50 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



board, with steam and the wind aft. I'd be in Leith before 

 many hours, then with Old Crow and the dogs on dry stubble. 

 Just the day this for shore, and partridges, or to look for 

 hares on St Abb's Head. 



One or two of the crew are reviving this afternoon, though 

 it is still very rough, but the first engineer, a Swede, is still 

 very sick. 



One of the crew this morning told me as he steered : 

 " Dem mens forward all seek, but me no seek, so I have six 

 eggs to mineself " ; but he looked pale, and in a minute or two 

 he gave the wheel to me and went to the side of the bridge and 

 came back wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and 

 took the spokes again, muttering: "Fordumna, now I'se 

 loss dem." Such details of life at sea you find in the 

 Argonautica ; they give colour and conviction ; only the 

 Argonauts in their days were laid out on the beach with too 

 much purple wine. 



Yesterday morning about four we tried the engine, but the 

 Swede could not start it. Either he had let the compressed- 

 air supply run out or water had collected and blew into first 

 cylinder or or anyway, sick or well, all hands had to pump 

 on till late last night, and only raised pressure to over sixty 

 pounds and it requires to come up to one hundred and fifty. 



Henriksen has been saying the wind is going to moderate 

 by such and such a time ; when I see a sky such as this round 

 the horizon, with haze and cold, I give several days of 

 gale. 



It is very wearisome ; Henriksen is pretty quiet. At 

 breakfast we have each half-a-cup of coffee ! We are simply 

 drifting across this shallow and somewhat dangerous sea, 

 sometimes called the German Ocean, a crablike course to 

 Yorkshire coast, or will it be St Abb's Head we are to knock 

 against if the wind does not change or the engine go ? 



It would be an interesting point to get wrecked at, for I've 

 a bet on that the lifeboat a lady started there won't save ten 

 lives in the next ten years. It is only allowed out if the 

 wind is off shore and if the cox first gets her leave. It 

 costs 700 yearly to keep it up, for motor-slip, man's 

 house and storehouses. Seven hundred pounds per year 



