i 4 SPITSBERGEN chap, ii 



to which many kind friends had come to wish good-bye and 

 good luck. We missed only Mr. B. V. Darbishire, who was 

 to have been our cartographer. Sudden and severe illness 

 kept him back. A good German friend of his, with kind 

 providence, had sent two Westphalian hams for consumption 

 in Spitsbergen. " Where are my hams ? " he pathetically 

 asked, when I went to bid him farewell. " Safe in Trond- 

 hjem," was my scarcely regretful answer. Thus the savour 

 of him went with us. 



Before the train had gone twenty miles, the first accident 

 occurred ; a coal smut flung itself into Trevor-Battye's eye. 

 " Shut the window, and blow your nose," was some one's 

 advice. Battye followed it. " But why shut the window ? " 

 he said ; " does that pull out the smut ? " It was a hot 

 journey, a kindly heat which gave us at all events one day's 

 sense of summer. By five p.m. we were on board the s.s. El 

 Dorado off Hull, and the screw began to turn. The air was 

 again soft and damp ; sea and sky to the eastward were green 

 and grey, only separated from one another by a narrow 

 broken line of shore and flat land, with here a row of trees 

 and there a cottage. Now and again a barge came floating 

 by, the only thing sharply defined in the midst of nebulous 

 surroundings. Distance soon swallowed up the town, with its 

 line of houses, its big church tower, its forest of masts, and 

 its roof of smoke. The sea could scarcely have been calmer. 

 The ship was not crowded. There was room for all, and 

 no one was ill. Next day the same conditions were main- 

 tained, save that towards noon a little motion arose, and 

 people grew somewhat silent, grave, and grey ; but in the 

 long-delayed evening perfect calm reigned once more ; and 

 when, about ten P.M. in the late twilight, we came into the 

 sweet smell of the land, and amongst lagoon-like bays and 

 low rock-islands, rounded by ancient ice, cheerfulness re- 

 turned, and the light of expectancy was in every eye. 



