12 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



thwarts in the boat the ' hammelmand ' can, if necessary, 

 instantly change his position, and row like the others. 



The harpooner, who commands the boat's crew, rows from 

 the bow thwart, near the weapons and telescope, which he 

 alone uses. It is he who searches for game, and decides on 

 the method of attack when it is found. ' No. 2,' generally the 

 strongest man in the boat, is called the ' line man ' ; it is his 

 duty to tend the line when a walrus is struck and to assist the 

 harpooner, while ' stroke ' and the ' hammelmand ' hang back 

 on their oars, to prevent the boat from 'overrunning' the 

 walrus. 



In such a boat, then, one lovely September morning, we 

 are rowing easily back to the sloop, which is lying off Bird 

 Bay, a small indentation in the east face of the northernmost 

 point of Spitzbergen. The skin of an old he-bear, half cover- 

 ing the bottom of the boat, proves that we have already earned 

 our breakfasts, but no one is in a hurry. The burnished sur- 

 face of the sea is unmarked by a ripple save where broken by 

 the lazy dip of the oars. Northwards, beyond the bold contour 

 of North Cape, the rugged outlines of the Seven Islands stand 

 out sharply against the blue sky ; behind us the hills of the 

 mainland, dazzling in their covering of new snow, stretch away 

 to the south. Bird Bay and Lady Franklin's Bay are full of 

 fast ice, which must have lain there all the summer, but the 

 blazing sun makes it difficult to see where ice ends and water 

 begins. Around us and to the east the sea is fairly open, 

 except for the flat cakes of ice broken off from the fast ice, 

 and several old sea-worn lumps, which, from their delicate 

 blue colour (sea ice is white), we know have fallen from the 

 glaciers of the east coast, or, perhaps, have travelled from some 

 land, out there beyond Seven Islands, which no man has yet 

 seen. The harpooner is balancing himself, one foot on the 

 forward locker and one on the thwart, examining through a 

 telescope something which appears to be a lump of dirty ice, 

 about half a mile away. Suddenly he closes his glass and 

 seizes the oars. ' Hvalros,' he says, and without another word 



