AN ARCTIC RESIDENCE 259 



his life had been spent on the sea or hunting in the 

 mountains and valleys of the Northland, and a 

 man of such tact and observation that Nature 

 seemed to have exactly fitted him for the position 

 of trust for which he was now employed. It was 

 necessary, however, that no one in Hammerfest 

 should guess his connection with this particular 

 work, and after giving him instructions, he left 

 at once for certain northern ports, where he gathered 

 information about the German spies and the move- 

 ments of the U-boats that proved of the greatest 

 value. Alternately in the guise of a fish-buyer 

 or as a drunken loafer, he frequented places where 

 correct news of our enemies' movements were to 

 be gathered, and acted so successfully the part he 

 had to play, that both the Germans and pro-German 

 Norwegians frequently gave him their complete 

 confidence, disclosed their plans, and even asked 

 him to do certain things which I was most anxious 

 to learn. When he left me in Hammerfest, in 

 November, he broke down and cried like a child, 

 and said he had never enjoyed himself so much in 

 his life. Dear old E. ! He was a man amongst 

 men, with a great warm heart and the courage of 

 the Vikings, and I place him in the category of my 

 long-dead friends Jimmy Sutherland of Stromness, 

 my boatman for eleven years in the Orkneys, and 

 Roelef Van Staden, the Boer hunter, with whom 

 I lived for a year in South Africa. But E. lives, 

 and I hope one day we shall hunt ripa again and 

 discourse on the great things of life. 



Other interesting visitors to Hammerfest were 

 the Lapps. The race is divided into two distinct 

 branches. The Coast Lapps, mostly a hybrid race 



