chap, v CAIRN CAMP 65 



them, many strange tourists came and disported them- 

 selves strangely at Advent Bay, during the few hours that 

 the weekly tourist boat used to wait there. They always 

 brought rifles with them, under the impression that bears, 

 or at least reindeer, herded at every point along the shore. 

 There being nothing to shoot, they nevertheless fired off the 

 rounds of ammunition in their little store, aiming at birds, 

 or merely into the air. Many were the narrow escapes of 

 inoffensive onlookers. A bullet came close over the tent of 

 one of my companions. Others whizzed near the heads of 

 the salvage men working at the winterers' wreck. One foolish 

 creature is said to have mistaken a photographer with his 

 head under a dark cloth for a reindeer, and put a bullet 

 through his hat. Another, when we were away in the little 

 steamer on the north coast, stalked, and I believe fired upon 

 our inoffensive ponies. At last, for mere safety's sake, two little 

 targets were set up between the inn and the sea. " What are 

 these ? " I asked on returning to Advent Bay. " They are the 

 game the tourists fire at," was the answer. Poor things ! they 

 had been told that Spitsbergen was a sportsman's El Dorado. 

 Asking for walruses and bears, they were given — targets ! 



Within little more than twenty-four hours from arrival, 

 the Raftsund blew her whistle and began to move away, 

 still pitching the inn overboard as she went. We watched 

 her steering a very devious course through the ice, heading 

 not for the sea, but due north across the fjord, where, 

 after two hours of great anxiety, her ice-master found open 

 water. Baron de Geer is my authority for the statement 

 that such profusion of ice at this time of year is unusual. 

 It was the more remarkable because, as we presently learned, 

 the sea to the north and west of Spitsbergen was opener 

 this year than it had been at any time during the memory 

 of man. This ice, however, did not come from the north or 

 west, but out of Wybe Jans Water, round the South Cape, 



