⸺ Z⸺ expedition. It is also in Franz Josef Land—a cave -in rock, blasted out, and covered with a timber door so thick that not -all the polar bears in the Arctic, good carpenters as they are, could -open it. That is the Duke d’Abruzzi’s caché, and there are others; one, -I think, on Shannon Island, which we aim at getting to and which we will -add to, if not in need of provisions, and draw on if we are in distress. -The idea is to add to such a store if you can, for the benefit of anyone -really in need. It is a wicked thing, however, to draw on a caché, -excepting in case of being in want of the necessaries for existence. I -have had one pilfered in the barrens of Newfoundland of tea and sugar, -raisins, chocolate and such luxuries, the necessaries, flour and hard -tack, being left untouched. Were the man found who did this, his life -would be made a burden to him through the breadth of Newfoundland. - -But to come back to our ice-bears. I have lately, and at other times, -heard many stories about them, and the more I see of them the more do -I believe about their strength, and timidity, their fierce courage, -and docility. One bear does one thing, the next the opposite. One dies -with two or three bullets whilst running away, the next eats them up, -advancing to the attack. - -Gisbert’s closest contact, bar the occasion before mentioned with the -young bear, was quite exciting and unexpected. He left the ship one day -to verify the height of a mountain in Franz Josef Land, which he had -previously calculated from sea—went up a steep ice-fall with ski in -tow and got to near the top, when a fierce gale, with snow, started. -Following the bear’s plan, he looked for a hole to slip into, found such -a shelter, and crawled in. By the faint blue light coming through the ice -roof and sides of the cave he discovered a great bear, with its black -nose resting on its folded paws and its dark eyes looking at him with a -kindly expression. He did not trust the expression, but, keeping his eyes -steadily on the bear’s, he gently pulled his rifle forward, and without -lifting it, with his thumb pushed back the safety bolt, and slowly -brought forward the muzzle to the bear’s ear and pulled, and so Gisbert -lived to tell the tale. It sounds a moderately tall story, but after many -others I have heard, and even from what I have seen lately, it does not -sound so wonderful as it may to one who has not been at “this end of the -garden.” When the gale blew over, some of the crew came up to his signal, -and three all told, slid down the slope on the white bear’s body, at the -foot it was, of course, deprived of its skin; when you think of it, the -whole proceeding seems rather hard on the bear. - -[Illustration: FULMAR PETRELS - -_Photo by C. A. Hamilton_] - -[Illustration: “STARBOARD” BEING HOISTED ON BOARD BY STEAM WINCH] - -Another bear yarn I heard from my friend Henriksen, whom I have written -about in previous chapters on our whaler the St Ebba. His father used -to go north, and once took a farm hand from his home in the island -of Nottero. Hansen was no sailor, and was a little weak-minded, but -enormously strong physically. In the fo’c’sle, the crew made him their -butt, till one morning he rose in his simple wrath and threw the crew -out separately up the scuttle on to the deck when they should have been -at dinner, and kept them out till they pleaded for mercy. Shortly after -he became their hero, for one day whilst they were all away on the ice -sealing they were signalled to, to return to the ship, for the ice was -breaking up, and all hands made a long run round an opening lane to -get aboard, but big Hansen hooked a piece of floating ice and started -navigating himself across, paddling with his ice pick, and he was not -in the least put out when he observed a big bear awaiting his landing. -But the bear seemed impatient and shoved off to meet him half-way, and -Hansen quietly waited and dealt it a mighty blow with his pick into the -brain as it came alongside, and killed it, then towed it along with him, -skinned it, and came to the ship with its head and skin over his head and -shoulders, very bloody but very pleased. - -[Illustration] - -Last night we were fog-stayed, we could not get ahead a thin fog with -the midnight sun shining through. We had many small things to occupy -ourselves with, but every five minutes some of us were out at the cabin -door to look at the view. Only a plain of snow fading in violet ridges -into the mist, with very few features, but the delicacy of the colour -you hardly notice at first, day after day grows on you, and if you try -to paint it, it grows more quickly, and you realise the difficulty of -trying to reproduce Nature’s highest quiet notes. It was our watch till -three—that is, Archie’s and mine—but the others stayed up, though there -was little chance of seeing a bear. So inside the cabin we piled coal on -to the small stove and blew smokes, and it was warm, distinctly cosy, -and the guitar thrummed, and several of us hummed and wrote and smoked, -and then went out into the cold, frosty air and looked at the colour, -the fantasy of ice form and colour and the icicles hanging from scanty -rigging, and came back to the cabin and vainly tried to find words to -express appreciation of the beauty of the white scenery. - -So we stayed up till the end of our watch, then Archie and I turned in, -very sleepy, and our Spanish friends stood their watch as well, till -nine. They never seem to turn a hair for want of sleep. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - - -[Illustration] - -On the 15th of July we started looking for whale or bear in the mist -again, but with never a sign of either. So painting was the order of the -day for the writer, such a chance, no letters, no newspapers, nothing to -take one’s mind off looking at the effects of this end of the garden. -Hours flew, _middag mad_ of bear passed, painting still going, only -interrupted by expeditions forward, where our men were packing the bear -and seal skins in salt in barrels. Later we went ashore—_i.e._ on to -the blue floe—blue ice covered with white crystals, you might call it -snow. Three of our party and the dog, a young Gordon setter, wild with -joy at freedom of movement, they go off a mile or so over hard, smooth -surface, which grows more and more faint in the sunny haze and distance. -The surface on this particular floe was smooth and hard and easy to walk -on. In most places you see the light coming up as through a carpet of -white crystals on pale blue glass beneath your feet. Where there is a -little water it is quite blue, and where it is dry you shovel your feet -through loose white crystals on the top of the blue. So this is rather -different from Antarctic floes, which, as far as I can remember, were -covered with fresh snow, so the walking was generally more difficult than -here. Before I had seen northern floes my Dundee whaler companions used -to tell me how they often played football matches on the northern ice, -and I wondered!—now I understand. I also believe now what I doubted, that -whilst doing so one misty day, Dundee sealers against Newfoundlanders, -referee, silver whistle and all in great style, a bear intervened and -took their walrus bladder football; what a sweet picture in greys that -would make, the sailor-men bolting for the ship, their dark clothes look -so delicate and ethereal on the floe in this fine mist, and to see a -bear’s faint yellow coat in contrast! - -Our party came back towing a drift pine stem which we had spotted far off -on the ice from the mast-head. Quite an important find in the wide world -of ice. They towed it to the ship with a lasso. - -Gisbert and the writer did quite a lot of lasso practice, partly at a -stick set in ice, partly at our dog, as it ran to fetch a glove—great -sport for us, but the dog soon showed a desire to climb on board by -the rope ladder. As we cut off the ice-worn root with our ice axe we -discussed the possible journeyings of the pine stem; from its roots we -knew it had grown on rocky ground, from the rings, its slow growth and -age, and consequently of the climate it had survived in; from the known -currents and drifts we calculated it came from far-away eastwards, say -from the Lena river in Siberia. When tired of lassoing, De Gisbert showed -me something about splitting logs. I am not a great expert with an axe, -and he is rather, he cut his sea-boot soon almost through the leather -of the inside of the instep without cutting his foot. To show him what -I could do, with a mighty welt I split a log, and the axe glanced and -cut my instep through the sea-boot and two pairs of stockings. A chopped -tree and a chopped foot may not appear to have wide or deep interest -to anyone but the owner of the foot, and may not seem worthy of record -in such Arctic notes as these. But let us pause and consider, if there -is not something wonderful and almost inexplicable in this apparently -trifling incident. Here you have East meeting East, North meeting North! -A “gentleman of Scotland born” proceeds by a devious route from Edinburgh -via Hull to an ice-floe in the North Polar basin. And here, from some -unknown river in far Siberia, possibly the Lena, by the great polar -current, after possibly years of voyaging, comes this lonely barkless -pine stem, and they meet. And the gentleman chops the extremity of the -tree with the ship’s axe and his own extremity at the same time—namely -his left instep, as before mentioned. Does not this incident, though -trifling in itself, recall the divine words of the Immortal William: -“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we -will.” Perhaps, without any claim to originality, we may, under the -circumstances, be allowed to conclude, from the above combination of -circumstances, that the world is small. - -So the snow had other red than the bear’s. Gisbert got his “first aid” -out within a second of the time I had got my own, he is very quick: but -the captain was first with his, and Archie administered a small tot of -medicine from three bens and three glens which he had brought in a little -flask all the way from Arthur Lodge, Edinburgh. It will be a sell if I -cannot go on one foot after the next bear or whale. - -About these North Polar basin currents we have many interesting talks, -for De Gisbert has studied them for many years. He has asked me to -accompany the Spanish expedition in the vessel which will accompany his -Spanish Government ship as far as Cape Tsdieljulskin. This possibly -because as an artist he is so well content with trying to depict effects -of his “end of the garden,” most possibly because his, Gisbert’s, wife -and child are to go so far, and as she is a Campbell-Gibson she naturally -dotes on the bagpipes. - -At night the mist cleared up a little and we made some miles to west, -pushing through floes. When we came to a blue fresh-water pool on one, we -again set to work and bailed our tanks full of fresh water. - -Then on again, charging the floes with many a bump, which is rather -alarming to those of our party who are not salted to such shocks. We hope -the floes won’t close up behind us altogether, but when you enter the -pack, as the whalers say, “there’s no looking over the shoulder,” and one -must take risks in all occupations. - - * * * * * - -To-day we had a splendid bear chase, none the worse because our prey -escaped. The morning was exquisite, the mist rose and lay in lavender -wisps across the distance of the floes, and the sun shone and the sea -became a cheery glittering dark blue, and you could hardly keep your -eyes open when you came out of the cabin for the blaze of light. What -a change, everything sharp and clear, compared to the veiled misty ice -effects of last week! - -[Illustration] - -We were at breakfast and would have liked time for a pipe before the news -came: “An ice-bear!” and over the bows on to the floe by the rope ladder -five of us scrambled. The writer was armed with a heavy double 475, and -cartridges the size of asparagus, said to be unnecessarily heavy, but -Hamilton’s last monster bear took five of his 355 magnum, all in pretty -good places. It seems to me that a really big bear would be more surely -killed by a heavy 475 or 500.[16] Bad luck it was to have to travel with -a cut foot, and doubly bad at the very start to make a false step and go -head first into a hole in the floe, and to get wet through, with waders -full at the start. However, Archie cleverly caught the rifle and gave me -a hand out, and I got rid of some of the water in the way all anglers -are familiar with—that is, lying on your back and holding up your feet, -a few “tut tuts,” and we proceeded over hard snow, when we could get it, -wading blue shallows from time to time. Two of our seamen went flanking -about a mile out on to the floe and we beat up half-a-mile from sea-edge, -aiming at the place where we had seen the bears from the crow’s nest, -a female with two cubs. The chill of the early start, cold water and -the soreness of the foot wore off as we slowly covered mile after mile; -sometimes walking was merely a struggle, soft snow covering blocks of ice -with horrid pitfalls, other times over crisp, glittering, sunlit beds of -icicles set in blue, level as a mat, tumbling into glittering fragments -as we crunched across. But our trail was all in vain; from blocks and -hummocks we spied the plains and could not find our bears. They had made -a wide circuit, gone down wind, and got ours, I expect, and had gone -clean away, and as the floe was, say, twenty miles across and all over -hummocks, they were soon lost to sight, even from the mast-head. - -Coming back at leisure we had more time to enjoy the warm sun and the -colouring. There were three distinct blues. Behind our little white ship -at the floe-edge the sea glittered deep blue, like Oxford blue; on the -floe between us and the ship there was spread a wide pond of shallow -water, lighter than Cambridge blue, and the pigeon-grey sky showed -patches of light peacock-blue. - -A change of clothes, a redressed foot by Captain Svendsen—one of the -lightest handed surgeons I have met—and some bear-steak and we started -steaming round the floe, pretty sure of getting our glasses on to the -bears before many hours were past. For hours we watched with glasses -and telescope from the bridge and crow’s nest the passing white and -grey plains and snowy fantastic rock scenes till we almost slept with -the continual concentration of the eye on the moving white scene. But -alas, at five P.M., the mist came down again, so again we put our ship’s -nose against the ice-floe and we pray now that the mist may lift. The -skipper and Gisbert took advantage of this pause to make an Artificial -horizon with tar in a plate, and tried to find our position by same with -sun on the tar surface. But the tar congealed off the level, and after -calculations in decimals, yards in length, we find our position is two -hundred miles inside the north-east coast of Greenland! - -Before midnight, with the sun still high above the horizon, the mist -lifted and again we go plodding round another huge floe. We cannot get -west yet, enormous floes bar our way, there is a narrow passage, say two -hundred yards wide, to west between two counties of ice, but it is too -narrow for us to venture through. Should the floes close we would be -imprisoned before we had time to retreat. - -It is almost incredible, there is a feeling of movement to-day, the 17th -July, quite a perceptible sense of pitch and roll. You notice it even -without looking. The living movement of the sea—for ten days we have been -“in the ice,” with smooth water. How welcome is this open water. A clear -road lies before us to Greenland—why should the ice this year lie across -our track in such fields, making us take fifteen days for a distance we -expected to cover in four? Perhaps it was as well we met it; though there -were no whales there were at least bears, so we have their valuable skins -and seal blubber, and our two live bears to make up our cargo. They bring -rather an unpleasing aroma at times into the pure Arctic air. Their cages -are in parts becoming more and more thick, with stumps of the two-inch -battens, which they have eaten their way through. We begin to wonder -how to get one of them across from Trömso to Edinburgh, for it would be -awkward if they eat their way through on a passenger steamer. _Mem_: Keep -on practising lasso and throwing hitches and pistol practice. - -At three this morning, twenty minutes to three to be exact, and in Don -José’s watch, we spotted a bear on the great floe we were hanging about -yesterday; a bear and two cubs, probably the bear of yesterday, and he -and Gisbert went off armed cap-à-pie, and the writer could not but be -amused at the old lady’s cleverness, though it was at the expense of our -companions. It was a mile away, but with a fine glass every movement -could be followed, and with no glass to aid its sight it could apparently -follow our movements. It stood up its full height, craned its neck to one -side or the other, then got on all-fours and spoke to its cubs, and they -set off up wind, then it turned round, took another spy at our friends, -who soon looked like little black dots amongst the waste of floe, ice -hummocks and pinnacles, little lakes and shallow valleys, and as they -pursued their way steadily to where the bears had been seen, it made a -wide sweep to their left and got away farther even than we could follow -it from the mast. I made a jotting from the telescope as per over page, -which gives an idea of the kind of going. - -[Illustration: A POLAR BEAR] - -I would know that long cunning female again, I believe, were I to meet -her, from the odd movements, from her “out-stretched neck and ever -watchful eye.” The cubs should be grateful for such a mother; without her -skill in character-reading, they would both be in little cages on board -here! Does it not make the reader comfortable to know that they are at -liberty, free to enjoy seal-killing and fat galore, and pure snow and air -and the Arctic world to roam in? When they would not follow fast enough -Mother Bear turned and spoke angrily, then finally went and spanked them. -A bear and a monkey are the only animals, excepting man, who spank their -young. So up here you see little domestic touches in bear life, which, -so far, you cannot get in a zoo. It is worth coming north to see such a -matron tending her young, to see the jolly round yellow cubs full of fun, -gambolling over the fine old mother, playing with her ears and head and -teeth that at half-a-bite could take a man’s head off like asparagus. -Here is a picture of such a group. “Rest after Play,” it should perhaps -be called. “True till Death” might be too harrowing. - -[Illustration] - -Sometimes fatal accidents occur in bear-hunting. I have heard of several, -but they are small in number compared to the number of bears shot. A -few years ago Gisbert witnessed one. Two Norwegian sealers came on an -ice-floe after two bears somewhere east of Spitzbergen, and they killed -one and set to work skinning it. The second bear was holding towards -Gisbert’s vessel, so one of the Norwegians hurried off to annex it by -himself, which is not a very safe thing to do. He pursued it some time -and wounded it, and the bear went for him, and his rifle jammed, and -when De Gisbert’s party came up a little while afterwards the man was in -ribbons. - -Now I hope we may stop writing about bears and soon come in touch with -our older friends, the whales, of one kind or another. We are prepared -for Balean whales, or Nord Cappers, “the old kind,” I call them. But for -the big stronger Finners we are not prepared. I have written about these -in a previous chapter—about the special tackle required to master their -enormous strength. “Modern whales,” I call them, or Finners, the largest -animal that exists in this world, or ever has existed, up to one hundred -and twenty feet; longer than the prehistoric Diplodocus. The Balean whale -or Mysticetus that used to be fished here, and which has grown so scarce, -though it is generally depicted destroying boats, is a fat, leisurely -“fish” compared to these bigger and more active Finners, but alas, he is -now not only scarce but is also very shy and wary. - -Forty-five miles we plod along, with northerly strong wind, and pass -two of what they call icebergs here—“ice chips” down South—a grey sky -ribbed like sea-sand overhead, with the light off snow land on the sky; a -yellowish cold glare to the westward; that is Greenland, and we at last -pull up against the land-floe. It is just the same as the big sea-floes -which we have been amongst, still it is against the land! Twenty-five -miles of it we guess; when the haze over it lifts we shall see -Greenland’s icy mountains. The days of heat and basking in the blooming -saxifrage and yellow poppies seem still far away. But patience—if you -wait for ever so long you sometimes get your heart’s desire. - -The strong wind from north and west is cutting off bits of this land-floe -of all sizes, from a yard wide to a mile or two, and so taking them down -to cool our north temperate zone. I wish the process had begun sooner, -so that we now might be nearer land in shallow soundings looking for -walrus. I sincerely desire to see them, as I think my heavy ·475 would -have the chance of its life as against the smaller bore rifles we have -with us. You have to shoot them, then harpoon them before they sink; -when one is harpooned the others rally round and there is wild work. -Whales, musk oxen and walrus, coupled with a bee humming in the Greenland -meadows, is my desire. It is said there are mosquitoes, but for none of -the breed have I any desire, either little or big, from Bassein Creek or -Seringapatam. They do say, however, that the Greenland specimen does not -have any fever on its proboscis. - - * * * * * - -Whales at last in our night watch! I must write my notes about them -before I turn in. Some people say whaling is not sport. I differ from -them. It is the best sport I know. We had bear and whale in the same -basket to-night, first a cast for a whale which went off, and then -immediately after a shot at a bear which we got, and then another whale, -which we got also, both within two hours. Certainly though it was only a -narwhal the whale was the best sport. - -We lie in a small bay the length of our small vessel, which is one -hundred and ten feet in length, and to our left hand there is a bigger -bay in the floe, about two hundred yards wide, and narwhals have appeared -in it. So we dropped our whale-boat with the harpoon-gun loaded and put -the line in order. This, of course, should have been all in order and -ready, so time was lost. Then we tumbled on board by the port chains and -rowed down to where the whales had last appeared; and waited for them to -come up again. - -It blew a little with cold, fine snow. As we waited someone on board -shouted “A bear!” and we cast our eyes down wind to the ice-floe and got -a glimpse of pale primrose passing amongst hummocks; and very quickly -we got the harpoon out of the gun and backed down as fast as possible, -getting into a bit of a sea, and as we approached the floe I got two -475 shells into the rifle. As we came within fifty yards up came Bruin, -making towards us. It was very difficult to hold straight, for the sea -was breaking in foam and the boat was tossed about amongst chunks of -ice, so I held on and on, wishing to make sure—up and down we went, and -round went the muzzle of the rifle, but still the bear came on, as if he -wanted to board us. So lest he should change his mind and bolt, I let -loose at about eight yards and tried to hit the middle of its chest, but -I was a trifle off and hit the point of his starboard shoulder—with such -a heavy rifle and big ball and cartridge we would have expected to knock -him over, but it only turned it! The second barrel hit him a little high -and back of the shoulder, and he tumbled out of sight over a hummock. So -we made wild jumps on to broken ice in the foam and scrambled on to the -floe and over very rugged hummocks for a few yards, and put in a third -shot, which seemed to finish it, and Svendsen and two men hurried on to -get the body, for the ice was closing round us, but they found it still -breathing, so Gisbert and I, who were keeping the boat off the floe-edge, -backed in again, and with difficulty handed the rifle to Svendsen, who -put in another bullet, and with a rope the three dragged it over the snow -towards the boat. It was a mighty drag even for the distance of a hundred -yards. Then we backed in again through the surf at ice-edge and Svendsen -and the men struggled into the boat with the line, and we hurriedly -pulled and shoved off, for some heavy ice was closing round us, and got -out just in time, with the bear floating in tow. In the rough water clear -of ice, we managed, with another struggle and without upsetting, to pull -the bear on board and rowed back to the ship, greatly rejoicing! Just -as we got it heaved on board by the steam-winch, much to my relief, I -spotted the narwhals again and off we set, three pairs of oars rowing -hard, and as quickly as possible, the harpoon again in place. - -I have been at the killing of much bigger whales, but this spotted -black-and-white fellow with the horn in his nose, plus the bear, was to -my mind as interesting a little hunt as any. Sometimes a rabbit stalk -is of more interest than that of a deer! A fine black-and-white-spotted -fellow showed with a great ivory unicorn, but out of shot. Then another, -more brown in colour, appeared, and Svendsen let drive. The harpoon shot -was excellent and very quick, away went the line, I do not know for how -many fathoms—we passed it aft and all hauled in and let out and hauled in -again, finally we came alongside the whale, with its circle of splashing -and foam, and it raised its tail, and we put in a big bullet from the -475, which went from its stem to its bow, and it collapsed instantly. It -was a surprisingly killing shot, for one bullet to kill the whale, and -yet the bear took three to stop it. We hove our line in short, and set -to work to tow the whale alongside and began to flense it—that is, to -strip the blubber off the carcass—and were all very pleased, and were -just drawing the harpoon from the gun, which we had reloaded, when again -whales appeared in our little ice bay. So we again threw our oilskins -into the boat and went off again. In our bay we waited twenty minutes -by the watch, and up one came again, a better one than our first was -leading: it was white, with black spots. Our first was brown, with white -markings. We very nearly got the harpoon into it, but it only showed for -a second or two each rise and it escaped. So more waiting in wet cold -wind, with a lot of bears’ blood, and snow and water under foot: but -this journey we had each a tot of aqua vite. So we waited and waited -again, just as you wait for a rising trout—only with a little more -subdued excitement and perhaps more than usual wet and cold: and again -the handsome beasts appeared, and we dashed after them, three pairs of -oars, but they went off under the floe and we waited again till endurance -ceased, and, very wet, and cold, and shivering, we got aboard for supper -at four in the morning. Three o’clock yesterday morning till four o’clock -this morning makes a longish day of experience. I would have given two -bears to have got the biggest narwhal with the splendid horn. Perhaps if -we had harpooned one of the baby whales of the family we might have got -the homed male, for narwhals, like sperm whales, stand by each other. Or -we might have had his great ivory tusk through our boat, as has happened -before. They have driven their spear through many inches of an oaken -keel. You can see such a keel in Bergen Museum. - -[Illustration] - -We cut up the narwhal and found it full of small cuttle-fish and -shrimps—the bear was full of lead. These great 475 cordite seemed to -have less effect than the higher velocity 250 mannlicher. I must try -them again, but I begin to be a convert to the smaller bores and high -velocity. - -Now it is Archie’s turn for another bear, so I can retire to paint and -bring up my game-book with four bears and a whale to enter—two bears with -rifle, one with lasso, and one with pistol, and possibly the whale which -was partly killed by harpoon, partly by rifle. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - - -If I had not been writing these notes I would have harpooned a whale, I -believe, for a few minutes after getting on board the narwhals appeared -again, and by the time we were afloat and at the place they had appeared -at, we were too late. So, to be out of temptation and the cold, I turned -in at six A.M., after a long day of the unexpected. First, open sea! then -the narwhals’ appearance, then the bears, and narwhals again. Quite good -hunting if it were not for the persistent mist that worries all of us -more or less and prevents our getting ahead. - -[Illustration] - -I hear this morning that after I had turned in, the mate had a shot with -the harpoon at a narwhal and missed. I am sure our gun shoots short, -possibly the powder is faulty. I have known a man miss fifty shots -in succession in the Japanese seas, owing to this cause. He got more -suitable powder, and he killed sixty-nine whales without a miss. This is -the old style of gun and harpoon which we have on the Fonix. A is wire -strop or grummet running in slot in harpoon shaft. B is the “forego,” -a length of extra fine and strong line attached to harpoon. C shows -the line going into the bottom of the boat. D, crutch turning in; E, a -bollard or timber-head. - -On the Balæna, a Dundee and Greenland whaler I was on for a long cruise, -we coiled down eighteen hundred yards of two-inch rope in each boat, -extremely carefully coiled down in three divisions, one in the bows, one -amidships, and another at the stern. After using the modern heavy Finner -tackle from a small steamer these old lines seem to be very light tackle -in contrast. Last year we coiled down five-inch ropes (_i.e._ five in -circumference) three hundred and sixty fathoms to port, three hundred -and sixty to starboard, each line filling a bulkhead of, say, eight feet -by eight, and each line weighing about a ton, and the harpoons weighed -nearly two hundredweights. To play a fish of, say, ninety tons that can -snap such a cable or tow your hundred-foot steamer at eight to fifteen -knots up wind, with the two-hundred-horse-power engine doing eight -knots astern, is some sport. But the thin lines we have here are quite -adequate for this Balean whale of the Arctic, for the Right whale as a -rule does not sprint and it floats when it is dead, and usually, on being -harpooned, dives deep and stays down till it exhausts itself from want -of air, and so the lancing is easy. The rorquals go off at great speed -nearer the surface. - -Does the reader know about the great Svend Foyn, who invented the harpoon -for the great finners of modern whaling? He was a man of remarkable -determination and strength of character. Many yarns have I heard about -him. - -This is one of them: - -To show how his new harpoon worked, he took his wife on a trial -trip—great man as he was, he made mistakes, and had his limitations. He -soon made fast to a great finner with his new harpoon and line, and was -he not a proud man? But the harpoon struck the whale too far aft and did -not disable it. It took out the whole line and with a rush took their -little steamer in tow at a terrible speed out of the fiord for twelve -hours at fifteen knots against a gale, and they were steaming seven knots -astern with a sail up to help to stop the speed. - -“Let go, let go,” prayed the wife, “I am seek, I am afraid.” “No, no,” -said Foyn, “I vill never let go. I vill show you veech is de strongest my -vill or de vill of de beasts,” and he held on and finally got the whale -lanced. But it was an awful fight. When they towed the whale ashore in -triumph his wife was nearly dead, and she said: “Now you have shown me -your vill ees stronger den de beasts’—now I vill leave you,” and she did. -And through his life his second wife was his right hand. - -[Illustration: THE END OF THE TRAIL] - -What a huge industry has sprung from that new harpoon first planned by Mr -Welsh in Dundee, but developed in Tönsberg by Svend Foyn, working with -Henriksen the engineer, that wonderful patriarch of Tönsberg. Gruff old -Svend Foyn died in 1895, a millionaire; but he preserved great simplicity -of life and dined off one tin plate, and despised luxuries; and only one -ailment did he ever suffer from, that was toothache; so if anyone had -toothache they got his sympathy, no other complaint got any. Only one man -in Norway could get to windward of him, and that was Yensen, his steward. -Once Foyn came on board at night and Yensen was lying on the cabin floor -very drunk, but with just enough sense left to clap his hand to his -cheek, and when Foyn roared out: “Halloo, what the hell’s the matter -with you?” he groaned: “Toothache, Captain, terrible toothache.” “Ho, -ho,” said Foyn, “I’ll soon put that right,” and he went to his cabin and -poured out a sou’-wester of whisky, which he ordered Yensen to swallow -neat, of course; he did so, and made a face, and had some difficulty in -getting forward. Foyn was as pleased as could be next morning, when he -visited Yensen and found he had only a headache. The steward was very -diplomatic and tactful. Once, with his Captain, he went up a high hill -somewhere about the Nord Cap to look out for whales in the offing and -there came such a clap of wind that it blew the great Foyn down and hurt -his person and his dignity. But on looking round he found Yensen slowly -getting to his feet, muttering: “That was a terrible blast, Captain.” -Yensen had really not felt it at all, so he saved Foyn’s feelings. - -His new industry has been the making of Southern Norway and half of -Tönsberg. But the Tönsberg people remember him with mixed feelings. -They would not subscribe capital to their townsman’s new venture; not -only that, but they insisted on his doing all his whale factory work -outside the town. “All right,” he said, “if you won’t take a share in -the business I will give you the ‘smell,’” and he built his works to -windward and made many hundreds per cent. profit for years, and the -Tönsberg people only got the smell. Now, however, there are very few men -in Southern Norway who do not have shares in one modern whaling company -or another, and the island of Nottero, for example, in the south of -Norway, is dotted with pretty homesteads, owned by successful whaling -owners, captains and mates. There they call whaling an Industry. Here, -even though we tell of eighty per cent. dividends running for years, it -is called a Speculation. - -[Illustration] - -But to come back to our whales. Whilst enjoying the sun through the mist -and the intense stillness we heard a deep growl or groan, something like -a bear or a cow, a deep note which seemed to come from the floe across -the little bay I have mentioned. Peering into the sunlight track, on the -water we noticed forms moving and more groans came from these—Narwhals -they are!—and away we go, get the gun uncovered and two ·475 shells in -the breech of the big rifle, and just as we came to the place where -they were, there they are no more, only an oily swirl on the faint -ripples. So we lie on our oars and by-and-by they appear again down the -ice-edge—seven or eight. I practise laying the gun and harpoon on to them -and fondly hope I may get within range. Then comes the chief of the clan, -a glorious fellow; how I do desire to own the great horn which I see for -a moment. Next time he comes up. I feel sure I shall let go, and have the -gun ready, feet spread out and the line all clear. But they are gone! off -under the ice, and again we lie idly waiting. Then Archie whistles from -the ship and signals that he has seen them out seawards and away we go, -and as usual arrive at firing distance just as they “tail up” for their -long dive. - -[Illustration: Sperm breaching] - -[Illustration: Small Finner leaping] - -Some whales “tail up” before a long dive; some more, some less; some -finners only do this A dive after showing several times and blasting -B. But these narwhals show their dumpy feeble tail, C, as also does -the sperm D, before the long dive. The rorquals’ tails are magnificent -appendages, and it is often thrown clear of the sea when such a whale -is “fast” or harpooned E. The sperm can make a big swipe with his tail; -it is apparently more elastic in the spine than the finner. To see a -sperm breaching is a fine sight; he runs fast along the surface, every -second leaping clear out, or at least going, as it were, on his tail, -and thumps down with a crash of spray. Though I have seen thousands of -Finners I have only seldom seen them leaping clear of the water, but -here is a jotting of one that rose several times within thirty yards of -us—close enough! leap after leap, its tail ten feet clear of the sea, -head first, straight up into the air and down again head first; what -stupendous strength and what delicate colour, its underside white as kid, -ribbed like corduroy, its back grey, glittering in the sun (see page 235). - - * * * * * - -We left our sheltered ice bay this morning, 19th July, because the mist -lifted and the sky hung in level lilac bands above the ice-floes, and we -got a few hours’ further steaming through the ice towards the coast. And -I am rather sorry. For we had got to know the biggest ice features of -that bay, and the fishing and shooting were worth quite a good rent—two -bears, one narwhal and lots of hunting for other bears in two days. I -would have stayed a week more there myself and so would Gisbert, as we -are both very keen about the narwhals, but the others were not, and -thought there wasn’t much chance of getting within shot. - -I must say the narwhals were provoking, rising trout in a chalk stream -are not more wary, still there was always a chance. I’d have given a good -deal to land one of these splendid ivory horns. Time after time we got -almost within harpooning distance and the group of long spotted black and -white backs would signal to each other and quietly disappear and sink. -We stalked or rowed as quietly as possible to one lot, and I had half -a chance and let drive but the harpoon struck water just a foot short -of the nearest and biggest. What a flourish of tails and spray there -was as they plunged and left great quiet swirls in the rippling water; -our boat and hearts bobbing but no whale fast to a straining line. You -salmon-fishers don’t know the saltness of the tears for a missed or lost -whale. - -Svendsen, who has only done bottle-nose harpooning, was put on for next -chance and did exactly as I had done, only he got his hand cut through -the butt of the harpoon-gun being a bit loose. Truth is, our gear, guns -and line on the Fonix are rotten. He told me a curious thing that -happened with him a year or two ago; whilst bottle-nosing his mate had -made miss after miss at whales with the harpoon, and coming alongside he -said: “_By G⸺_, if I can’t hit a whale I’ll hit a gull” (fulmar petrels -were, as usual, round the vessel), so he blew at one and the harpoon cut -it in two! But a bottle-nose is an easier mark, to my mind, than the -narwhal. Narwhals are apt to show so little above water—only about four -to ten inches, and that only for a second as a rule. - -Almost at every watch we heard their groanings and went after them. -Sometimes we thought we heard the sound coming from under the water. I am -sure we did. - -Our biggest disappointment came at night—two in the morning rather. A -bear was spotted—a bear on the far side of our loch, and Gisbert went off -with some men in the whale-boat and we watched in our night clothes (much -the same as day clothes in the Arctic) and saw the captain do a record -sprint over the floe to turn the bear towards the gun, but the bear that -at first seemed inclined to come and pass the time of day changed his -mind and went ambling away, giving us a stern view till only its black -nose and mouth were visible, as it looked round occasionally, and then -it vanished in the lilac distance amongst the snow hummocks, and the -writer turned in, thinking the play was over. But this morning, I am -told, the real disappointment came. They gave up the bear, for a large -black-and-white narwhal, with a magnificent horn, appeared round the ice -point and they rowed round for it. It was lying leisurely on the surface, -only going below occasionally. Gisbert was to take the harpoon. They made -a splendid approach, breathlessly still, oars not making a sound, and got -within five yards! And the whale rose high out of the water and Gisbert -pulled the trigger, and the gun missed fire. The cap that explodes the -powder had been withdrawn for safety, when they began the bear-chase, and -not replaced! You can imagine the disappointment. I can assure the reader -that such an approach, the approach and hunting of any whale, in fact, is -far more exciting than one’s first stag or bear. There is more risk than -in bear-hunting. But a danger of the narwhal is that if you make fast to -a young one the rest of the family, parents and relatives, are down on -you and you have a chance of getting the great ivory spear through your -boat. There is all the possibility of lines and legs getting mixed, boat -upset, or dragged under floes, and lots more, if you care to tot them up. -Curiously, there have been far more lives lost at bottle-nose whaling -than at that of the larger kinds (the bottle-nose and narwhal are about -the same size). A bottle-nose is not larger than the narwhal, but it goes -off with such a dash that I have known several men to have been carried -overboard—Captain Larsen for one. He told me he went over with coil round -his leg, and another man in front; he got loose but the other man never -came up again. - -The great Svend Foyn was once taken overboard—that was with a five-inch -rope, after a finner whale, which is seldom or never known to check its -first rush. This one did, slacked the line and Svend Foyn came to the -surface and struck out and clambered on board, where the mate stood white -with horror, and all the welcome he could muster was: “I—I—I am afraid -you are wet, Captain!” and Foyn laughed himself dry.... - -Then Fortune gave a belated smile on our adventurers. The foolish bear -left the immense floe, on which it was perfectly safe, and took a swim -to a small one lying on the far side. Our boat having gone round after -this narwhal, was therefore able to spot something moving across the calm -water, and when the object got to the floe and crawled out on to the -ice, great was their rejoicing to find their bear again. So they pursued -it again and killed it with one head shot, one in the neck, and three -in the body. It was a small bear, a female about three metres, thirty -centimetres—that is, seven feet six inches—and had bad teeth and looked -old! My last, about the same length, had splendid teeth and looked young. -This accepted measurement, which we take from nose to tail, does not give -a true impression of the size of a bear, for this bear standing up would -be about nine feet in height. I do not see why we should not measure a -bear standing up as we measure man, from top of his head to his heel. We -never think of giving a man’s height in feet and inches from top of head -to the seat of his trousers. And, besides, what is the _end_ of a bear’s -tail? Is it the flesh and bone or longest hair? I’ve seen a hair about -five inches long on a bear’s tail, and including the water dripping from -that you would have thought, by the measurements, it beat the record. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - - -Before we left our last misty anchorage we partook of a meal of both bear -and narwhal. The narwhal’s flesh is blacker than an old mushroom, and as -food it is only passable. Young bear is our best food, but there is a lot -of trouble about preparing it, for we remove all the fat, which has not a -good taste. - -This morning one of these little grey seals or floe rats looked at us -from astern, and as I plan a motoring coat I felt called upon to deprive -it of its pelt, painlessly, after administering a tabloid—lead in nickel. -I do not think there is any sport in shooting seals without a pucca -stalk, still, the skins of these little grey fellows (Vitulina, or are -they a new species?) are too good to leave. I think six will be enough -for a coat. I have got three now. - -The flippers of the seals here are highly developed, with distinct claws. -In the Antarctic the flippers are less distinctly articulated. The -finger-bones are more bound together by ligament, and the claws or nails -are scarcely noticeable. - -All day we travelled north and as westerly as possible, trying to get -within sight of Greenland, and for once the sun came out and we felt as -if we could paint on deck, and did so for a little—dead smooth sea, with -fine icicles forming and very level fields of ice, with few hummocks, -extending to the pigeon-grey ribbed sky on horizon—rather monotonous. -The guitar was going somewhere on board and most of us cooling our heels -in the silence. Only the captive bears seem busy—grate, grate, grating -at their wooden walls; one got nearly out last night, when we were off -after the narwhal. We saw excited figures jumping about on our foredeck, -and when we came alongside there was fierce growling, poor old Port bear -being prodded in the back to draw its attention, whilst three seamen -struggled to nail on new wood in front of its nose-end of the cage. - -But to come back to this day that begins so quietly, we are now all agog, -we had a splendid bear-hunt and spotted a female with cub, a very small -thing, and it was fascinating watching all their movements and signs to -each other. We tried to jam the ship to the floe-edge, but for hundreds -of yards it was guarded by floating pan ice—that is, ice in cakes of a -few yards diameter and not deep, only, say, a foot. A big whaler could -have jammed through comfortably, but we are not strong enough and got -stuck and retired as gracefully as possible and went a long round of -miles and miles to where we could land on the true floe, practising lasso -en route in case we may have another opportunity of throwing a rope over -a live wild bear. - -Later we spotted the bear and child, and Archie and party went off after -it, and from board ship we watched their slow procedure and the bears’ -rapid disappearance. I thought then that the fun was over, and retired -to draw—but they had the best stalk they have had. They struck the spoor -of a bigger single bear, followed it by directions from mast-head, -and came within a short distance, when the sleeping hero awoke, and -promptly stalked them, then Archie fired at forty yards. He says: “Give -me pheasant-shooting and a covert side, and nothing on four legs bigger -than a spaniel.” It is rather an awesome thing seeing a fellow in white -robes and formidable teeth, that when on his bare feet stands well over -ten feet high. A cordite rifle is then a very comfortable thing to hold -in your hand. The first bullet in the chest knocked the bear over and -two more shots killed it. It took about five hours there and back to -finish the bloody business. And even on their tramp home we on board -were kept in interest, for Don José Herrero, with the captain, went out -for a fourth bear—relationship to others not known—Svendsen tried to -draw the bear after him, whilst Don José hid behind a hummock. A bear -will always attack a single man, sometimes two, seldom a number, and the -plan worked effectively up to a point. It was lovely to watch Svendsen’s -simulated frightened flight and the bear following, stalking him behind -every hummock, keeping cover, and then scuttling across the open to make -sure of its victim. But somehow or other the bear did not just come far -enough and our second lot of hunters came back with nothing in the bag. -Later, we noticed the same bear working along the horizon. I expect it -will strike the track of the homeward drawn bear’s skin. I hope he will -evince sufficient interest in his deceased relative either to follow the -trail of the skin to the ship or to the carcass; it was far too great a -distance to bring in all the flesh. An eight-foot bear, nose to tail, ten -feet four inches nose to heel, is a frightful weight, about nine hundred -and eighty pounds. - -[Illustration] - -It is still the Spaniards’ watch and we steam away back to where we saw -the bears first—if we cannot find whales we must take bears—_En falta de -pan, buenas son tortas_ (If you cannot get bread, cakes are good enough), -and if you cannot get either bears or whales you must either draw, write, -smoke, or go to bed. I would go to bed, but still have a lingering -interest in my fellows’ proceedings with the above _ursidæ_. - - * * * * * - -After the somewhat exciting afternoon and evening after bear, the night -felt very quiet. Mist fell and stilled the least ripple. Archie came to -my cabin—two can sit in it with a squeeze—and celebrated the occasion -with a pipe and a glass of aqua vite, and he retold his adventures. I -ought to have been with him, I believe, as comrade, to draw a bead on the -ferocious opponent if necessary, and afterwards put it all down in paint, -but Gisbert is most unerring in his aim, and being a little lame, I might -have kept them back. At eighty yards, a big bear, Hamilton says, is very -imposing, and when it stalks you to within thirty-five yards and you give -it your best in a vital spot and it is not killed, you are inclined to -wish yourself at home. You think of what will happen if your foot sticks -in the deep snow or if you miss with your next, or only wound it. The -size and shape of these wild floe-bred bears is far greater than any one -may see in captivity. I suppose the age of the males, their food, and -free life account for their enormous chest measurements and huge bowed -forelegs. - -It is certainly best to attack a bear in couples, on account of -above-mentioned possibilities—lives have been lost by not doing so. - -As we turned in, the mist rose a little and left a streak of palest -primrose between it and the horizon, the shape of a great searchlight, -but how delicate was the warm violet of the mist and the darker tint on -the smooth water. In other ten minutes the light increased, then the sky -was faintest yellow, except a low arch of cold bluish tint above the floe -to which we were anchored; on the floe were three small icebergs. - -Where we are to-night there is little life, only a few petrels chuckling -quietly at our stern, where there is always some blubber hanging over for -their benefit. - -There is not a ripple on the sea, not the slightest perceptible motion. I -think the stillness and silence of the Arctic is a thing seldom noticed; -the hundreds of miles of drifting floes which surround us break all -swell. Everyone sleeps to-night after the exertions of yesterday. If -there is a watch on deck I do not hear him; in my cabin the only sound -is the snoring of our starboard bear. His berth is close to mine; when -he does not snore he growls, a deep vibrating organ note, which is a -little fearsome, and when he stops the deep note there is an ominous -scrape, scraping in the stillness, that shows his set purpose to get out, -and—what? I wish he was overboard or in our Zoo, or behind iron bars or -something stronger than fir-wood battens, which he tears into moss in no -time! A rat tearing wood is vexatious in the silence of the night, but -to hear the patient and effective work going on beside one when you know -there is possibly no one on the look-out, makes one anxious, so I keep my -pistol handy at meal-times and between them. - -An uneventful Sunday. After the manner of our great examples of -Reformation times, we held mild sports. Fencing, two entries, F. J. de -Gisbert and the writer, we may not say who took the prize. Lassoing, five -entries, De Gisbert and three Spanish, first Don José Herrero. Don José -Herrero now surpasses our Professor Gisbert, and the writer comes only -a little behind, but still a halo is seen over him for having lassoed -a live bear! Shooting at floating bottles, range inside thirty yards, -Entries, the writer with Browning revolver, Spaniards mannlicher rifles, -easy win for pistol, showing age and practice make up for telescopic -sights. Pipe-playing, march, strathspey and reel, one entry, a walk over. -Guitar accompaniment, three entries, De Gisbert easily first, steward and -writer draw. Painting water-colour evening effect, one entry—judge the -writer—subject, a pale yellow sky, lilac strip clouds above floe, floe -high in tone, faintest pink with pale blue in crevices; prize not awarded. - -In evening we tied up to a gap in floe-edge, hoping for narwhals, because -they seem to keep close to edge of the floe. And sure enough they came -when we were at evening meal, a great black-and-white-spotted bull -leading, with a visible gleam under the still, dark water of his white -ivory horn; after him, more drab-coloured whales, presumably Madame and -bébés. We waited out in our boat, the writer with harpoon, and pursued -two lots. One of them was a splendid bull, but both lots vanished a -fraction of a second before I got a good chance at them, so we saved -powder. - -During the night we got to some extent embayed. We had floes all round, -and raced round like a bird in a trap, but found a way out of the lake -about four A.M. - -As we plodded round in the early morning, it rained! straight down -heavy rain and warm at that, with the thermometer two degrees above -freezing—most unexpected and unsuitable Arctic weather—might as well have -rain at Assouan! When the rain ceased thin mist still hung over the day -and it was very quiet indeed. - -Our Starboard bear seemed to feel the quiet and monotony and made a very -good attempt to get out to-night. He did not seem very overpowering on -the floe, but now, when he got his head and one great forefoot out and -the timber was flying and six men struggling to nail him up, he gave one -a sense of great strength. He is now inside the remnants of timber baulks -of about three cages. As he chews one batten up more timber is nailed on -over the first stumps. Some of us thought the bridge gave a good point of -view: the struggling figure, and the steam of its breath as the cage was -turned over, and Gisbert’s cigarette smoke as he pulled and hauled and -directed the various manœuvres, made a fairly dramatic picture. I thought -my services might be called on at any minute with my Browning, but six -men, active of mind and body, and various ingenious appliances of tackles -and hatchets and big nails, at last made Bruin secure, and the stillness -of the misty day come over us again. - -Later, a great narwhal raised his back and tail right astern, groaned -and went under with hardly a ripple, and we saw his white length come -towards us under the glassy surface and disappear under the ship. So -the whale-boat was lowered and a crew went out and lay a hundred yards -off. My fishing instinct told he was the only one about, so I stayed on -board and painted an ice effect. The whale-boat and men lay perfectly -reflected, and looked almost too still and colourless through the thin -mist to be real, looking more like a faded print of people waiting for -perch than whalers waiting with stern intent to do or die. Bow lay on his -back smoking, the smoke rising straight up, the others chatted in subdued -voices. - -On board, Pedersen the steward started his guitar and mouth-organ, and -altogether, with the tum-tum, common waltz music, and the outer stillness -it did not feel a bit as it ought to do in the Arctic regions, - - “Where there’s frost and there’s snow - And the stormy winds do blow, - And the daylight’s never done, - Brave Boys,” - -as the old song goes. - -I have mentioned our many-sided steward. Photography seems to be another -of his accomplishments—hobbies, I should say. Light or no light, he -fires his camera. We could not help smiling the other day when he went -for the first time on to the floe with a party to photograph a bear-hunt. -Hardly had he gone five yards when one leg went deep into a hole in the -floe and his shoe came off. He emptied the water, and then the other came -off, so he hastily fixed his tripod, fired a shot at the ship and came -on board again, and took to the guitar and his proper offices. To-night -a sudden idea seized him and he left his cosy corner by our galley fire -and Johanna, our “she-cook,” and came with guitar and that instrument -called the mouth-organ, and arranged our bears’ heads and skins on the -main-hatch, and sat himself down on a block of wood between them and -got one of the men to fire his camera at him. But first he produced a -pocket-mirror, when I called his attention to a hair being astray, and -having arranged that, he pulled his white jacket into position, fixed -up the guitar and mouth-organ and struck a fine pose. I might have -fired a plate at him, but there was not nearly enough light. The head -of Hamilton’s enormous bear, as if resentful of this last indignity of -having to pose in such a picture, broke the barrel it rested on as if in -protest—even the head and neck is a big lift for one man. - -Another picture composed itself a little later. We watered ship from one -of these shallow blue pools on the floe, two men at the pool filling -tin pails with a large tin bailer. To encourage them our jolly, burly -_vivandière_ went out to them with her cheery laugh, carrying a glass -and bottle of aqua vite. There was colour! and if not elegance, a beauty -of fitness, which is saying a good deal for the lady; the ample, strong -form, in pale blue and white pinafore kind of dress, tripped over the -floe, and the deep blue of the sailors’ clothes and her red cheeks, and -the golden yellow of the aquavit, the grey of the zinc pails, and the -blue and white of the snow, suddenly struck one as the first decided -effect of strong colour contrast which we have seen for days. - -Nothing very exciting to-day, mist and snow on deck till evening, when -it cleared, and became very calm. We were all at _aften-mad_ when word -came a bear was sighted, so our Spanish friends armed themselves and went -forward to the bows, and the vessel slowly approached the floe on which -the bear had been seen, and to our astonishment the bear approached the -ship steadily, and lightly climbed a round snow-block and steadily gazed -at us, a pale primrose patch in a great whiteness, with interesting dark -eyes and muzzle. I have tried to recall the effect, but the highness of -the scheme of colour makes it difficult to paint, and probably impossible -to reproduce by any process of colour-printing. - -Our friends calmly held their fire till within twenty-five yards when Don -José began with his telescope-sighted mannlicher and hit the bear at his -first shot! unfortunately rather near its tail. The bear, enraged, tore -at itself. Then a sharp fusillade began from both rifles and by-and-by -the bear succumbed. It had been hit not less than five times. It was only -a small bear, but, as Don Luis senior remarked: “It was forte bien mieux -de tirer from the ship than to go march, march, toujours sur la neige.” -This is the way we speak on board, with a little Spanish thrown in. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - - -Bright sun for once and away we have been steaming since early morning, -south and east, hoping to get clear of the great floes that bar our -way to the west. I long for mountains, the flat plains of ice-floe and -snow grow very wearisome. Now, near land, these land-floes are like -endless plaster ceiling that has dropped more or less in fragments. In -the Antarctic the floes look as if a Greek temple had come to bits and -lay floating on the sea. There is a considerable difference, therefore, -in appearance; at least I speak for the southern ice which I have met -south-east of Graham’s Land. There are no seals, therefore we hardly -expect bears, and there is never a sign of the blow of a whale. Only one -narwhal this morning, we almost ran into it. I wish it had driven its -spear into us, it seems the only hope of getting a good one. - -Floes extend in a line for miles north and south; we think it will be -best now to wait for them to open, rather than to wander away south in -hopes of getting an opening round them. Shannon Island, on the north-east -of Greenland, is our aim. - -... The floes are flatter, with fewer tombstones protruding from the -level white; it gets monotonous. Mist comes at night. Hamilton and -Gisbert play chess, Don José and the writer teach each other English and -Spanish. Don Luis plays patience and Don José Herrero does nothing, with -quiet dignity. This morning, after an hour at Spanish, I turned out first -of our party for breakfast and found our starboard bear also on the point -of coming out. It had its head and feet out and was only stopped by a -single rope, a mere accident, but it puzzled the bear—rope was new to it. -The she-cook and writer were the only people on deck. I tried to look -not afraid and she certainly looked perfectly cool, and kept on wiping a -dish, but went into the galley. I secured my revolver and told the man -on the bridge. I took the wheel, whilst he dashed below and called for -help, and there ensued a wild struggle; Bruin had lost a moment at the -last trifle, the silly rope that was slightly elastic giving way to his -pulling. Several of the crew turned up and got some thin wood battens, -but one after another, as they were hastily banged across the front, he -tore them to bits. And he has learned that shoving is also effective, -and six men this morning went back at first, to a shove of his two great -paws, till they got leverage. “With a long enough lever you can move the -world”—that is where our men came in. Now he has about eight inches of -timber in front of his nose. I will give him two days, not more, to get -through that. Gisbert says he is sure to go overboard at once if he comes -out. I think it is as well to have my pistol beside me at breakfast; we -must at least have a chance of some shooting if it takes charge of the -ship and does not go overboard as predicted. - -[Illustration] - -Gisbert tells at breakfast this touching little tale, possibly a -chestnut, above illustrated. “Once upon a time a hunter met a bear and -said: ‘Here comes my new fur coat,’ and the bear said: ‘Here comes -my breakfast,’ and both were right!” With such frivolity he soothes -our nerves. But the deep, vibrating note of Starboard and the sound -of industrious scraping keep one on edge for the rasping tearing that -comes when he really sets to work to get out. Some great chains have now -been found in the bottom of our little hold, and he is now really being -treated as a wild animal; the chains are being fastened all round the -woodwork, so I will allow him other two days to get free. All our wooden -battens are done or nearly done, therefore this resort to iron. - - * * * * * - -We—that is, De Gisbert and I—made a small discovery this morning in -rope-throwing—we practise it at odd times, with the prospect in view -of tackling other bears alive, which is perhaps even higher sport than -shooting or photographing them. For some time we have almost all been -able to cast the ordinary running loop at short range, but are erratic -with the half-hitch cast, such as you use after casting a loop over a -bear’s head to secure its forefoot. - -[Illustration] - -I do not write these details for bear-hunters, but the game is excellent -sport _per se_ on deck, say, on a P. & O. liner outward bound in August; -it would be splendid on any deck, better than deck quoits. It would be -excellent for a garden-party or sports for Boy Scouts. - -You beg or borrow, from the bos’n or laundry-maid, five fathoms of -rope—log line is the best. Splice a metal eye to the end to make a loop -or lasso. Then you fix up a spar, with a cross-piece, and stand as in -this sketch, with the loop—larger than A, or to taste—and cast over B, -with right hand, and haul taut with left hand. The next thing is to cast -a half-hitch over C. You imagine B is a bear’s head and you wish to throw -a half-hitch over (C) a fore paw, so as to haul the paw up to the neck -and throw the bear. Then you can try left-hand or right-hand casting over -X, which is not so easy! - -[Illustration] - -To cast the first lasso loop (note position of hand and eye in loop A) -you swing the loop round the head and let fly and let the coils of line -in left hand go free. This is a little difficult at first; casting on the -half-hitch is much easier if you lay the line properly, as in Fig. (4). -If you lay it as we did at first, as in Figs. (1) and (2), the loop falls -short as in middle Fig. The idea is to have plenty line to your right, so -as to make a big flowing hitch, as shown in lower Fig. (4). - -Gisbert and I worked out this discovery in the morning till we could -put on hitches every time, and in the afternoon we challenged the -“Professor,” as we call young Don José—because of his skill in throwing -the loop—and his cousin, Don Luis Velasquez, for a bottle of champagne, -and holding our hand, we easily beat them and felt very slightly ashamed -of ourselves for taking advantage of our small discovery of a knack. - -This morning in sunny mist appeared a dot, far away over the snow, and -we put glasses on it and made out a seal. As our young men thoughtfully -hung back from a stalk, it was left for De Gisbert and the writer to make -the effort. Finally the writer started over very rough going, with very -little chance of getting within shot, still, just to show an example, we -felt one of us must try. - -So we climbed over the bow and got on to the floe-edge and away from -ship. It was very charming on the floe amongst these ice tombstones -and ledges fringed with huge icicles that, in a wide view, are simply -monotonous white, but which all become very sweet and beautiful when you -are close to them and can examine the details at leisure. The only way -to see nature thoroughly is to have it rubbed into you. Who can see a -rainstorm with an umbrella up? When you have one leg in a hole in the -floe and the other on the floe, and hands, rifle and staff going, you do -not know how deep, there is plenty of time for the dripping icicles over -the blue ledge in front of you to impress themselves on your memory; and -for a time at least, the seal you are stalking, or even the bear that may -be stalking you, or when you think of the beauty in front, the cold in -your boots, become of little importance. - -Then you toil on, dripping from nose and eyebrows just like the icicles, -for on this blessed day of days through these mist wreaths there is hot -sun and the ice-floe glitters gloriously. Everyone said that the seal -could not be approached. But by dint of much consideration and a crawl -here and there, I managed to get within a hundred and fifty or a hundred -and sixty yards. Then I thought, “Just to show what could be done by old -age and experience,” I’d try to get even closer—to a hundred yards—that -lost the seal for me; for when I got behind the tiny knob of ice I aimed -at the seal had got into its hole in the floe. For the last fifty yards I -was following the two or three days’ old track of a bear; I wonder if he -and I had both stalked the same seal with the same result. - -A day’s stalk, or rather a few hours’ stalk, after a seal suits my taste, -and Hamilton agrees. He says, apropos of a big serious old bear-stalk: -“Give me a pheasant cover, with nothing on four legs bigger than a -spaniel.” You don’t then have that sensation of cold water: you are quite -comfortable and can claw down your birds and chat with any fair one who -has begged to see you do it. - -From above, the careful reader may gather that we have at least in this -Greenland sea seen the sun. It is nice! Now, as I write, about twelve -o’clock midnight, it may be said to be shining; and in the rays, with -double winter clothing, it is really quite warm. But in the shade there -are many degrees of frost; that is why the icicles hang so beautifully -to-day over the blue ledges on the shaded side of the raised edges on the -floes. - -It is a poor floe and feeble ice compared to that in the South. We passed -a berg this afternoon, an Arctic berg, so we said: “How grand!” But in my -mind I saw again the stupendous ice-cliffs of the South and their vast -green caves, into which you could pack a dozen such Arctic iceberg chips. - -The atmosphere and colouring here remind me of the east coast of Scotland -in June, clear, crystalline, unenveloping, quite unlike the velvety -feeling of our west, towards the Gulf Stream, say down the Wigtownshire -coast, or the west of Spain. - -I have often seen this scenery depicted in old whaling pictures, where -the ships and whalers look quite large in proportion to the ice-forms. -This is the difference between Arctic and Antarctic. In one, man and his -vessels dominate the scene, in the other the great forms of nature make -man and his works seem very small. - -This afternoon with my pistol I shot an old female seal through the -brain—this after a futile stalk of hours for a seal in the morning with -long-range rifle and telescope sight. - -Though we can’t find whales yet, the colour of the water is promising; -it is full of plankton: if you draw a muslin net through it you collect -in a few yards, in the tail of the bag, an almost transparent jelly—a -minute quantity of which, examined under the microscope, reveals -marvellous beauty, millions of minute crustaceans and diatoms that fill -you with wonder at the life in the seas, which infinitely surpasses in -multiplicity the life of the land or the air. These probably form the -food of the shrimps and little cuttle-fish, and the narwhals eat the -cuttle-fish. - -The narwhal we caught the other day was full of small cuttle-fish, only -about a few inches across the spread of their tentacles, and it also -held red prawns or shrimps. But the cachalot or sperm whale of the warm -seas kills very large cuttle-fish. We dare not say up to what size. I -myself have only seen the sperm, after it has been harpooned, eject small -cuttle-fish, but large circular marks in their backs, something like -Burmese writing magnified, look as if they had been caused by the sucker -on the tentacles of enormous cuttle-fish, and wandering grooves over -their sides suggest that the parrot-like beak of the cuttle-fish has made -its mark. I have seen one of these at least thirty-five feet in length. -The contents of the stomach of many of the largest whales in the world, -Balænoptera Sibaldi (Blue) and Balænoptera Musculus (Finner), which are -killed nowadays, consist almost entirely of small shrimps, about one -quarter of the size of the common shrimp. On the landing and flensing -stage of Alexandra Company in Shetland, after several finner whales have -been cut up, I have seen piles of this shrimp food lying on the slip, -amounting to several tons in weight, with only, on rare occasions, a few -minute fish amongst it all. - -The food of the whale that used to be more common up here, the Right -whale, Balæna Mysticetus, is about the size of barleycorns and looks -rather like sago with a brownish tint. The whale takes a mouthful of -these, plus water, and squeezes the water through the blades of whalebone -round the edge of its mouth, each of which has a fringe of hairs on -the inside. These hairs, interwoven, make a surface to the palate like -that of a cocoanut mat, which makes a perfect strainer. Then the whale -swallows the mass of minute crustaceans that is left on its tongue and -palate. The tongue is an immense floppy plum-coloured thing like a -deflated balloon. I would give much to know exactly how its nerves and -muscles act so as to work down the minute food from its palate into the -throat. Smaller Finner whales we know of, which feed on herring, round -the Shetlands and British coast, locally called Herring Hog, or Springer, -run to thirty feet or so. They are not hunted as yet by the modern whaler -as they are rather too small to be worth towing to the station, but no -doubt their day will come when our industries need them, and the large -whales become more shy and hard to capture. - -[Illustration: Arctic and Antarctic Proportions] - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - - -This chapter will show that it is foolish to sit up late, and that it -does not do to shoot polar bears in pyjamas. Last night Hamilton and I -sat up fairly late playing vingt-et-un for matches. But the Dons and De -Gisbert sat up still later, almost all night, brewing a concoction of -seal-oil and things on the cabin stove for boots. Just as they succeeded, -it upset all over the shoulder of Don José junior’s coat. They were -very merry, but they should have been in bed, as it was their morning -watch at nine o’clock, and they went to bed not long before that hour. -Spaniards are quite reckless of the night hours, a few days’ stay in -Madrid will convince anyone of this—the people walk about all night. The -aforesaid brothers when they did turn in got into pyjamas—how people -cling to custom. Gisbert, being more experienced, of course turned in -all standing, as anyone of any polar experience always does. Now they -are sorry for these late hours and for sleeping in pyjamas, for result. -Soon after they had turned in, there appeared a very large she-bear and -two cubs close to the floe-edge, which could have been shot from the bow. -Just the chance they like, no horrid walking and stalking over snow. -Gisbert was ready in a minute, but they lost the precious time getting -out of the pyjamas into warm clothes, and the bear could not wait, and -perforce they had to follow her over the snow and a fog came down. - -They have lost it; and here we are, a whole ship’s company, sleeping, -or doing nothing but grousing and counting the hours, as we lie on -dead-still water in dead-still fog—which is waste of time and patience -and is quite absurd, Q.E.D. - -We are back to our last bear forest, “the woods are full of them,” as -Hamilton says; back to bear-hunting because there are no whales and -because our path west and south and north is barred with ice. Perhaps -by the middle of August there may be a road open to the land. We have -seen the mist on the hills, at any rate a wide stretch of many miles of -whitish light thrown up to the sky, which tells us that the land is there -and that we are not more than fifty or sixty miles distant from it. - -We still hope to get the she-bear and the cubs; they are nice small cubs, -not like the well-grown wicked fellows we have on board; we could almost -make pets of these small fellows. - -A man we know of got one a year or two ago. He was one of three -Norwegians left on a certain island in these latitudes—we will not give -its exact bearings—to collect skins during a winter. They got a hundred -bearskins and ninety white fox of considerable value, and they are there -still in barrels, and ought to be quite good yet. They lost their boat -and were picked up and taken home. They had a baby bear, which they -brought up on the bottle. It was a charming pet till about twelve months -old and then he had to be destroyed or he would have killed them in play. - -I am sorry to say here that at _middag’s-mad_ we, aft the mainmast, had -not remembered this was Sunday till pancakes came on the table. As the -second lot arrived the steward stepped in rather quietly and whispered: -“A seal astern,” so we jumped out with the pistol (by what some might -call a lucky shot), hit it through the brain and it floated dead, and -a white ivory gull hung over it. It was just the kind of skin, too, I -wanted for the projected motoring coat. Then we realised it was Sunday, -and to make up leeway we displayed bunting, the Royal Spanish Yachting -Club and our Royal Eastern Yacht Club—the vice-commodore’s—and the Red -Lion of Scotland (the origin of which is buried in the mist of historical -obscurity) at the fore, quite a gallant display for such short notice. - -With the flags’ first flutter the air went round to the north, and now, -instead of being heavy and depressing, there is a bracing feeling, and -the eye can see far and wide amongst the lanes of sea-water and the -floes of hummocky ice. Harp seals dash across the surface of the loch -we are in, as if they too enjoyed the change from damp, heavy air to the -keen, sharp, exhilarating air from the north. There is no use firing -at these harp seals in the water, for they always sink on being shot. -Besides, some of us think a shot might disturb the she-bear and family. -She went off to a floe about the size of Perthshire, and we follow round -northerly, and perhaps to-morrow morning we may sight her again. - -One of the prettiest and rarest things in the world is to see a mother -bear with her cubs, the little yellow fellows with their black eyes and -noses jumping and rolling over their mother, pulling her ears, and the -old bear showing every sign of love for her offspring. Then to see the -old bear stalking a seal and the little ones sitting away behind, jogging -each other, making notes about their mother’s cleverness. Their education -takes two years. The smaller black bear of Newfoundland and America sends -away its young after one year’s teaching; there means of subsistence are -more simply obtained, there is so much wild fruit and so many roots and -other things for them to eat. But to stalk a seal up here on these flat -ice-floes, even with a rifle, takes very considerable skill. I speak -with feeling. For the bear to get within clinching distance must require -even greater experience. The polar bear has usually two and sometimes -three of a family, not oftener than once in two years. The mother is -frequently seen with only one cub and the father is then supposed to have -eaten the other. The male bear is said to take little or no interest in -the education of its young. Why the young, two or three year old bear we -first caught showed such interest in the old bear, Hamilton’s first bear, -I cannot quite understand, for though he kept half-a-mile to leeward he -always seemed to have an eye lifting for the old bear’s movements. I -wonder if he was waiting for the old fellow to kill something, then to -drop in on a neighbourly call about meal-time. - -Alas, this journal is all bear as yet, and no whale to speak of; I have -never been in such lifeless water anywhere in regard to cetacean life. -And yet we should see various whales, the Balæna Mysticetus, called the -Right whale, bowhead or Greenland, the fat, slow, but valuable whale of -the old-fashioned whaling.... - -In the evening a bear was spotted. Gisbert and Don José and three men set -out after it. With the glasses we saw the bear disappear in the distance -and then the little black spots of straggling figures also disappeared. -They returned several hours later in the best of spirits, though they had -never seen the beast. They had fallen in with a curious experience. On -the floe they found a greeny blue grotto—I remember we saw them standing -on a high ridge, it must have been under this—into which they went, and -were amused at the ghastly silvery appearance of their hands and faces. -It was about fifteen yards long, and they could walk in upright, with -a blue shallow pool in the middle, and overhead part of the snow and -ice was thawed to about a thickness of a few inches and the blue light -shining through this with icicles hanging thick, gave an effect that can -be imagined. I think I would rather have seen that than have killed the -bear. There were no bears in the grotto; but I know of a man, Captain -Yule by name, of Dundee, who killed—well, I hardly like to say how many -bears, in such a cave. Take a blue cave, whity yellow bears with their -dark eyes and the sombre figure of the man, and rifle smoke, flame -and blood, and you have a picture fit for the cover of The Wide World -Magazine. - -They had walked about ten kilometres over snow, rough going, and came -back about one A.M., wet, with ice on beards and moustaches, but glowing -and happy with the exercise. They had a hot grog, got off long boots -and were very comfortable, when another bear was spotted, and away they -went over the bow by the rope-ladder to the ice, chawing biscuits and -chocolate as they went. Don José being a little tired his cousin took his -place, and Gisbert went off merrily. Spaniards are very sporting so far -as I know them; they work up to their collars, always keep up a cheery -appearance, and—can’t they sleep after exercise—it is now past midday and -there is not a sign of any of them! There is a fresh breeze, but it is -foggy, with sun overhead, so we cannot do much. - -To put in time I took a boat after a hooded-seal, which I spotted through -a lift in the sunny haze about a mile off on a small floe. We excuse -ourselves killing seals by thinking of the benefit we confer on our -fellow-men in the South by adding to the general store of material used -in the manufacture of margarine and olive oil; but besides this base -commercial consideration we have our captive bears to consider, they must -exist, to afford amusement and instruction some day in our Zoological -Park in Edinburgh, London, or Madrid. As I approached, the seal finally -shovelled himself off the snow into the sea and disappeared. Trusting to -its showing some curiosity, we waited, and it came up about a hundred -yards off, and showed part of its head, which I managed to hit, but it -disappeared. So we waited about the place, and by-and-by it came up only -about twenty yards away, when a shot from the pistol finished its pain. -In my experience it is a very rare thing for a seal to reappear after -being wounded or killed. I must disagree with Sir Ernest Shackleton in -this matter. He said in a lecture to our Royal Geographical Society -apropos of Antarctic seals: “As fast as we killed them, up they came -again.” - -[Illustration] - -It is a strange life this up North, a little while ago mist and cold, and -you longed to be home—wherever that might be—and now the sun is shining -hot, and you might be in a yacht off Aberdeen in summer; it is the same -crystalline atmosphere, with cold air, hot sun, but bracing—very nice -indeed! But up here there is some risk!—only two hours ago we were in -a tight place. No real old Arctic whaler would mention this; they all -minimise dangers—for their own comfort; if they did not, they would end -in staying on shore and going to the workhouse. But the writer, who is -only an amateur whaler who “only plays hide-and-seek with the sea,” as -a nephew of mine puts it, may be allowed to say that there was grave -danger, and putting aside whale and bear dangers, there was in this one -of our first really nice, sunny evenings, a very serious prospect of -our spending the last few months of our lives on a floe with a failing -commissariat. We ran ourselves on to a green ice tongue that we thought -had enough water over it to float us, and got fast. I was below, and -though accustomed to the ordinary shock of ramming ice, I knew at once, -by the long rise of our bows and the roll to port and starboard that we -were in a fix. Perhaps a small diagram may help to explain—so here you -see two floes meeting, bright sunshine, blue sky overhead, and rippling -blue water where there are open pools in the ice—a scene of perfect -summer peace. The two floes, each weighing millions of tons, are very -wide; they are slowly moving towards each other; they nearly meet; and -we mistakenly try to get between them before they close, and run our -stem and half our keel on to A, the submerged ice-foot of the floe B. -The floe C is coming towards us in the direction of B—well, to cut it -short, if the floes C and B meet, with the Fonix between them, our party, -thirty all told, have our little house squeezed, and when the floe opens -our home goes down and we get on to the floe till we are rescued by -some relief expedition, or we flicker out. But for having lots to do I -personally would have felt the necessity of a pipe or a dram—but as it -was the writer and two men and a boat had their hands full, getting out -an ice-anchor and wire-rope astern to D to kedge her off. The said hawser -burst and the artist showed the seamen the bend for a wire-rope, in a -hurry or at any time. Boy Scouts know it. Hamilton stood by at the wheel -and Svendsen and men shifted the cargo aft to take the weight off the -bow. An ice-tongue of floe C touched at D and gave us breathing-space -and by-and-by we kedged her off astern, just in time to avoid a squeeze, -and got through between the floes. One might write a chapter about our -manœuvres, but now the guitar is going and the skipper has thanked the -artist for handling that nasty rough, rusty wire hawser against time, -and expressed somewhat flattering surprise at his knowing how to make -a simple fisherman’s bend in a hurry; and again we are in open, quiet -waters and open ice, with a hundred yards between each floe, and everyone -frightfully cheerful. For some of us at least knew, though our Spanish -friends apparently did not, the grim possibilities. Also we are all the -better of the efforts in a small boat and the work of shifting cargo, -barrels of salt, etc. I guess and bet Svendsen will not take any more -unnecessary chances of dodging through too narrow lanes between this time -and the next. - -By late _aften-mad_ we have quieted down, and have a beautiful display -of the bull ring. Chee Chee, our young Gordon setter (or collie; it’s -a little of both), does the bull, Don Luis Herrero de Velasquez does -our espada, and other bull-ring functionaries all to perfection, with a -foil for the espada and a sack for the Vueltu, this on our upper deck in -the ten o’clock P.M. sun, everyone applauding and the steward’s guitar -joining in below. His music is very cheap music, in such a contrast to -Gisbert’s old airs, half Spanish, half African, that go away down to the -depths. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - - -“Ugh—ugh!” our starboard bear shouts to-day; not a roar now, it is a -hopeless complaint. “Ugh! let me out—ugh! look at my coat, all stained -and soiled.... Ugh! let me out, I don’t want to go to a zoo”—then almost -silence, only a steady chawing of timber and scrape, scrape, for hours on -end. - - * * * * * - -The above labour ended in his getting his head and one paw out this -morning early, and the skipper and Hamilton only being about—the rest of -the crew were afloat in the boats—they had a lively time. The skipper -anxiously shouted: “All hands on board!” and they came and all bore a -hand, and there were timbers, nails, hatchets and hammers all about, and -bears’ roars, till it was subdued. Hamilton got his hand hurt. It is a -wily fellow this starboard bear, waiting his opportunity till all were -overboard hunting, and again I expected to have to use my pistol. Almost -all hands were in the boats securing two bear cubs, about a third of the -size of the bear referred to. We spotted them and their mother on a floe -about five A.M., playing together, poor things, and they took to the -water and we pursued. Dauntlessly we approached, Don José in the bow, -rifle in hand. Without tremor he calmly held his fire till within a few -yards; the first shot went extremely close, a second actually touched the -bear, but the range gradually shortening allowed of greater accuracy and -the third shot hit it in the neck and killed it. - -A boat followed the two youngsters, and after a number of ineffective -throws they were at last roped. From board-ship we rather smiled at the -ineffective attempt to lasso, but we gather that several casts were well -thrown and over their necks, but each time the cunning little beggars -threw the noose off their heads with their paws so quickly that there -was not time to haul taut. - -Now there is a frightful row going on; the two cubs are roped alongside -and the two seniors on board, all are shouting: “B-e-a-r, b-e-a-r, -w-augh, w-augh, b-e-a-r.” Holy smoke! It is as if half-a-dozen zoos were -in chorus and were shouting for dinner; it is a frightfully tiresome, -irritating sound, arranged so by Nature, I suppose. No mother bear could -shut her ears to it, were she alive. The two cubs, each on a line, are -swimming; they seem to prefer the water to the floe-edge. A huge mushroom -of ice, pale blue and of exquisite form, drifted alongside, and the young -male cub got on to it and it slowly turned over—how he swore and gnashed -at his rope; but what exquisite delicate colours, the bears, the ice, -and the reflections make. They are brother and sister; the brother is -the stronger and makes, if possible, more row than his sister in their -struggles for liberty. But he threatened his sister, thought it was all -her fault. He was swimming behind her and made a pretence at biting her; -she did not argue, simply turned, and in a second put her four white -teeth into his cheek and the yellow face flushed with blood and he said -no more. So they go on complaining together or alternately to us and to -all nature. Now the little woman goes on to the floe-edge blown, wheezing -and puffing—how she tugs violently at the rope, a faint primrose heap -of impotent anger and wretchedness spurning the white snow. “Bear” or -“Bé-waugh” in bear language must mean “Mother, why don’t you come to help -us?” The sea is red with poor mother from our scuppers. Her skin is off -her pathetic-looking red body, to decorate the boudoir of some lady of -Spain. - -To condescend to the base commercial aspect of our hunting, a living -bear is undoubtedly of much greater value than a dead bear’s skin, yet I -believe our joy would emphatically be greater were our four live bears -dead, for apart from the natural fear of our lives, should either of the -larger couple get out, we have to endure their ghastly chorus at all -hours. - -[Illustration: TOWING TWO BEAR CUBS TO THE “FONIX”] - -[Illustration: CAPTIVE POLAR BEAR CUB CLIMBING ON TO A DRIFT ICE] - -Hamilton, being nearest, perhaps suffers more than some of us; we try -to encourage him by pointing out the opportunity there is of developing -his taste for natural history, and the Seton-Thomson effect at a lecture -he might make with even a fair imitation of the language of these large -carnivoræ. He and I agree to differ about the qualities of our first two -bears. Because our Port bear was evidently interested in the very large -male bear which he shot, he thinks it is the biggest, strongest and -altogether the most perfect bear for a zoo, and because I lassoed the -Starboard bear, I naturally think its dimensions and spirit are superb, -and I point out that its three almost successful attempts for freedom are -proof of this. Yes, I still back “Starboard” for trouble. Hamilton says -Port bear has eaten through more wood than my Starboard bear. I think he -is wrong by an inch or two; at any rate my bear has required tons more -iron chain, and sacks of nails. - -The drifted pine, which we found on the floe weeks ago, is all -used up for Starboard’s cage; he has torn through three plies of -one-and-a-half-inch battens, now over the remains he has chains, baulks -of the pine-tree and other bits of timber. At some places the wood is a -foot thick, and yet I still back him against the field to get out first. - -Getting the bears on deck and into cages, even though they are just cubs -and a third of the size of Port and Starboard, was an interesting sight; -pathetic if you look at it in a way. Fancy the strength of these little -heroes that look about the size of a man. They took six men each and a -powerful steam-winch to overcome them. Fluff went the steam and up came -the kicking, roaring, yellow-white bundle of strength and teeth, with a -strop round its waist, and a line round its neck. Lower away! and the -winch reverses and the ice-bear comes down from the sky and is guided to -the open top of his cage by the line on his neck led through the lowest -bar of the front of his cage, and as he is lowered by the winch two men -haul on it, so his head is kept down and his mind occupied with the rope -on his neck; whilst other men rapidly nail on battens above his back, -then the rope to his neck is cut and he quickly rids himself of the -noose—brother and sister are side by side—or end on, in one cage, with a -partition between them.... - -Already they take seal blubber, and Gisbert has put a tin of preserved -milk into their drinking water. Their poor gums were bleeding with -efforts to chaw the wicked ropes that held them by the neck.... - -Four P.M. The children are now more quiet, one condescends to lick my -finger and has accepted several slices of fresh seal blubber, with every -manifestation of pleasure, and it carefully licks each paw afterwards, -toe by toe. - -Now it is my watch for a bear, and I do not feel in the least inclined -for more bear, on the floe in orthodox style, or in the water style, -which Scoresby cautiously observes “presents a certain amount of safety.” -He studied in Edinburgh University. A belt of mist is down again to -westward and there is a fine fog bow; we are in the sun, but cannot -proceed, blindfolded, as it were. We might get into some cul-de-sac in -the floe ice. - -Odd, is it not, that only a few minutes after writing expressions of -disinclination for bear I was working at a poor attempt to get effect -of a fog bow in water-colour, and someone shouted “Bear!” and I had to -dive for rifle and pistol, tumbled into the boat with four men and rowed -away into the sun’s glitter. Sure enough the bear was there, swimming -across from one tiny floe to another, so there was the chance in the -water recommended by Scoresby. We swung along at a good rate and I got -it, first shot, in the centre of the brain, at about twenty yards with -the pistol, which made up a little for the absence of a stalk. Great -was the joy of the men over the ·38 automatic and its deadly effect. To -anyone who has not had the excitement of shooting a sitting rabbit, I -would recommend polar bear shooting in the water: on a floe in difficult -ground there is a chance for the bear, a definite chance, and quite a -good chance too for the bear, if the hunter is a duffer. But of course, -as compared with rabbit-shooting, there is the difficulty of getting to a -floe with a bear on it, and you may be nipped in the ice, or you may die -of scurvy, so rabbit-shooting taking it all round may be safer. - -One of the bears on board, the poor little female cub, was most touching, -when this pistolled bear was brought on board. She longed for a mother, -and tore at her cage to get out to this last bear, a female, but in no -time it was skinned and cut up to become our daily food, for we must eat -bear now three times a day, our fresh food from Trömso having gone bad -and tasteless some time ago. - -The mist lifted in bands, and strips of colour came into the sky where -the sun ought to have set, but obstinately swung round high above the -horizon, and the sea became literally as calm as a mill-pond, and now all -the scraps of floe, separating in the stillness, are perfectly reflected. -One piece of ice in particular we notice against the vivid lavender with -deep bottle-green transparency when the midnight sun shines through it. - -As we enjoyed the stillness and mystery of the rising mist, Hamilton -said he thought—no, he said he did see land; and we said, “Oh!” and -“Really!” and doubted, but it was!—a little hard point above the low bank -of mist on the horizon, and everyone got their glasses out and gradually -Greenland became more distinct—no doubt now, mountain-tops, heaven be -praised, hills again. We have only been about four weeks away from -land; still, that gives one a deep heart-longing for it. We had almost -made up our minds that we were not to see Greenland this year, possibly -never, but we have seen its mountains! Even supposing the floes close up -and gales come, and we are driven back, still, we have seen these icy -mountains we promised to see long ago. I wish there were several artists -here—there is beauty, delicacy and colour enough to keep all busy. - -Possibly the colour and reflections, and the view of mountains appeal to -us on account of the many days we have spent in the misty plains of flat -ice floe. It will be difficult now to sleep with the thought of land and -rocks under foot, saxifrage, Arctic poppies, and possibly musk oxen, and -possibly even a mosquito or two, and ptarmigan, and possibly great walrus -on the land ice. I certainly greatly desire one splendid pair of walrus -tusks. That and a musk ox’s head and a narwhal’s horn will satisfy me. -I do not want a museum; still, there is always some small corner in a -house or studio where such things may be stowed to serve as reminders of -days in the open. - -There is very fine ice forming on the still water; the surface looks as -if it had a scum of liquid like melted sugar in an imperceptible form of -ice. Other parts are covered with more developed ice-crystals. There is a -pleasant, soft, rustling sound, or hissing, as we go through it. - -[Illustration] - -We have a seal or two in view—a hooded-seal we have just got. Don Luis -Velasquez made a very pretty shot at its neck at a hundred yards. Now -there is a larger kind, a mile or two off in our line of route; Gisbert -will have a shot at it. This thin ice forming now is pleasant enough, but -the same formation, if we were here a little later, would make us anxious -to get out and off home before it got too strong. - -There is really colouring in the sky this midnight, sun reflections, -salmon and pink—the first decidedly warm colours we have seen since -leaving Trömso. Some of the ice-blocks assume strange tints, one piece -with dark lilac pillars supporting the portal of a cave with three arched -entrances each fringed with icicles—inside a glory of greens and blues. -Did fairies live in this cold land, such should be their palace. - -[Illustration] - -To-day, 31st of July, in the early morning, we got to within a few -miles of Shannon Island, North-East Greenland, and could see the snowy -lomonds behind it. Though the land is almost entirely snow-clad, it -looks comforting after a month at sea. But the pack ice is too jammed -to the west to allow us to land, so we steer slowly south, winding in -and out amongst the ice-islands, sometimes shoving a small one aside. We -picked up a big seal this morning, a bearded seal, P. Barbata; it is the -biggest seal of the Arctic. Still steering southerly, Greenland faint -to the westward, with glasses we see fiords and glaciers. Sky and sea -silky and still, the only sound the faint pulsation of our little engine. -It is hot in the sun! I can hardly believe it, and yet huge icicles -are forming round the edges of the ice-tables. The endless floes grow -wearisome. There is too little life. There are only a few seals, only a -few sea-birds and not a sign of a whale. The pensive sunlit stillness of -the day and the mirror-like surface of the ocean were scarcely disturbed -this afternoon by the slaughter of two great blue seals. The largest -showed that a bear had lately paid it attention, by the cuts on its -enormous body. It weighed on the steelyard three hundred kilos, equal to -six hundred and sixty-seven pounds; about the weight of four policemen. A -big bear with one paw can lift such a seal out of the water and throw it -several yards on to the floe. The blue seal is rather like the Barbata or -bearded seal, excepting the colour of its coat, which is more brown than -the blue seal’s. Each has a very small head in proportion to the bulk of -the body, both have only rudimentary teeth, they eat crabs and seaweed. -Whether the teeth are provided for the purpose or whether the seal is -restricted to such small fry because it has such poor teeth, is perhaps -a matter which would be best discussed at the Royal Physical Society in -Edinburgh or London after lunch. - -[Illustration: Phoca Barbata] - -It may seem discontented, but I must confess this prolonged fine weather -(we have had seventy-two hours of the same white sunlight) begins to get -a little on our nerves. Nature here is so extremely mathematically laid -out. The sea is polished to a high point, all the little cloudlets are -arranged in such order that ribbed sea-sand would be quite irregular in -comparison. So of course you have these cloudlets, level bands of pale -blue and some faint yellows, all repeated in the mirror. Very high-toned -delicate colour, but, if I may criticise, just a little sickly. I think -with the advance of years one does not find these extremely delicate -harmonies quite satisfying, one rather longs for ruddy, tawny colours and -tropic blues in their deepest notes. - -It is so calm, so stagnant, if I may say so, that our thin brown smoke -hangs in wisps where we left it many hours ago. And yet for all the -smoothness and polish there is an untidy aspect, for there are little -and great bits of ice floating all over the place. There being no wind, -little scraps of ice and big bits get all separated, and each takes up a -bit of sea to itself. When there is any wind these pieces herd or pack -together. We trust that the ice along the shore may soon follow this -example, for it is only pack ice, not the fixed shore ice of winter. We -hope it will disperse in a day or two and let us inshore to see “the -saxifrage and poppies.” - -With the glass we frequently look at the faint far-away mountains and -glaciers. A little while ago I thought in the silence I heard a shot -from away over there, thirty or twenty-five miles off—no, it must have -been a glacier cracking, a berg calving, perhaps. That sound carries in -such weather a tremendous distance, and so too does the wave made in the -sea by the ice-cliffs falling. - -Vessels lying in calm several miles away from such glaciers have been -nearly swamped with the wave raised by a calving berg. - -The evenings are now, on the 1st of August, just distinguishable from -the day by a little increase of yellow in the sky and pink on the snow. -To-night the sea froze over with a thin coat of ice and we go rustling -through it. - -Later, about twelve o’clock, we were in an open lane, between floes and -no thin ice, where a family of narwhals seemed to be working for their -living. So we lowered a whale-boat as quietly as possible and rowed -gently after them, and as usual, just as we got, say, to within forty -yards, and held the harpoon aimed ready to drive it into the biggest -bull, say at twenty yards, for they show very little above water, they -quietly slipped under for other ten or twenty minutes, and then appeared -several hundred yards away. With modern big harpoon-gun from the bow of -the small whaling steamer, we can harpoon from thirty to forty yards, but -in shooting from the bow of small boat close to water’s level the range -is more limited. We tried waiting, following, and circumvention, and when -we tried to cut across their course, one of them broke water actually -between the oar blades and the boat and made a great swirl; and evidently -this too close contact scared the family party, and they all disappeared, -and we went on board, still hopeful, however, for three times at least we -had been within a second, or say two yards, of our chance of securing a -great white ivory horn. - -... Our patience was tried again and the writer’s was found wanting. I -had turned in and heard the boat being lowered away, and let a crew go -without me, and never heard them come back, though there must have been -thunderous treading of sea-boots on deck a foot above my head, ropes -falling and blocks rattling—you can sleep soundly here when you get the -chance. - -But C. A. H. complains that he cannot, for, poor man, the two new bear -cubs are almost touching his bunk, and their scrape, if not very loud, -is pretty constant, and bear perfume permeates his cabin even more than -the rest of the ship. But praise be, there is a light breeze to-day -from landward. I have not yet observed any scent of saxifrage or Arctic -poppies, but it has freshened the too still atmosphere and we hope it -will help to open up the land pack and let us land for musk oxen. - -[Illustration: PAZE] - -[Illustration: EL CATHARO VALIENTE - -NOTE.—For description of above drawings see pp. 274-275.] - -[Illustration: SHOWS CAPTIVE BEAR CUBS, BROTHER AND SISTER, AND ICE -BEGINNING TO FORM ON THE SEA WATER] - -Our starboard bear raised Cain! almost all the wood of his cage is chawed -up, so round the inside of the remainder we have hung heavy iron furnace -bars and other round bars, holding the furnace bars more or less in -position, there are ropes, chains and wire round all—a horrible sight, -for the poor fellow inside, with all his struggles and the black of the -furnace bars, is quite black, and he has lost a lot of hair. I would give -a good deal to see him free again and over the side. But I pray heaven he -does not settle his account with me before he goes for having roped him -into his present sad condition. I believe it was the noise of the fight -he put up that awakened me this morning, at least what I heard made me -look out, and sure enough there were six men struggling with crowbars, -hammers, axes, etc., etc., and then poor Bruin’s black head appeared -between timbers and nails for a moment, till he was again closed up. It -would take a couple of months of the ice and snow to clean his coat again. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - -In the afternoon—now he is almost quiet, for when he tries to claw at the -wood through the cast-iron bars they fall back into place again, and he -cannot eat iron! So he is thinking now which is the weak point; in a day -or two he will attack it. I am very sorry for him, now he is quiet and a -little red shows where he has been scratched. I can imagine, like the old -Scottish fighting Admiral Barton, that he murmurs: - - “A little I’m hurt but not yet slain, - I’ll but lie down and bluid a while - And then I’ll rise and ficht again.” - -[Illustration] - -A mist came over the scene this afternoon, with light shining through, -but enough to stop us making progress, even should the ice-pack allow us. -So we moor fore and aft alongside a small floe and set to work with pails -to fill our fresh-water tanks from the three blue pools on it, pale blue -flushed with lilac, cobalt round the rim of each. We stroll on the hard -snow, stuff like coarse salt laid down on a blue translucent carpet, and -play the pipes, and play with Chee Chee, the ship’s pet. The only game -she does not like is being lassoed. Finding a mit hidden in the snow -suits her, and a great many other games taught by various instructors. - -Our youngest Spanish señor ventured to row away from the ship a little -this morning, and this the youngest Don Luis Herrero told me a fine -yarn about how he had come on a splendid saddle-seal unexpectedly—that -is a dappled brown and white kind we have not got as yet; he described -it vividly as seen from five yards. Gisbert at lunch told me it was -a make-up, therefore the writer tried to pull his leg in return by -illustrating his pretended encounter with the famous seal as per marginal -notes. (See p. 272-273.) - -You may not think it, but such a small attempt at an amusing drawing -caused laughter on board. You see a little joke goes a long way in the -ice-pack, as for instance the drawing below. - -The only mild excitement to-day, 2nd August, was a boat expedition, -with los señores, two rifles in the bow, and two pairs of oars, against -a large harp-seal, with a splendid white skin and large black spots, -suggestive of an A1 carriage-rug. Fire opened at a hundred yards (the -first shot was accidental), but several struck the water quite close and -in front of the seal, which made it take up a very indignant attitude, -and for an instant it seemed to hesitate as if it thought a retreat on to -the floe would be its safest course. But a bullet finally hit it in the -back and it acted on its first intention and dived off the floe. The two -Don Josés were rather disconsolate, for certainly it had a very beautiful -skin. We hoped to get quite a lot of these large harp-seal skins and -their blubber to fill our casks. - -The harp blows his nose up in a remarkable way, so hard that it inflates -the fore part of its head. Naturalists assure us that, like the shark’s -fin, this has an awe-inspiring effect on their opponents. We accept -this cum grano salis. This is what I remember of the harp’s attitude -and expression (1) before he was actually fired at, (2) its attitude -of astonishment, and we may call the next his adieu. These designs are -executed, you observe, with a certain chaste economy of lines. (See p. -274.) - -[Illustration: An Incident from “Bearing Straights.”] - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII - - -Finding no whales and being unable to get on to Greenland, for some -twenty miles of ice now separate us from its shore, we decide to turn -back. - -Right about wheel then, for we are sick of eternal flat ice-floes. If we -had a new boiler, new coal supply, new food supply and unlimited time, we -would hang on. The ice may open in ten or twelve days, but we arranged -to finish our hunting, if possible, at Trömso, Norway, about the middle -of August. So we have just time and no more to get there by that time, -granted there is fine weather and little fog. - -But as I write, seven P.M., we are again into a fog bank and have to -tie up to a floe. It is thin fog, and sun shines through it and we hope -it will lift. So it is good-bye to our chances of whales, musk oxen, or -walrus, for walrus we can only get along the coast in shallow soundings. -One whale, and that only a narwhal, is our poor basket. We must console -ourselves with having got a fair number of bears in the time—seventeen in -the month, one narwhal and a lot of seals. It will not pay, but we may -yet get bottle-nose down about Jan Mayen Island, if the drift takes us -southerly in that direction before we get out of the ice easterly. - -Perhaps I may here be allowed to put down some notes on the protective -coloration of the Arctic fauna. - -Evening of the 2nd August. We thought we were in for another bear this -evening, because a young man on watch probably mistook a piece of yellow -ice for a bear, and we went back on our tracks, but found no bear. We -hunted round the floe on which he vowed he had seen it, but did not find -even spoor, so I fear his cry of “Wolf” will not be listened to for many -a day. Naturalists tell us that the yellowish tint of the bear’s skin is -given to it by Nature to allow the bear to secure its prey, the seal—that -the seal is green enough to mistake the bear’s skin for a piece of yellow -ice, and thus the fittest survives. As these yellow pieces of ice are -few and far between, and as there are far more pieces of blue ice, and as -the predominating colour of the snow is white, I’d have painted the bear -blue and white if I had been Nature, with only a touch perhaps of yellow -here and there. - -Naturalists have also told me that whilst waiting for a seal at its -breathing-hole in the ice, the bear covers its nose with its paws to -prevent the seal seeing the conspicuous black of its nostrils. I should -think myself this is to keep his hands warm. Five black claws on each -foot must be as conspicuous to the seal as the black nose. Again, -sometimes a bear covers itself completely with snow, all but its nose! -This allows man in his turn to have a chance of proving himself to be -the fittest. A case in point was when two men I know up here encountered -a bear. It took careful stock of them and did not like their protective -smell or the checks of their tweeds, so it did not immediately attempt -to eat them (possibly it was not hungry), but it retired, as it thought, -out of sight, and with a few grand sweeps of its great forearms and -hands covered itself up with snow, only leaving its black nose exposed. -But for this wonderful foresight on the part of Nature in making the -bear’s nose black, the order of evolution might have been reversed. Man -strolling along and seeing nothing but white snow might have slipped -out of existence in the warm embrace of Ursus Maritimus. The protective -coloration of the black nose, from the man’s point of view, surely proved -that Nature originally intended the bear to be cooked with onions for our -dinner. - -When they spotted the black nose, the two men proceeded to guess in which -direction lay the neck and body. (I think only an artist who has studied -the drawing of a bear’s nose and head could have told for certain.) So -when they did hit it in the neck, it must have been rather a fluke! It -was a fighting bear, and came out of the eruption of snow with fearful -roars, and in a great hurry, for a bear. But Nature insisted on the -evolution and survival of the higher species and wiped out the bear with -two 475 decimal bullets, nickel covered, and added, very incidentally, -vermilion to the general colour scheme of the floe, tempting one to drag -in the trite quotation: “Nature red of tooth and claw.” - -We are inclined to dwell at some length on the theory of the protective -coloration of the fauna of the Arctic and the Antarctic regions. For in -these frost-bound portions of our sphere there is frequently so much -fog, or nebulous condition of the atmosphere, of such density that the -naturalist observer is compelled either to evolve theories or play cards. - -Another of the carnivoræ of these high latitudes, _Vulpes lagopus_ or -Arctic fox, has also by Nature been given a remarkable skin as protective -colouring of perfect whiteness (value to-day about £12). Beyond doubt, -as with the bear, this resemblance of the colour of this skin to the -surroundings is in order to allow the fox to secure its prey—namely, the -_Lagopus hemilencurus_ or Arctic grouse, of which it is particularly -fond, as also of the _Lagopus glacialis_ or white hare of the polar -Arctic regions. - -Now, seeing that the fox is singularly gifted with cunning, a fact which -has been universally admitted by naturalists of all times, Nature, -to prevent the complete extinction of the smaller fauna, such as the -hare, which has neither wings to fly with nor fins to swim with, has -also gifted the hare with a white coat, and so the balance of Nature is -preserved. In the case of this _Lagopus hemilencurus_ or Arctic grouse, -which, unlike the fox or bear, is unprovided with teeth with which to -protect itself, Nature, with its unstinted bounty, has provided it with -lateral appendages, one on either side, with which it is enabled to fly; -thus it has, besides its protective coloration, another means by which -it can escape its natural enemy, so the preservation of the less cunning -but more edible species is preserved. We might perhaps have thought that, -being provided with wings with which to take flight, the protective -coloration for this bird would have been unnecessary, but we must -remember that the fogs of these high latitudes, which have already been -alluded to as affecting the actions of the higher animal _homo_, put this -bird to a disadvantage. For it has been stated (the writer need hardly -quote his authority here) the nebulous conditions referred to in these -high latitudes are sometimes of such density that they may actually -prevent this bird from seeking safety in flight. This being so, we can -the more readily understand the necessity of the protective coloration -for this succulent bird. - -As an example of how very thick such a fog can be up here, it is related -by an explorer (an American, I believe) that the men on watch on a -certain occasion on his vessel were sitting on the bulwarks smoking their -pipes and were leaning against the mist, when suddenly it rose and they -all fell backwards into the sea. - -What may seem unaccountable when you consider the bear’s protective -coloration is that seals of various kinds in the Arctic regions should -have apparently no protective colouring. Whilst lying on the ice beside -their holes they form quite conspicuous objects, even at a distance of a -mile on a clear day, and less if it is foggy or on a dark night. But the -reason for this apparent contradiction is not far to find; for, as we -have already explained, owing to the colour of the bear’s coat being of -a yellowish tint and occasional pieces of ice being also of a yellowish -tint, with a far-away resemblance to the bear’s coat, the seal takes the -bear for a lump of ice walking, so Nature here has stepped in and said to -the seal: “If you are such a silly fool as to mistake a bear for a piece -of yellow ice, why, have a dark brown coat and be blowed to you,” so -everyone is pleased—and so on. - -The bear, or supposed bear, of last night, interrupted a quiet, misty -evening we were spending alongside a small floe of a quarter of a mile -in diameter of hard, smooth, frosted ice. Our men were occupied drawing -fresh water from the blue pools. Eastward lay mist, north and west a pale -orange band just showed beyond the violet-coloured floes and soft grey -sky, just the quiet effect for decoration of a silk fan. - -On the smooth floe we held various sports, tossing the caber, for -example, the caber being the remains of the pine-tree we found on a floe -as we came north. Also we had fencing. As there was rather a pretty small -blue iceberg alongside, C. A. H. got his camera and photographed the two -champions. The too-strong she-cook went a walk with Chee Chee; a little -trot, rather; she must weigh about two hundred pounds, but she rather -trips than walks. I wonder what a bear will think of her if he meets her. -She is broad and deep-chested, with round red cheeks, and has a gentle -voice and a gurgling laugh any time in the twenty-four hours of daylight. -There was also a little pipe-playing, so the smooth floe with the blue -pool was quite lively, till the call came to bear arms! Then everyone -but Chee Chee came on board, and it stood alone, with all hands saying -endearing things to make it come on board. Whether it was my seizing the -lasso, the sight of which it hates, or one of the men circumventing it, -I would not like to say, but from one reason or the other it came with a -sudden bolt—I think the lasso did it! - -[Illustration] - -I nearly forgot to put our Spanish friends into the picture; here they -are, there is just room, right-hand top corner, hilariously shooting -skuas, those robber birds. The señors are jolly the clock round; what a -fallacy that is, about “solemn as a Spanish Don.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV - - -There being still mist this morning our budget of news can only be -described as strictly Local, for we can only see over a few yards of -floe and rippling sea. Three hooded-seals appeared astern just now, -as I went out for a breath after completing the aforesaid masterpiece -of the floe-edge scene. They went off with a splash, as if alarmed at -finding themselves near us, and then they came up again and took stock -of us at about two hundred yards. We could not see them well, so we did -not shoot. What we may call Home news, is of our cubs forward. William -the (comparatively) Silent worked through his floor, and it had to -be renewed. We call his sister Christabel, for she bit her brother’s -face without any reason; but it is rather unfair calling her so, for -he certainly threatened her—thought she caused all the troubles he had -had in his short life. She refuses to have water. Even when we pull out -her water-trough she violently draws it in again and upsets the water. -She has strength! I think she will be a great catch in a zoo, where her -pretty ways could be studied behind bars with safety. The old Starboard -bear is now mastering the material iron; teeth, he has learned, are no -use, so he is applying brain. He eats sugar from our fingers, and would -eat hand and arm with half a chance. I begin to sympathise with him in -regard to confined quarters; even the wide space we have of about three -square yards of deck, in which to have our exercise, feels confined after -about five weeks’ time. - -I forget what we did or did not do in the morning of Sunday, 3rd August. -I expect, the same as usual. There is thin mist, with sun shining -through, an unhealthy mouldy morning, and we have a feeling as if we had -had bad champagne the night before—a slight nasal catarrh, and a little -sneezing going on amongst your neighbours and several complaints of -rheumatism, cuts, and boils. - -I have always heard the Arctic likened to atmospheric champagne, where -men’s spirits are said to be high and colds exist not. Well, all I can -say is that in this particular vessel in these latitudes (there again, -there’s someone else sneezing) there are many such complaints, and -smells! Hamilton says “The look of the sea suggests a smell.” It suggests -to me London on a November morning. Sea and air are so stagnant and cold, -you could lean against the icy smell of our bears or kitchen, and a cigar -whiff almost strikes you. - -When the sun got up we steered away east and south—a hundred and forty -miles we have yet to go, to get out of ice into the open sea, “the rough -highway to freedom and to peace,” as Morris puts in his Jason, and all -day we passed down lanes and lakes and across belts of deadly still water -between floes of flat ice, with few and small hummocks. And seals became -plentiful. As far as the eye could reach, occasional black marks could be -seen on the floe and little black bullet-heads appeared in calm water at -the floe-edge, and some of them came and examined us from thirty or forty -yards as we passed, for an instant, and dashed under water again, leaving -a swirl like the rise of a ten-pound trout. - -[Illustration] - -Yes, I think that was the whole day’s programme, excepting an alarm for -bottle-nose whale. That came in the middle of _aften-mad_, seven or eight -P.M., and we hastily loaded our two bow harpoon-guns, and got all ready -and waited and watched, but the bottle-nose did not appear again. In -several books on whales I see very misleading drawings of the bottle-nose -whale, _Hyperoodon diodon_. This one is taken from notes of these whales -in various seas, alive and dead. - -We were about to lay ourselves down to rest when a shout that a bear was -in sight came from the mast-head, and all of us became very much alive. - -It was on a floe a mile off, and the floe was peppered with seals, and -it lay on its back and turned up the black soles of its feet and rolled -about, apparently quite pleased with its own company, and indifferent to -the seals. - -A remarkable thing happened when our little body of hunters set out -after it—the seals lay on the ice, without popping into their holes, -also other seals came alongside to within ten yards or so of the Fonix. -It looked as if they knew that we were men bear-hunting. This struck me -as odd up here. Of course in the Antarctic there would have been nothing -remarkable; and Gisbert, who has been in Arctic ice scores of times, also -thought it unaccountable, unless it was actually the case that the seals -knew that we were in pursuit of their enemy. - -Still another thing extraordinary happened—we were watching the great -old fellow stretching himself, and all his movements through the glass, -noting his colour, light warm yellow, lighter than the violet of the -floe in shadow! when he raised his black nose and face and went off -at a walk to the left. I am sure he had not seen our guns or smelt -them, it must have been that extra sense which the black bear also -possesses—instinctive knowledge of a presence. Soon he came to a place -where two of our men were visible to him and then, Hamilton tells me, he -went off at a gallop! A great big male bear! It is a rare thing to see a -bear gallop, I just missed doing so—took my glass off to make a note in -colour, and he had got to a walk again when I put my glass on again. He -made off fast to the left, where the floe ended, and about half-a-mile -of calm sea and small bits of floe separated it from the next floe. This -manœuvre left the two guns and the men far behind, so, to prevent his -escape, we lifted our ice-anchor off the floe and steamed away to cut -him off, and we got between him and the next floe when he was about a -hundred yards from it, and so turned him back—a great big fellow swimming -strongly, making a dark green wake behind him across the smooth bronze -colour of the water—his last swim up the golden track of the midnight -sun. Poor old man, the orange rays touched his pale face, and he looked -anxious. I think the seals knew he was in difficulty, for several swam -quite close to him, their natural foe. We dropped a boat for the guns on -the floe and they soon came up and opened fire at about twenty yards, and -by-and-by a well-aimed shot hit in the neck. It is a male bear of great -size—what an ignominious ending! But if you only think of the killing -part, what hunting could be called sport? After all, it took Man much -work to circumvent this ice bear—a ship built for ice work, then the -engine, coaling and provisions for a year, and several weeks’ navigation -amongst the risks of sea and ice combined. He weighed eight pounds short -of a thousand, stood on his heels from nose or eye nine feet two inches. -He bore two old wound marks on his body, possibly made by Eskimos; we -wonder if it was the memory of them made him go off so quickly; possibly -it was only hunger and thoughts of dinner that at first disturbed him, -for he had only a little seal’s skin inside him. - -It was the first time I had seen a bear look lighter in tone than the -background; the sun being at a low angle, the undulating surface of floe -was all lilac and tints of pale green, and yellow, and only the raised -hummock and projections and the bear itself caught the golden light. The -shadows on the bear’s body were comparatively dark green. So many people -paint bears, and so few people see them in their natural surroundings -that these colour notes may be pardoned. - -From one A.M. to five-thirty P.M. I heard at intervals in my sleep my -Spanish friends fighting the battle over again, and occasional shots at -seals. Their vitality is extraordinary (the Spaniards); they can talk -for hours and hours without evincing the least sign of fatigue, whilst -we poor northerners are creatures of habit and feel ready for bed after -eighteen or twenty hours’ hunting; and we get tired of talking in a -fraction of the time they spend yarning. - -They are rather bull-ring enthusiasts and back their bulls against any -bear. Gisbert plans capturing one of these full-grown wild bears that are -never seen in captivity and taking it to Madrid—more easily done than the -reader would at first think, but it would be real sailor’s work. First -of all you would find your big bear on a floe, which you could sail -round—easily enough done—and by one means or another get him to take to -the water, also easily done. Then follow him in two boats, each would -throw a lasso over his head, when the interest would begin. Whilst number -one boat hauled taut he would probably roll over and thrash with his -paws, then number two boat, with loop still fast to his neck, would throw -a hitch over a foot, and so haul the foot to his neck, and so on with -the other fore foot and hind feet; his head would then sink and hitches -could be cast all over him, till, like a fly in spider’s web, he would -be helpless. Then the big strop round him and a strong winch chain, a -hold lined with iron plates and you would have such a bear as has never -been seen in captivity, a floe-bred bear, say twenty years old, of huge -dimensions. Gisbert, who knows all about bears as well as about bulls, -backs the bear in the ring; so do I. Its four enormous limbs, each with -a hand and claws on them, a neck and head and teeth of enormous power, -all told three times the weight of a bull, and combined with cat-like -activity and quickness of eye. Possibly next year this may come off and -Hamilton and I will go down to Madrid and make a book, for all Spain -would give any odds on their bull. In Madrid an elephant was pitted -against a heroic bull; the bull at once charged and prodded the elephant, -which annoyed it so that it swung round and broke the bull’s back with -a swipe of its trunk. But a lion or black bear and a tiger the bull has -easily mastered. A lion stood the charge and was lifted clean into the -air and came down and bolted inside out with its tail between its legs. -A tiger ignominiously fled, chivied by the bull all round the ring. So -Madrid people are prepared to lay their shirts against any polar bears, -or anything under the sun; they are in honour bound to do so. - -The bears they have seen in European zoological gardens have been brought -as cubs, or at oldest were two years old, when they left their native -floes, and are narrow chested and have narrow hips. Wait till they see -the enormous proportions of chest and hind-quarters of a full-grown -fellow that has lived, say, twenty to forty years, up north, with -boundless liberty, on full rations! - -Hamilton backs the bear to take a picador and horse under each arm, and -the bull in his teeth, and our young Spaniards are a little offended -at the picture, mais nous verrons, perhaps as soon as next year, if De -Gisbert comes north hunting another season before the Spanish Government -expedition starts. - -We continue to make our way towards the edge of the ice through the mist, -till we come to quite an open space of several miles in width, where the -slight roll from south-west tells us of the open sea to come, and we talk -of our hopes of a smooth crossing to the north of Norway. The Dons make -preparation for retirement, and divide their beer, apples and chocolate, -kindly offering us a share. With great forethought they have preserved -these provisions against the expected confinement. But I trust it may be -sunny and smooth, for their sake. - -This day, the 5th of August, it is really hot in the sun, and there is a -light air behind us, and there is only a very long, almost imperceptible -swell—the sea silky blue, with delicate ripples, and the pans of floe ice -are moving visibly, slightly dipping and rising, and the blue sea swells -green over their white, as they rise, and hundreds of little streams run -off them like icicles. “This end of the garden” is to-day very fresh and -delicious, and after all these weeks of fog and nasty weather we hang -up our bodies, as it were, to dry, and lay out our souls to the sun and -thank the Creator for life. Life in a fog in the Arctic in the part where -we have been is small beer, it is impossible to be truly thankful for the -permanent possibility of sensation. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV - - -After several weeks’ trying to get through the ice we failed to get -ashore, owing to there being twenty to sixty miles of fixed land ice, and -now have worked our way back eastward through three hundred miles of pack -and floe ice. By luck we might have found part of the coast free of ice, -or only a few miles of it, but apparently, instead of this drifting south -and giving some rain to the British Isles, southerly and easterly winds -have held back the South Polar ice-drift. Eight to ten miles off the -coast of Shannon Island, on the north-east of Greenland, was as far west -as we could press; other navigators have taken almost the same course -and have found as little as only fifteen miles of ice to shove through -between Norway and Greenland. - -Yesterday we got the open sea and swell and now, as I write, we have come -in contact with ice from north of Spitzbergen, and the ice from Siberia -coming round north and south of Spitzbergen, and it is so plentiful that -we are obliged to go north-east to find an opening easterly. - -All afternoon we have been trying to find an opening and till six or -seven could not see a way through, and ice coming from north jammed us -considerably, but it was light pack, not more than four or five deep, so -our ship, little as it is, was able to hold her own. You could by its -thin and flat appearance at once distinguish the Spitzbergen ice from -older, heavier polar ice, which we just left to the west. - -Now, at seven in the evening, we have struggled through, and are leaving -all Arctic ice behind. The pieces get smaller and smaller as we approach -the open sea, till at the sea-edge there is only a margin of, say, a mile -or so, studded with small pieces a few feet wide, and then again there -is a further margin still smaller, remnants that were once hummocks or -even parts of some iceberg. Then even these faint sentinels of the Arctic -fade away behind us in a pale line, and we are free and in a handsome, -rolling, free-born, deep-sea true-blue ocean swell. Everyone is pleased. -One is bound to admit that at any time in the ice there is, especially -to one who knows about it, an indefinable sense of strain. This strain, -slight as it is, expresses itself in our crowd. De Gisbert is playing -“The Cock o’ the North” on the mouth melodeon, with great go; the writer -has just adapted the old sea chantey to the bagpipes, “What shall we do -with a Drunken Sailor,” and a violent desire to excel at lasso-throwing -has seized Archie, and so on. - -Even our home, lately so sedate and dignified and restrained in its -movements in amongst the ice, has taken a jolly seaman-like lurch and -roll. The crow’s nest and mast, shining in the sun, go swinging to and -fro across the sky—now she puts her nose down into the blue, pleasantly, -and rises and our old level horizon of the ice days is away below us -as our bows point to the skies—right and left we roll and we swing her -south-east, for habitable land, for Trömso and Trondhjem and green trees -growing and new fresh food; for even a few months in the ice with food -getting rather stale makes us hanker a little after a new kitchen. We -are tired of eating bear and of looking at their legs, which adorn our -shrouds, great red-black limbs that we see all day swinging against the -sky and eat slices of at every meal. Eating and seeing dead bear and -hearing and smelling the living captives twenty-four hours of the day is -too much of a good thing, so this is why we hanker after a new kitchen. - -I dislike a storm at sea, but I do confess I love the sea when it is -smooth and blue, and it soothes you with a long gentle roll such as we -have to-day. - -[Illustration: OUR LAST GLIMPSE OF THE ICE] - -It looks as if we were to have a smooth crossing to Norway, still the -fiddles must come down from our cabin walls and again grace our little -table. For in a small boat such as ours every yachtsman knows that they -are inevitable whilst deep-sea sailing. Gisbert cleans his rifle and the -fiddles are on the table! so we are really done with the Arctic in the -meantime. He and I each used our rifles an hour or two ago in the ice. -No one knew who was to shoot at a seal on a floe that possessed a coat -we all envied; we were rapidly passing, so someone had to shoot and -that quickly, so Gisbert and I dived for our respective rifles, and each -loaded at the same instant and each fired as we swung past at eighty -yards, and each within the hundredth part of a second, and each hit the -seal in the middle. Neither of us knows which was the vital shot. We -shoved the ship’s head against the floe and a man clambered over the -bow and made a lasso fast to the seal. It seems a small matter to pot a -seal on an ice-floe, but I would give many pounds, shillings and pence -to be able to pass on the beauty of the colouring of that chunk of ice -and green and lilac reflections in the purple sea, the silvery grey of -the seal sparkling in the sunlight on the snow, and the reflected white -light on the pink face of the man who jumped on to the ice to bring it -aboard. The Prophet, we call him, a typical Norseman, with blue eyes, -bushy yellow eyebrows, yellow hair and a kindly expression—he may be -thirty years old, he might be a thousand—he is a type. His prophecies -almost always come true. “It will be better before it is worse.” “We will -get another bear before Gisbert cleans his rifle,” and so on. Remarks -such as above are more interesting in his broken English—our steward’s -broken English this morning almost rose to the level of punning. Archie -Hamilton asked him sympathetically how he had slept—Archie, Gisbert and -the steward all sleep in the fore part of the deck-house, and the bears -are just outside. Gisbert snores, and the steward coughs alarmingly, and -the bear shouts, so Archie says he has not slept a wink for nights. “Nay, -nay,” said Pedersen, “no mans can sleep, der is Gisbare, he go snore, -snore, und dem fordumna ice-bears dey go roar, roar, all de nights—no man -can sleep noddings!” - -[Illustration] - -At night we are in the open sea, rolling south-east, and try to hit off -the north of Norway somewhere. The sun almost sets now, there is at any -rate the warm glow of sunset, it pours into our two cabin ports from the -north, making two golden discs wave up and down on the white walls that -look quite green in contrast. - -The guitar is mended, the glue gave way with the fog in the ice and the -heat of the stove combined. So again we have music, Gisbert the principal -performer, the writer causing some surprise at his remembering part of a -Spanish love song picked up in Southern Spain. Gisbert sings a number of -these queer folk-songs, with their strange airs and unexpected intervals -and the beat of Africa in the heart of them. - -[Music] - -I insert the scrap referred to above. It is not everyone who cares for -this minor music, but it draws tears to a Spaniard’s eyes; and it appeals -to the writer, inexplicably, for we have no music like it in our country. - -The words amount to this: that in love, the eyes are as eloquent as the -lips. - -We have to play and hum tunes to keep our minds off the deep sea roll, -that after the stillness of the ice comes as almost too much of a good -thing. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVI - - -To-day it is almost rough, a fresh north-east breeze, and as our little -ship rolls far and often in a swell, or anything like a sea, strong men -turn pale and say they feel a little tired and will go and lie down. - -Killers appeared at _middag-mad_, and but for the excusable lassitude -of our party we might have tried for one, even though it is a little -rough for accurate harpooning. Their great black fins, “gaff-topsails,” -sailor-men call them, cut through the water with a spirt of foam like -a destroyer’s bow. Some say they use their dorsal fin as a weapon -with which to attack large whales from underneath (Balænoptera and -Mysticetus), but I do not believe this, for it is not sufficiently firm -to do harm. - -Some have higher fins than others. I feel afraid to mention the length -I have seen them myself, or to quote the height another observer has -given to me; but I think we may say eight feet and be well on the safe -side. Others are only about two or three feet. In the Antarctic ice I -have often seen them going along the edge of a floe, and our men stated -that with this fin they pulled the seals off the edge of the ice into the -water, but verily I do not believe them. The same men vowed that the Cape -pigeon, which they saw for the first time in their lives, a chequered -black and white petrel (_Daption capensis_), was a cuckoo. They were -quite sure of this, for one of these Dundonian whalers had once spent a -summer on shore and had seen a cuckoo! That was in the memorable year -when he saw ripe corn for the first time. - -Another excuse we make to ourselves for not pursuing these whales is -that they do not have very much blubber; still, if we fall in with them -again in little quieter water when we all feel fit, we may take some. -When you get fast to one of these killers the others hang round till -their companion is quite dead, much as sperm whales do, and even try -to help their harpooned friend to freedom by giving him a shoulder on -either side. Bottle-nose whales do the same, so when you get one on a -line you run it till you secure some of the others. Big finners generally -bolt in a great hurry and leave their harpooned relatives to look after -themselves, excepting young finners in apron-strings, which will also -hang round the parent. - -Dr W. S. Bruce told me that when he was on H.S.H. the Prince of Monaco’s -yacht with a boat’s crew they tackled one of these killers, and the -unwounded killers came so close to the boat they could touch them with -their hands. What must have been most interesting and instructive was the -fact that the skipper who did the harpooning had been a Peterhead whaler -and he knew all the expressions appropriate to the first rush of a whale -in four languages—Scots, English, French and Italian—and he used them -all. These killers run to twenty or thirty feet. With really big whales, -heavy harpoon, big gun and huge lines, the whole business is so gigantic -and awe-inspiring that men are silent, breathlessly so! But with lighter -tackle somehow or other there is usually a good deal of small talk. This -killer thrasher grampus or Orca gladiator, Tyrannus balænarum, has great -teeth and eats whales piecemeal, porpoise, seals, and, some say, his own -kind. - -An accepted Danish authority, Eschricht, declared he opened a killer, and -it contained the remains of no less than thirteen porpoises and fourteen -seals. Personally, I do not understand how, even with two stomachs, a -thirty-foot grampus could hold such a lot, unless they were very small -specimens. The reader may not be aware that many whales have two or -more stomachs, like ruminants, but whether they rechew their food is -doubtful. The immobility of the tongue, and in some species the absence -of teeth, is supposed to make this improbable, but to the writer this -immobility of the tongue is not proved; it seems to be a great purple -pillow covered with innumerable nerve points which might readily break up -the small shrimps on the rough, mat-like surface of the whalebone palate. -If they ruminate, and that under water for hours at a time, it would -account for the way they sometimes appear all at once in numbers and feed -voraciously, and then vanish for hours. - -I have made a picture of a pack of rather small killers attacking a -finner whale, an incident I observed in the southern ice from the -distance of two or three yards. They pursued the large whale like a pack -of black and white hounds, but neither whale nor hounds made a sound that -I could hear. - -Dr Frangius, however, in his “Treatise of Animals,” says that when an -orca pursues “a whale” the latter makes a terrible bellowing, like a bull -when bitten by a dog. I wonder what kind of whale he refers to, for I -have seen a number of finner whales being attacked by orcas and have not -heard any bellowing, except the narwhal, whose groan is certainly like a -subdued bellow of a cow. - -Yesterday we had wind, and the sky that portended wind if any sky does. -When you have this sky it is almost safe to prophesy wind—say three days -of it—this is our second day. - -We make one mile an hour forward. We are a hundred miles off Norway -and hoped to be in soundings fishing cod at two A.M. to-morrow on the -coast. But here we are plugging almost at the same hole, our poor wee -ship throbbing with the strain. We carried away our mainsail yesterday—a -thing to make a yachtsman weep; still, after all, it was a sail, and -even one sail on a steamer gives dignity. Don Luis Herrero in the lee -alley-way just cleared the halyard block. Had he not been very quick in -his movements, as many Spaniards are, he would have been a dead man. -Starboard bear broke half out; that is nothing new. William has learned -the mandolin, he has a piece of wood in his cage, one side of which is -crossed horizontally with stout wire, and with the wood, holding it -in his teeth, he scrapes the wires up and down and plays three notes -for ever and for ever. I do hope that, in whatever zoo he may become a -resident, he may be provided with a similar instrument with which to fill -his life. He, as far as I can see, now makes no effort to escape like -his big relative the Starboard bear, who is more of a mechanical genius -than an artist. William’s sister Christabel behaves well on the whole, -takes lots of tinned milk and water. Poor old Starboard, he really looked -pathetic after his big effort this morning; he is black, or brown-black -now, as I have already mentioned, and his black eyes, by contrast, look -light brown, so does his nose. No one would take him for an ice-bear. -His voice changed after the effort, and he made a sort of piteous sound -instead of challenging and held his mouth open, and I suggested water, -and Archie poured a pail of fresh water into his feeding drawer from a -chink in the roof of the cage, and he eagerly lapped it up and went off -to sleep. They have plenty of salt water—a small sea came over the bows a -little while ago, and swept away every chip they had torn; incidentally -it swept into an open bunker and nearly drowned the Prophet, who was -acting as stoker in the engine-room. He came on deck looking rather wet -and depressed and fossicked round and got the cover of the stokehold -closed; it was under a bear’s cage, so it was not so easy. In the ice the -Prophet was a jolly bear-hunter, with lasso round his shoulder (which -he could not throw), also he was clean and “the Prophet.” With such -yellow curly hair and eyebrows and blue eyes and pink, clean face he -seemed essentially an ice-man; it is rather a come-down to be merely a -black stoker homeward bound at the end of a cruise, and with nothing to -prophesy. - -My word, it is time to shut my cabin door on this early morning. -Starboard bear and a starboard cabin! and the bear awake and growling -hell and thunder, and a big sea running too. Blow his money value we say! - -Everyone is rather tired of the violent ceaseless movement and the -drenching of spray, but our two youngest Spaniards, in heavy coats, -make merry over it, sitting up on the bridge and chatting and singing -continuously, pluckily keeping their spirits up. I think they would do -the same even if we had a full-fledged gale. - -Our musical steward, sad to say, has felt the roughness of the trip, fog -and wind combined, and this afternoon we were anxious about him, rolled -him up very tight in blankets and put a hot bottle at his feet, for he -was throwing up blood and seemed about to die; in fact, he looks a dead -man now. Hamilton too is feeling tired and lies down. Altogether we would -be glad to be up some fiord fishing cod for the sake of the rest and -fresh food. - -We had a gleam of sun from the north to-night, golden precious sunlight; -it touched waves far away in front of us till they were yellow as golden -guineas, while the crests near us were colder, more sickly white than -silver or thawing snow. - -Every cloud has its silver lining, but give me the touch of gold on the -crests of long waves at the end of a gale, half the crest radiant, and -the side in shadow cold, bluish white. - -But our short-lived sun-gleam fades and we are all in grey—the timbers -creak, creaking anxiously, sorely, and we plod along, two miles to the -hour at the best, our disreputable sail set again,—a subdued crew longing -for land. - -One comfort about this wooden craft is, that she was built for -bottle-nose whaling and has bulwarks. The modern steam-whaler is somewhat -smaller and has no bulwarks, only a rail, because she must offer as -little resistance as possible to a rapid side rush of a big whale. So in -such weather, even in this half-gale, they would be under water all but -the bridge, whilst here we can go nearly dry-shod behind nearly two and -a half feet of bulwark, behind which our too-strong she-cook in slippers -can easily dodge the little water that comes on board. - - * * * * * - -Seven-forty P.M.—An interval here of twenty-four hours. - -It would take each of us books in black margins to describe the -melancholy of the gale; not a very severe gale, with only low waves for -the amount of wind, but they are hard, and telling on our little home. It -is remarkable what low, hard waves we have here. South of Norway, with -similar strength of wind, I am sure the waves would be twice the height, -but here they seem very hard and give heavy hits for their size. South in -the sub-tropics, with half-an-hour’s wind, I have seen waves get up twice -as high as those we had last night, which were not a bit dangerous—have -had them over the bridge, soft and warm, and no harm done; here a wave -that size would do a great deal of damage. In the north I expect this is -due to the greater density of the water owing to its lower temperature. - -... Gale all night, falling in morning, leaving an abominable swell. - -[Illustration] - -Sight land through mist, rain, heavy swell, everyone very tired of life. -Trying to make out where we have got to. Made this jotting in night. It -is not elaborate, but I think it expresses a certain amount of movement. - -[Illustration] - -And this is a single-line description of the appearance of Norway -as you approach it over the swell. A one-line drawing of swell and -mountain-tops. Why make two lines when one is enough? - -In Tuglosund, the north entrance to Trömso fiord, we find stillness and -twilight. - -On this sad occasion, 9th of August, we have again to light the midnight -oil, or put it down “candle,” in my cabin—midnight sun versus candle, and -the candle wins. There is absolute stillness, not a sound in the fiord -but the gentle throb of our engine. - -How sad it is to lose the light. - - * * * * * - -It is almost incredible, the tranquillity of the dead-still water as we -lie at anchor fishing cod—breathless stillness, so quiet one does not -know how to go to sleep, no more bracing of limbs now against the side of -the bunk to steady one’s restless slumbers. - -[Illustration: OUR ENGINEER’S DAUGHTER AT TRÖMSO] - -... Larsen has gone ashore for fresh milk and also fresh eggs, rowing -across the reflections of hill and rocks. - -The candle burns straight up without a flicker; last night we could not -have lit a pipe had we felt so inclined—what are we to do about clothes? -Suddenly we feel our double winter clothing is far too thick; can it be -possible that to-morrow morning we will only need thin summer clothes? - -As we fished we talked more intimately than before. I found my Spanish -friends had been in our West Highlands; they compared this fiord with -Loch Etive, and Ben Nevis to a snow-capped mountain we have reflected in -the still mirror, and they say the hills remind them of their own—Spain, -West Scotland, and West Norway do indeed have certain similarity. - -But the quiet! and the candlelight and the soft northern midnight -twilight in the fiord, and the ripple of the boat coming back with the -milk are great things! to be remembered by themselves for ever and aye. - -If our night at anchor at the entrance of the fiord was quiet and -peaceful, Trömso on a Sunday felt even more so. We came in with a brisk -breeze blowing sharp ripples on the sheltered strait or loch, and were -thankful to be under shelter, for the same breeze off the hill-side, -clothed with alder and heather, would be a different thing a hundred -miles north by west. - -Even our bears seem to be at rest. By the afternoon we have all got -shaven and shorn, and into more townified clothes, in some cases to -advantage, in others not so. The blue jacket with brass buttons of -the styrmand gives him far more of an air than he had with his old -weather-worn pea jacket. But De Gisbert is ruined. The old Gisbert, -the bear-killer, and the new F. J. de Gisbert would hardly recognise -each other. Polar Gisbert in a great thick, deep blue Iceland jersey, -broad-shouldered, deep-chested, with black beard with a wave in it, -and black hair unbrushed and curling, a vermilion-and-white spotted -handkerchief round his throat, loose corduroy knickers and wooden clogs -like a Dutchman, was a picture of the jolly deep-sea piratical-looking -Columbus we know. But this Gisbert! of Hamburg and Madrid, in a quiet -blue serge suit, with trousers, and brown boots low at the heel, and a -white collar sticking into a closely cropped black beard, and straight -combed-out hair, and a straw hat! might be anyone! - -C. A. H. does not change his get-up much, but when he goes home to hang -his bearskins in the ancestral hall, he will have to do so. Sisters hate -beards. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - -They, the Dons and Gisbert and Hamilton, have all gone up the hill to -be entertained by a local magnate to-day. I was asked, and was there -before, on our first visit, and it was quite charming—gramophone music, -cigars with red and gold bands, delightful whiskies-and-sodas, and nice -cosy rooms, with the windows all shut. But the cut on my left foot felt -painful on putting on shore boots, and the house being uphill I felt -obliged to deny myself the pleasure, and passed a very quiet afternoon on -board. The engineer’s children came off to see me (and incidentally their -father). The eldest was about twelve, I think, and they talked Norwegian -to me, and opened their blue eyes wide and puckered their fair faces -with wonder, when they found I could not understand their little words, -however distinctly and slowly they said them. They insisted then on my -playing the pipes to them again, and apparently were hugely pleased. - -I was sometimes sorry for the engineer’s lot when we were at sea, in bad -weather, for he is pale, rather like a gentle Louis Stevenson, and seemed -to have little to interest him at sea beyond the engine, but now I do not -pity him for his welcome home from such a beauty of a daughter, with such -jolly blue eyes, so full of wonder and fun. The whole family looked over -my pictures and were interested in ice-bears (Is bjorn) and ice-floes, -but I think they were more fetched by a picture of the Fonix, done this -morning, of the effect yesterday morning at three o’clock in the gale. I -daresay they realised from it what sort of a life their poor dad leads -sometimes—at sea. - -By the way, it was not a dangerous gale, though tiresome and -uncomfortable. But to show how differently things strike people, I heard -that our two youngest Spaniards, who spent all night on the bridge, -apparently as jolly as could be, chatting and laughing, believed all the -time the ship would very likely go down—plucky of them, I think. And yet -again, when we were in danger of being pinched between two ice-floes a -few days previously, they were joyously potting skuas and gulls on the -floe, without an idea of the danger, whilst the writer was hopping about -like a hen on a hot girdle, with apprehension. - -Hamilton will not look at this picture, it makes him simply squirm, which -is rather flattering to the artist. Just now he says: “It is too beastly -like.” I must show him it again, perhaps after many days—say in a London -or Clydebank fog in November. Perhaps pleasure will then be what past -pain was. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVII - - -We find little difference here in Trömso since we left for the cold -North. Then it was sunny but very cold, now all the snow has melted -away from the hills and they are green with belts of dark alders that -run up the corries from their reflections in the calm fiord. The rough -main street of wooden houses presents the same series of little wooden -doll houses, some made of upright planks, some of horizontal, in subdued -harmonies of weathered pale green, blue, and worn slate, which would be -a little sad but for the summer dresses of women and children, bright -splashes of colour—scarlets and pale blues, vivid but harmonious, only a -little noticeable on account of the uniformity of the black and dark blue -clothes of all the men. - -Is it coming back from the Arctic, where there are no people, or is it -the atmosphere of Trömso that makes the character of each individual -seem so distinct? You could sketch any of the figures, men or women, in -the brightly painted street of doll houses, and the drawing would be -recognised by anyone in Trömso. - -Everyone seems to be at least on a bowing acquaintance with every second -person he meets. Opposite this Grand (wooden) Hotel I see two of our -men in dark suits and bowlers, each has a little tobacco in his cheek. -I know this because I saw them put it in almost on the sly; each doffs -his bowler as some acquaintance comes up. Larsen has barely time for -one whiff of his cigarette between the sedate bows which they make to -passers-by. Who could believe that a few days ago he was in old blue -dungarees and sea-boots, hauling with us hand over hand on a narwhal -line—and Larsen—it is difficult to realise that a week or two ago we saw -him skeltering over a floe, a long, dark figure against the ice, blazing -black powder cartridges and splashing bullets at three yards’ range into -the ice in front of a three-year-old polar bear’s nose, to turn it. It -strikes me that the way these fair-haired men stand, and move their -heads, and their type of face, is rather like the men of Berwickshire or -Selkirkshire. You could hardly tell a Selkirk man here from a native, but -the average man of Trömso is perhaps smaller and thinner. - -[Illustration] - -The women here are not so well grown and good-looking as those in -Trondhjem. Half the men are teetotallers, at least in public. I saw -rather a remarkable sight here at the table d’hôte, six men at table -in a row, “travellers,” I think, each with a large burgundy or claret -glass full of new milk beside his plate—very different in habits and the -appearance we associate with their deep-drinking Viking forefathers. It -really does look as if with milk drinking we may yet have peace to be -amongst all men. - - * * * * * - -We go down the coast between the islands in sunshine—little cloudlets -round the greystone peaks in the blue sky. This day is the Glorious -12th, and we are far from home—and we are more than content, to be -comfortably on shipboard, glad to leave the northern ice regions, and yet -we know that in six months’ time we will long to return. We watch the -hills go past in luxurious repose from the luggage-covered decks—lovely -hill-faces, wooded elk ground below, and higher up, slopes, with scrub -and heather, just the place for dal ryper, the counterpart of our grouse, -bar the white flight feathers, and above, the heather-grey rocks and -stones, where you find the Norwegian ptarmigan; a glorious country, and -so like our own. - -No wonder in the ancient days our forefathers exchanged visits from these -fiords to our Highland lochs and islands, and from old Alba to Lochlin, -as described in the tales of the Ossianic times—friendly visits for -feastings and marriages, and more often on bloody forays. - -I wonder if the gentle ancestors of this little _smuke pige_ that waits -at our table formed one of the attractions of these round tours by our -fathers. How delighted she was to stand for a few minutes and to have her -portrait presented to her. On the previous page there is a fountain-pen -ink jotting of what I remember of the original. Is she not a familiar -type? We might meet her in Kent or Caithness. - -[Illustration] - -I forgot to say we made arrangements, before we left Trömso, about our -Port and Starboard bears. The Port bear goes to Spain, and Hamilton and -I take Starboard to Edinburgh, to present him, between us, to our new -Scottish Zoological Park, which promises to be the best in the world, and -of which this writer had the honour of being first Honorary Treasurer! -We will hand it over with the greatest pleasure, and then modestly -withdraw; for the more you know of these two bears, the more you become -of a retiring nature. I think we must have our Lord Provost to grace the -ceremony of its presentation to the Park. The Right Honourable the Lord -Provost, in his scarlet and ermine, and all the bailies, in reds and -purples of various tints, what a grand spectacular effect! (Our company, -we hope, would be excused.) And the Lord Lyon King-at-Arms we would have -to come too, for colour effect, vermilion and gold, in his English -tabard.—Ghost of Sir David Lindsay! with only one wee lion; and in the -second quartering! - -Fancy the bear’s contemplative pause after the address of welcome and -before it has decided what part it will take in the ceremony. I must make -a picture of this in oils. - -Our Spanish comarados intended to take their bear to Madrid, but they -hear the temperature there has lately been one hundred and twenty degrees -in the shade, so they fear it would melt, consequently they decide to -build a large iron enclosure across a small river which runs through -their estancia and the cork woods of their northern hills. There was such -a den or prison already in Spain, where I am told the bear, also a polar -bear, worked out an honourable old age, fishing salmon and trout for the -family of its owner. It must be a pretty sight to see a white bear beside -the foam of a fall, waiting its time to clip out a silvery grilse or -salmon. - -The process of discharging a cargo of live polar bears is fraught with -considerable interest. If they escape their captors’ ropes and chains -they go overboard, and as happened here, two got loose and landed at the -fish-market steps. Trömso natives are accustomed to visits from all sorts -and kinds of people and beasts. Grand Dukes and Laps, walrus, whales, and -bears, but not bears at large. They fled, and the bears tucked into the -fish stalls, and the bill for their lunch amounted to one hundred kroner -(£5, 10s.)—probably any other visitors might have bought all the fish in -the market that day for ten kroner. They fortunately took to the water -again after their meal, and were recaptured. Once a walrus escaped at -Trömso from board-ship, and it also took to the water, and it was also -recaptured! It loved the captain’s wife and she whistled to it and it -came back. - -Our bears’ cages, all tattered wood and iron bars, were lifted, bears -and all, by the winch over the side, and of course sank almost to -water-level. One of the iron bars was levered up a little with a crowbar, -which gave, in Starboard’s case, an opening for his delicate paw, which -instantly came out and tore the cage to smithereens, and out he came, -and, evidently to his great content, wallowed about in the sea and washed -his face, and took a dive or two and rubbed his paws, saying “Bé-waugh” -and “B-e-a-r” frequently, and looked perfectly happy and amiable. Just -to prevent him swimming ashore and going into the fish-market, we put a -stout little rope round his neck, and he continued to enjoy his bath, -whilst we made ready a new cage, each batten of which is covered with -sheet iron on the inside and has the appearance of strength which I -should desire for such an opening ceremony as I have above suggested, if -I have to be present. When this cage was in order, our duty was to get -the big strop or ring of heavy rope round his waist, so as to haul him -out of his bath with our sixty-horse-power winch, and this was done with -some escape of steam and some splashing and profuse remarks from the -bear. Now he is in his new quarters, into which he cannot get his teeth, -and he ruminates peacefully and eats and drinks what is given him. I -wonder what his teeth will go into when he first comes out. - -Christabel and William we are selling for much moneys by telegraph to a -certain millionaire. They will make charming pets and William, as already -mentioned, promises to be a musician as well, but they will never attain, -in captivity, to the size that Port and Starboard may be expected to -attain, for the latter have already spent several years on the floes -eating seal galore. - -Bears have gone up in price; very few have lately been landed, as far -as we can hear, in Northern Europe. Recent years have been rather bad -for expeditions. We know of several which have been wrecked; some of the -crews are dead.[17] Gisbert is going to hang on with the Fonix at Trömso -and may go North again in search of survivors. - -Slipping down the Norwegian coast amongst the islands in a passenger -steamer feels very luxurious after being in such a small vessel with -always a certain amount of risk; and after views of ice and sea, bears -and seals day after day, rocks and trees and little farms or fishermen’s -houses nestling in the greenery, with mountains and snow-fjeld far behind -them are very welcome. There is the “human interest,” which I have -previously said has been remarked for its absence in the polar regions by -careful observers. - -[Illustration: “STARBOARD” - -Photographed by Mr. C. T. McKechnie soon after its arrival in the -Edinburgh Zoological Park.] - -... What a country this is to breed real men. Every boy in every one of -these isolated farms must of necessity learn to row, to ride, to sail, -to hunt, ski, handle an axe, do iron and wood work, besides his farming; -and for one pound sterling a year he can be in touch with the centres -of European news and civilisation. On the telephone—eighteen kroner a -year they pay to send messages under the sea and over forests and fjelds -to their township, say forty or fifty miles distant, whilst we belated -people in these backwoods of Berwickshire have to pay nine pounds a year -for the same convenience. - -As I write we see two such natives enviably employed—two small boys—the -day’s work done on the farm, they don’t go to school in summer—they are -now managing a boat and fishing. With the glass I can see the bow is -almost full of cod, haddock, and some codling. The elder boy looks about -twelve years old. He pulls up two at a time, shimmering, iridescent, -pink-tinted haddock. Who could believe the rather plain grey fish we see -in the fishmonger’s could ever look like a chunk of mother-of-pearl? - -Woods and islands, rugged mountains, grey fjelds, with snow in -patches, pass hour after hour, till we come to the fiord of the old -capital—Trondhjem Fiord. It reminds us of our Firth of Forth, on a larger -scale, with more woods. For me Norway begins at Trondhjem going north, -and ends there coming south. Southern Norway seems to have no tradition, -no direct appeal to me. In the soft distance I can see height after -height fading into the distance; to the north and east with the glass I -can see the woods of Sundal in Stordal, where we have hunted elk, and -seen the golden birch leaves falling, and the snowflakes drifting down -into the green depths of the swaying fir woods. The water of the fiord -is tinted with Stordal River. I recall its salmon and hear again its -solemn roar when the mist hung low in the glen. What days of exertion -these were, climbing and descending under the dripping pines, two men and -a hound, stealthily, silently, with hardly a word for hours, watching -through the woods for the gaunt form of a bull elk, days of such fatigue -and nights of profound repose, alike haunted with the sweet melancholy of -the saetar songs. - -Why do such merry, cheerful people as bonders’ daughters sing such sad -songs? Here is what I remember of one that haunts me now. - -[Music] - -Its rhythm just suits your steps if you hum it, not loud enough to -disturb an elk as you slowly ascend, step by step, through the wet -pines in the morning to the high grounds, and the quick part helps you -returning as you swing down the last of the hill-side from one red-leafed -rowan to the next, down to the level; and months after, it comes to you -when you are in a street and you see the woods and the river winding -a silver thread at the foot of the glen and the welcome smoke of the -log-built farm. Once I hummed it unconsciously on a dull, wet day at the -quayside in Hull, standing amongst emigrants looking at the swirling and -muddy river, and a Norse woman standing near with a white handkerchief -for headdress began to hum it too—we could not speak to each other, but -our thoughts were harking back to saetar and glen and hill—the charm of -Norway. - -Another haunting folk-song I heard here years ago—I must put it down -to preserve it—at Vibstadt, Namsen Valley, on a hot midday I heard the -bonders’ daughters sing it as they weeded lettuce in the blaze of light. -They called it _Barden’s Dod_ (The Death of the Bard), and we have the -same air in our Highlands; it dates back to prehistoric times; and we -call it “The Minstrel of the MacDonalds.” No one that I know sings or -plays it now at home. But a year or two ago, on the top of a mountain in -Southern Norway, as we rested at lunch, a Norse hunting companion began -singing it, and I started, and he smiled and explained his wife was one -of the little girls who had given it to me in Northern Norway twenty -years before. The Norwegian words, I am told by a Norwegian antiquarian, -belong to the Viking period. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVIII - - -[Illustration] - -In the smoking-room on the way south on board we naturally talk much -about fishing, for half our fellow-passengers have been salmon-fishing -and there is much comparison of Bags and Rivers. Some have done better -than they expected, others growl at their bags, and the season, and at -the agent, whoever it was, that put them on to such a bad river. But all -are charmed with Norse scenery, and Norse people. We come in for some -questioning about bears. There is no invidious comparison between a bag -of bears and a creel of salmon; but we have to be careful about whales, -for it would be a little rough on the veteran salmon-fisher to cap his -best with a yarn on whales: after he has, at length and with the utmost -modesty, recounted the fight his fifty-pounder put up, and the hundred -yards it took out, it would scarcely be considerate to refer to some -fifty-ton or one-hundred-ton whale, and the miles of cable it had reeled -off in a twinkling. Of course everyone knows a whale is not a fish—still, -the slight similarity is such that whaling yarns are apt to be damping -when fishing stories are going; though the true Walton angler is happy -catching any size of fish; a six-ounce trout to me, in a Highland burn, -is almost as good as a whale. Notwithstanding this delicate tact on our -part, whaling was introduced one evening in the smoking-room, and the -writer was rather surprised to find that several men had very little idea -of the functions of whalebone or its place in the whale’s anatomy, so we -had to draw diagrams, such as these here reproduced, to describe shortly -the way whalebone works. This is a side view of the head of a finner -whale; it shows the outer edges of the whalebone plates that hang round -the sides of the upper jaw. The blades vary in thickness in different -whales; in the common Balænoptera Borealis, such as this, it measures -about a quarter of an inch thick and is about two feet at deepest. The -blade has hair on its inside edge. If the whale’s head were cut across -between the nose and eye, or corner of its mouth, the section would -be like this. These hairs intertwine and form a surface to the palate -like a well-worn cocoanut mat. The whale opens its mouth and takes in -possibly a ton of water thick with small shrimps, partially closes its -jaws and expels the water through the fibrous surface and out between the -blades. I suppose by raising the enormous soft plum-coloured tongue (D in -section) towards the hairy palate or mat of interwoven hairs at the edge -of each plate (CC in section) it prevents the shrimps going out with the -water, and the tongue works the shrimps down to its throat. I have not -calculated the food which I have seen come out of a whale’s stomach when -cut up, but I say, at a rough guess, forty to sixty gallons—three or four -barrels of very minute shrimps. I have only seen the remains of one of -the Right whale, Mysticetus, and those of the smaller, somewhat similar -whale, Balæna Australis. The Right or Greenland whale had very long bone, -up to eleven feet. To cover the whalebone, the lower lip is formed as -in this jotting. Scoresby maintains that when the Right whale’s mouth -is closed, the blades bend or fold back towards the throat. This seems -probable. - -[Illustration: A Finner’s Head] - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: A Right Whale’s Head] - -You see from the difference between these whales’ points that the rorqual -is a more athletic beast than the Right whale. - -[Illustration: RIGHT WHALES AND SPERM UP TO 60 FEET, FINNERS UP TO 110 -FEET - -1. Greenland Right whale, _Balæna Mysticetus_, up to 60 feet in length, -generally found near Arctic ice. The smaller whalebone whale of the -Atlantic and Southern oceans is somewhat similar in shape; it runs to -50 feet; shows tail as it dives; has no fin on back. It is called the -Nordcapper or _Biscayensis_ and _Australis_. - -2. The Sperm or Cachalot, _Physeter Macrocephalus_. A toothed whale 50 to -60 feet; shows tail when it dives; sometimes breaches, i.e. leaps several -times in succession as it travels; blast low and projected forward. - -3. Seihvale, _Balænoptera Borealis_, 40 to 50 feet; blast about 10 feet; -does not usually lift tail out of water before final dive; has fin on -back, is therefore a “finner.” - -4. Fin whale, _Balænoptera Musculus_, up to 75 feet. The Blue whale, -_Balænoptera Sibbaldii_, is similar, with smaller fin on back; both make -blasts about 18 feet. The Blue whale in Southern seas has been killed up -to 110 feet.] - -The sperm or cachalot whale’s head is very peculiar. It has teeth in -lower jaw and a small tongue. All the part forward of the dotted line -here, which represents the skull of the head, is a mass of fibrous oil. -When you cut through the skin you can bail it out with pitchers or pump -it out till it gets too cold, after which you do not know whether to lift -it in your hands or in a bucket. It is beautifully clear, no one knows -why it has this extraordinary spongy forepart to its head. This sperm oil -is chemically different from the oil of other whales; it is more of the -nature of a wax: the other whales are of a fatty nature. It makes the -finest lubricant for modern machinery. - -[Illustration: Head of a Sperm, showing Skull] - -The blow hole is on left side of this “case,” the blow pipe from lungs -going through it. And the jet of steam is thrown up two or three feet -and forward, so a sperm’s blast is easily distinguished from that of the -finner, which is bigger and straight up, say to twenty or thirty feet, or -possibly forty feet, in the case of a large Blue whale. - - - - -APPENDIX - - -OLD AND NEW WHALING - -The Greenland whaling was practically given up in 1912, and the Southern -whaling for sperm and cachalot and the Southern Right whale, which in the -first half of the nineteenth century employed five hundred to six hundred -vessels, practically stopped forty years ago. - - -WHY THE OLD STYLES OF WHALING STOPPED - -The growing scarcity and wariness of the Greenland Right whale and the -fall in the price of oil and whalebone gave the Balæna Mysticetus or -Greenland Right whale an indefinitely prolonged close season, and in the -Southern Seas the sperm and the Southern Right whale (Australis) fishing -almost entirely ceased, owing to increased working expenses, smaller -catches, and the fall in the price of oil. - - -“MODERN WHALING” IN NORTH ATLANTIC - -In 1886 Captain Svend Foyn of Tonsberg, Norway, invented the plan of -capturing the powerful rorquals, commonly called Finners, that are very -numerous, but were too strong and too heavy to be killed in the old -style from row-boats, and which till his time had not been hunted. By -his process a small cannon on the bow of a small steamer could fire -a heavy harpoon, one and a half to two hundredweights, attached to a -four-and-a-half hawser. This steamer and line were sufficiently buoyant -and strong to play the whale and to haul its body up from the depths when -it sank dead. The Greenland whale and sperm both floated when they died. -Fortunes were made from the firmer whale hunting off the Norwegian coast. - - -COMMERCIAL ASPECT AND METHOD OF MODERN WHALING - -Some of these companies work with shore factories, others with both shore -factories and large floating factories on board steamers of up to seven -thousand tons burden, and each company hunts the whales with, on an -average, three to four small steamers, which harpoon the whales within a -radius of eighty or ninety miles and tow them in to the shore factories, -or the floating factory which is at anchor in some sheltered bay. The -bodies are rapidly cut up at a fully equipped land station, and both the -blubber and carcass are entirely utilised. At a floating station the -bodies, as a rule, are cast adrift. - - -WHALE MEAT MEAL AND GUANO - -Whale meat meal is made from fresh whale flesh; it is used for feeding -cattle. It contains 17½ per cent. proteid, and guano is made from the -remaining flesh and about one-third bone. The analysis of this gives 8·50 -per cent. ammonia and 21 per cent. triboric phosphates. The whole of -the dried bones and meat may be made into one product—a rich guano with -10 to 12 per cent. ammonia and 17 to 24 per cent. phosphates. The best -whale meat is better to eat and tastes better than the best beef; it is -“lighter” and more appetising. The writer proposed to supply an immense -quantity to our military authorities, but the offer was not accepted. - - -WHALEBONE OR BALEEN - -The baleen or whalebone of these finner whales is only worth about £30 -per ton. It hardly pays to cure it and market it. The whalebone of -the Australis or Southern Right whale has fallen to £85 per ton; it -is occasionally caught. Its bones and that of the finner brought down -the price of the Greenland whalebone, which a few years ago was sold -at between £2000 and £3000 per ton, one good whale having a ton in its -mouth, which paid the expenses of the trip. - -During the short season, 1st November till end of April, in a recent -year the catch in South Georgia by twenty-one steamers amounted to five -thousand whales, finner, hump-back and blue whales, which gave two -hundred thousand barrels of whale oil and eight thousand tons guano. - - -RETURNS FROM WHALING - -Taking in the other islands of the Falkland Islands Dependencies in the -neighbourhood of Cape Horn, the catch in a recent year amounted to four -hundred and thirty thousand barrels of oil—eight thousand three hundred -and seventy-five tons guano, the gross value of which may be reckoned at -£1,360,000. Practically the whole of this goes to Norway. - -For forty-eight years this Modern Whaling has been carried on in the -North Atlantic, and since 1904 the Modern Whaling which we advocated -in Edinburgh in 1895 has been prosecuted by Norwegians in the South -Atlantic from desolate barren British possessions, with the great results -mentioned above. There are vast areas of ocean teeming with these whales -where, so far, they have not been hunted, and still the general British -public stands aloof and takes no share in it. Whaling to-day, from the -Norwegian point of view, is an industry: three generations have been -brought up on it; but from the average British point of view it is still -a speculation. - - -AMBERGRIS - -Ambergris is a biliary concretion generally found in the alimentary canal -of a feeble or diseased sperm whale. Sometimes it is found exteriorly -near the vent. It is also found floating or drifted ashore. It is of -great value, and is principally used as the basis or vehicle for perfumes. - -Some years ago Norwegians found four hundred and twenty kilos in a sperm -on the Australian coast; this was valued at £27,000. This is much the -largest piece I have heard of. - -It is a solid, fatty substance of a marbled grey-and-black appearance, -and generally contains the beaks of cuttle-fish, which form the principal -food of the cachalot or sperm whale. When fresh it has an intolerable -smell, but after exposure this goes, and leaves what some people call a -“peculiar sweet earthy odour.” It burns with a pale blue flame and melts -somewhat like sealing-wax. - - -THE WHALING INDUSTRY - -The St Abb’s Whaling Limited, of which the writer was appointed chairman, -found whales at the Seychelles in great numbers in 1913, and we got -permission from the Government there to start an up-to-date whaling -station with licences for two whaling steamers, which we chartered and -had sent out to us from Norway. - -Our capital was about £20,000, and our station and factory was nearly -completed, and we were catching numbers of sperm and some “finner” -whales, when war broke out. Our supply of coals was cut off; barrels -could not be obtained for oil; sacks could not be got for the whale guano -(which is made from bones and whale meat); and freight completely failed -us owing to the congestion caused by war material on the various lines. -We could neither get supplies nor send away our products to Durban and -other ports, except in some small consignments on our Diesel motor tank -whaler, the St Ebba, which finally we were obliged to run on sperm oil at -about £28 per ton! - -We could not “stop down” owing to contracts; and the difficulty of -raising more capital under war conditions finally forced us to voluntary -liquidation. - -This promising industry, therefore, had to be stopped in the meantime, -and it occurs to us that as one of the “Empire’s resources” the -Government could very easily put it into working order again, with -great profit and for the benefit of the Islands, Africa and the Old -Country. For we found immense numbers of sperm and finner whales round -the Seychelles, and even before getting into our stride we had secured -one hundred and forty whales and shipped home two thousand three hundred -barrels of oil, besides what was lost before the station factory was -completed and what we were obliged to use locally for our Diesel motor in -place of common solar oil. Six barrels of whale oil go to the ton. - -With the experience before them of the vast revenues from whaling at -South Georgia and South Shetlands going almost entirely to Norway, our -Government has, we think, wisely restricted the granting of whaling -licences at the Seychelles to British concerns. Our company rented land -for our station, built the factories and has some years’ lease to run, -and the best season for fishing begins about 1st of May. - -The vast whaling industry in the Falkland Island Dependencies—the South -Georgia and South Shetlands—was started as a result of the information -that Dr W. S. Bruce and the writer brought back from there in regard to -the immense number of finner whales we had seen there in our Antarctic -voyage of 1892-1893 to the Antarctic and Weddell Sea; and in one of the -first of the Norwegian companies, which is still successful to-day, the -writer took a considerable interest at its start. This company is to-day -paying a dividend of over 150 per cent. But for the war I consider the -Seychelles whaling should have paid handsomely now. - -In regard to this great modern whaling industry in the sub-Antarctic -seas we may here say that, previously to the Norwegians starting it, Dr -Bruce and the writer held meetings in Edinburgh and urged the leading -business men, merchants and shipping people to take it up. We foretold -the fortunes that were to be made, but they did not rise. A little later -the Norwegian who we hoped to have as manager for the first whaling -station in South Georgia, Captain Larsen, succeeded in raising capital in -Argentina, and I am told began with a modest 70 per cent. profit in the -first year. Norwegian companies quickly followed his lead and utilised -our Empire’s resources for Norway! - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] Values of whales and their products constantly change. To-day finner -whales’ oil is becoming almost as valuable as sperm oil. - -[2] A pram is a flat-bottomed boat, square stern and pointed saucer bow. - -[3] A. Balænoptera Musculus; B. Balænoptera Sibbaldii; C. Balænoptera -Borealis; D. Balæna Biscayensis; E. Physeter Macrocephalus. - -[4] Far the best whale to eat is the Seihvale Balænoptera Borealis. - -[5] We picked up a dead whale two days later and we hope it was the whale -we lost. - -[6] In the South Shetlands Captain Sorrensen, referred to previously, -killed ten whales in one day, one was ninety feet in length, and probably -weighed ninety tons. - -[7] This snatch block hangs on a wire rope that passes over a sheaf and -leads down to the hold, where it is attached to an enormously strong -steel spiral spring. This makes a give-and-take action when hauling -up the dead whale from the depths to counteract the jar on line and -donkey-engine that comes from the rise and fall of the steamer on the sea. - -[8] In these waters a small shrimp called a “krill” colours the water a -rusty red for miles. - -[9] Later we learned that three S.S. of several thousand tons were hove -to during this hurricane. Bravo, St Ebba! sixty-nine tons, one hundred -and ten feet, and the safest boat in the world. - -[10] Only a few of our men have done bottle-nose whaling, but that is the -same thing on a small scale. - -[11] Ambergris. See Appendix. - -[12] These carros are the cabs of Funchal, like four-poster beds, -brilliantly painted, with chintz hangings, and sledge runners instead of -wheels. Their progress is like that of a crab—neither fast nor certain. - -[13] Don José and Don Luis Gongolez Herrero. - -[14] Don Luis Herrero Velasquez. - -[15] Seal oil is manufactured into olive oil in Paris and the patent -leather is made at Dundee. - -[16] Not proved. The smaller 250 bore and higher velocity seemed to us -all to be most effective and stopping. - -[17] I have learned since that five vessels came to grief in the year -1913. Of one trip (Stefansen’s) only one man has survived. - - - - -INDEX - - - A - - Accounts, difficulties in the, 43 - - Aften-mad, 72 - - Alexandra Whaling Station, 63, 67 - - Allan, Miss Sheila, 108 - - Ambergris, 22, 159, 314 - - Ammunition, 40 - - Anatomy of a whale, 159 - - Anchor, accident to our, 46 - - Arctic and Antarctic compared, 187, 189 - - Arctic Fox, 278 - - Arctic grouse, 278 - - Ardnamurchan, 107 - - Azores, the, 165 - - - B - - Balæna, the, 51, 104 - - Balæna Mysticetus, 21, 312 - - Balænoptera Borealis, 69 - - Balænoptera musculus, 17 - - Balænoptera Sibbaldii, the, 17 - - Baleen or whalebone, 313 - - Balkan, Mrs, 31 - - Balta Sound, 14 - - Bear and cubs, 258 - - Bear-hunting, accidents in, 225 - - Bear yams, 216 - - Bearded seal, 269 - - Bears, stalking, 193; - dangers, 194, 196; - size and weight, 198; - stalking, 199, 200; - lassoing, 210, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 224, 227, 241, 247 - - Belfast, 116 - - Birthday celebration, a, 105 - - Blowing up, 87 - - Blue seal, 269 - - Blue sharks, 162 - - Bottle-nose whale, 282 - - Bowhead or Right whale, 21 - - Bressay Light, 55 - - Britannia Club, the, 31 - - Bruce, Dr W. S., 179 - - Bull-fight on deck, 262 - - Bull versus bear, 285 - - - C - - Cabins, 28 - - Cachalot, 18 - - Cachés, 215 - - Calving bergs, 271 - - Caribou and whale, colours of the, 94 - - Carros, 166 - - Case or forehead, 160 - - Casperg, Captain, 89 - - Chanteys, 102 - - Christiania Fiord, 27 - - Clarence Island, 31 - - Clothes, darned and patched, 73 - - Cod liver oil, 208 - - Colla Firth, 18 - - Colours in Arctic regions, 192 - - Colours of the sea, 77 - - Colours of the whale, 93 - - Cormorants and gulls, 60 - - Cormorants, on cooking, 65 - - “Cruise of the Cachalot,” the, 22 - - Cubs, lassoing, 264 - - Customs officers, 58 - - Cutting up a whale, 159 - - Cuttlefish and whales, 254 - - - D - - Dangers of whaling, 89, 260 - - De Gisbert, F. A., 180 - - Dolphins, 127 - - Dreams, 227 - - Drimnin, 108 - - Dundee whalers, 21 - - - E - - Embryos of whale, 94 - - Engine troubles, 50, 148 - - Explosive bombs, 23 - - - F - - Factories, shore and floating, 313 - - Falkland Islands, 24, 314 - - Finners, 312 - - Flippers of seal, 240 - - Fogs, Arctic, 279 - - Fonix, the, 180, 181 - - Food of the whale, 254 - - Football, 219 - - Foyn, his wife and a whale, 232; - diplomatic steward, 233 - - Fuel, oil, 28 - - Fulmar petrels, 212 - - Funchal, 165 - - - G - - Gear for raising dead whale, 87 - - Geraniums, 165 - - Gisbert and the bear, 216 - - Graham’s Land, 23 - - Grampuses, 148 - - Greenland, 267 - - Greenland whales, 24 - - Greenland Right whale fishing, 21, 312 - - Guano, 24, 84, 313 - - Gun, the harpoon, 29 - - Gun and harpoon, old style, 231 - - Gun, loading the, 88 - - Guns, light versus heavy, 222 - - - H - - Haldane family, stories of the, 66 - - Haldane, R. C., 64 - - Haldane, the, 17 - - Hamilton, C. A., 180 - - Hansen and the bear, 217 - - Harp seals, 258, 275 - - Harpoons, 29, 312 - - Hawsers for big whales, 24 - - Head of whale, 90 - - Heavy seas, 122 - - Henriksen, 18, 19, 29, 32, 119 - - Henriksen, Harold, 29 - - Herring-hog or springer, 69 - - Hospitality, Norwegian, 34 - - Hydrangeas, 139 - - - I - - Ice colours, 201 - - Ice floes, 248 - - Icebergs, 187 - - Ivory gull, 182-212 - - - J - - Jackaranda, the, 165 - - Japanese whaling grounds, 18, 57 - - Jensen’s store, 33 - - - K - - Killer, A, 47 - - Knarberg, 39 - - - L - - _Lagopus hemilencurus_ or Arctic grouse, 278 - - Lancing a whale, 93 - - Larsen, Captain, 41, 316 - - Lasso practice, 250 - - Lassoing a bear, 210, 285 - - Leigh Smith, 215 - - Lerwick, 54, 55 - - Lifeboat, an extravagant, 51 - - Lighthouses, 106 - - Lochend, 18, 65 - - - M - - Mackerel, killing, 72 - - Madeira, flowers, 165; - tunny-fishing, 166; - sunrise, 168; - boats, 169 - - Magazine ship, 24 - - Magnus Andersen, 60 - - Mainmast, our, 41 - - Meals on a whaler, 71 - - Measurement of bears, 238 - - Meat meal, whale, 313 - - Mess-room and galley, 28, 49 - - Middag-mad, 71 - - Mishnish Hotel, the, 113 - - “Modern Whales,” 22, 24 - - Monaco, Prince of, 94 - - Motor versus steam-engine, 106 - - Motor whaler, a, 19 - - - N - - Narwhal-fishing, dangers of, 238 - - Narwhals, 204, 228, 229, 234, 237 - - Natural colours and surroundings, 200 - - New Bedford sailing ships, 21 - - Nordcapper, the, 26 - - Norse sporting guns, 121 - - Norwegian ladies, 30 - - Norwegian pilot-boats, 18 - - - O - - Oban, 110 - - Oil and coal, 117 - - Oil, value of, 83, 84 - - Oil, whale, 24 - - “Old man Henriksen,” 43 - - Orca gladiator, the, 47 - - - P - - Partings, 45 - - Pet bear, a, 257 - - Pilot-fish, 162 - - Pine trunk, a drifting, 220 - - Phosphorescent sea, a, 124 - - Photography, 245 - - Physeter Macrocephalus, 69 - - Plankton, 253 - - Pod or herd, 92 - - “Polar Research,” Bruce’s, 192 - - Ponta Delgada, arcade, 132; - boats, 133; - fish, 135; - Robert’s café, 136; - a wreck, 135; - hydrangeas, 139; - shops, 140; - the Atlantico, 140; - dress, 141; - whales, 142; - the sea, 143; - the Seven Cities, 151 - - Port and starboard bears, our, 265 - - Protective colouring, 192, 276 - - Pussy finger, 209 - - - R - - Ramna Stacks, the, 100 - - Red-tape entanglements, 60 - - Registration bothers, 60 - - Restrictions, 83 - - Richardson’s skua, 212 - - Right whale, 21 - - Robertson, Captain T., 25 - - Romance of the sea, 129 - - Rorquals, 19, 312 - - Runners, 119 - - Ryvingen Light, the, 47 - - - S - - Saga, Jansen’s, 34 - - St Ebba, the, 19, 27, 35, 38, 48, 97 - - St Abb’s Whaling Limited, 315 - - San Miguel, 130 - - Scoresby, 179 - - Sea legs, 157 - - Sea-sick crew, a, 48 - - Seal-hunting, 208 - - Sealers, 183 - - Seals, Arctic and Antarctic, 188 - - Seals, Vitulina, 191; - Phoca Barbata, 197; - Cystophora Cristata, 203; - blue, 269; - Barbata, 269; - harp, 275 - - Seven Cities, the, 151 - - Seychelles, the, 176, 315 - - She-cook, our, 206 - - Sharks, 159, 207, 208 - - Shetlands in pawn, the, 60 - - Shoppie, a, 125 - - Shore stations, 24 - - Sing-song, a, 99 - - Sorrensen, the brothers, 31 - - South Georgia, 31 - - South Shetlands, the, 31 - - Spanish National Polar Expedition, 180 - - Sperm or Cachalot whale, 22, 312 - - Spitzbergen ice, 287 - - Sports on the ice, 279 - - Spotted mackerel, 169 - - Spy, a, 113 - - Squalus Borealis, 207 - - Stalking and being stalked, 199 - - Starboard bear, the, 263 - - Strength of the bear, 245 - - Sumburgh Head, 55 - - Sunday observance, 125 - - Sven Foyn’s harpoons, 23, 312 - - Svendsen, 180 - - - T - - Tackle for whaling, 232 - - “Tail up,” 88 - - Tail of a whale, the, 87 - - Tanks, 28 - - Teeth of seals, 269 - - Tobermory, 108 - - Tongue of the whale, 254 - - Tonsberg, 19, 21, 27, 30, 33; - whaling industry, 233 - - Torp, Captain, death of, 89 - - Trammel net, a, 134 - - Trolle, Captain, 179 - - Trouble with captive bears, 248 - - Tunny, 164, 166 - - - U - - Ulstermen and Scots, 118 - - Union Jack, our, 110 - - Urmston, 110 - - - V - - Viking ship, 21 - - _Vulpes lagopus_, or Arctic fox, 278 - - - W - - Wading stockings, advantages of, 209 - - Weddel Sea, the, 23 - - Whale cooker, our, 161 - - Whale flesh, 83, 91 - - Whale’s food, 101 - - Whale gun, the, 69 - - Whale lines, 28, 33, 87 - - Whale products and their prices, 83 - - Whale steak, 72 - - Whalebone, 21, 24, 83 - - Whales, Balænoptera Sibbaldii, 17; - Balænoptera musculus, 17; - Balænoptera Vaga, 69; - Right whale, 18, 21, 58, 232, 254; - Cachalot, 18, 21; - Sperm, 18, 22, 155; - Finners, 19, 22, 69; - Balæna mysticetus, 21, 58; - Biscayensis, 25, 58, 69, 83; - Orca gladiator, 47; - blue, 69; - Seihvale, 69, 83; - _Ziphius novæ Zealandicæ_, 144; - narwhals, 204; - _Hyperoodon diodon_, 282 - - Whales and cuttle-fish, 158 - - Whales, habits of, 156 - - Whales, harpooning, 77, 81, 86, 92, 155, 157, 176 - - Whales, size of, 84 - - Whales and trout, 76 - - Whaling, old and modern, 21, 314 - - Winch, the, 28 - - Wives at sea, 111 - - Wounded seals, 260 - - Wreck, a, 136 - - - Y - - Yacht club, Tonsberg, 30 - - Yell Sound, 69 - - Yule, 108 - - Yusako, 32 - - - -THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN WHALING & -BEAR-HUNTING *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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