WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 41 



South Atlantic. Once I had to swim in it, and do not wish 

 to do so again, and it's one bite from a sea-elephant or 

 sea-leopard and good-bye to your arm or leg. 



We now have salted ox on board, oxen grown at Kjolo 

 and salted down last winter by Henriksen ; and Larsen, the 

 neighbour, brought us vegetables. He is almost a giant, and 

 as he stood in our flat-bottomed dory with two men rowing 

 he made a picture to be remembered, for he was surrounded 

 by lance shafts, sacks of potatoes, red carrots and white 

 onions, so that the dory was down to the water's edge ! I 

 prayed she might not upset. Larsen himself stood amidships 

 with three enormous green balloons in his arms such giant 

 cabbages I have never seen before each seven-and-a-half 

 kilos (fifteen pounds), in weight, the result of whale guano. 



The children of the neighbourhood played on our decks ; 

 Henriksen's two boys and daughter soon knew every corner 

 of the ship, just as he learned every part of his father's vessel 

 when he lay at Kjolo, only in those days there were higher 

 masts to climb, and yards to lie out on, and tops to pause in, 

 to admire the view and get courage to go higher. Our crow's 

 nest on our pole-foremast is the highest they can attain to 

 on the St Ebba. The aftermast or mainmast, I suppose I 

 should call it, as we are schooner rigged is of hollow iron cut 

 short above the top (this is technical, not a bull) ; this forms 

 the exhaust from the engine. You see only a little vapour, 

 still, it does seem a trifle odd even to see faint smoke 

 coming out of a mast! We will rig up topmasts in the 

 South Seas, and have topsails in fine winds and the Trades, 

 when we do not need the motor, and will then look quite 

 conventional. 



Here is a photograph of some of the children that play on 

 our decks and round about the St Ebba in boats. They are 

 of the sea. " It is in the blood," as Mrs Henriksen replied to 

 me when I asked her how she got accustomed to her husband's 

 long voyages and absence from home. It is their tradition 

 to go to sea, and Elinor, Henriksen's daughter, will be sur- 

 prised if her brothers William and Henrik do not follow their 

 father to sea in a few years. In ancient days it was the same 

 here, womenfolk thought little of the men who had not done 



