132 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



another bear with one cub, which we marked into 

 the cluster of rocky islands on the east side of the 

 bay, but without success. Although I placed a 

 man armed with a lance as a marker on the fast ice 

 adhering to the north side of the islands, and caused 

 the boat to row along the open side, while I beat 

 the islands, like a pointer, myselfj still we could not 

 discover them, and I got on board the sloop near 

 Black Point at midnight, rather knocked up, and 

 disgusted at my want of success; for, as we had 

 hitherto bagged every bear we had seen, we had be- 

 gun to look upon seeing one as pretty nearly tanta- 

 mount to killing him. I only brought in one seal, 

 but might have shot four or five, which I did not 

 fire at for fear of disturbing the bears. 



Sunday, the *2±th, was a fine day, but dead calm, 

 and we were still drifting about close to Black 

 Point. Some ice appears to be coming down from 

 the northeast at last, so that we may hope to fall in 

 with walruses to-morrow. 



25^. Southeast wind and thick fog in the morn- 

 ing. We saw four old bull-walruses on the ice, but 

 the sloop had run so close to them in the mist that 

 it disturbed them, and they did not wait for a boat 

 to be lowered. 



Taking advantage of the fog, all hands are busy 

 flensing and packing blubber. This is a horribly 

 wet, dirty, cold, and greasy operation, and is gener- 

 ally held on the part of the crew as constituting a 

 claim to a bottle of rum. There is only one tee- 



