58 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



He'd been chasing for a long time and fired at a whale, as 

 he thought, but could not see where the harpoon went for the 

 smoke. " Have I got the beggar ? " he said, turning round 

 to the Jap at the wheel. " Yes, captain, veree good shot." 

 The smoke cleared and a moak or gull lay with its head off, 

 a bight of the forego had chopped it off ; the Jap on bridge 

 had seen no whale and thought the captain fired at the gull. 

 The gunner's expletives followed, and he threw his hat over- 

 board, and stamped and swore accordingly. 



And now here we are tied up, waiting again in Lerwick 

 in September, and on the 1st of June we should have started 

 fishing between Iceland and South Greenland, at a place we 

 know there are certain to be the small but valuable Atlantic 

 Right whale, Biscayensis, or Nord-Capper, as the Norse 

 call it, a small edition of the Greenland Bowhead or 

 Mysticetus (see page 26). 



We waited and waited all that August in Norway, our 

 grouse - shooting has gone, and now partridges are going, 

 and we wait still. This last wait is due to an entanglement 

 in red tape, a difficulty in getting our vessel registered here. 

 We have the British Consul's form of registration, a tem- 

 porary affair from Norway, that has to be renewed here. 



Soon after dropping anchor those agreeable and necessary 

 officials, the Customs officers, came on board, in oilskins, 

 which they discarded, disclosing blue jumpers and his 

 Majesty's brass buttons, all showing the effect of the climate, 

 and they set to work overhauling our stores most carefully. 

 If officials are to be maintained work must be found for them 

 and we must all pay ; we have assisted the Norwegian and 

 British governments incalculably for weeks and months past. 

 They earn their country's pay by overhauling poor mariners' 

 tobacco and provender, only intended to be chewed and eaten 

 far away in the North or the Southern Seas. Their chief, I 

 knew at once, came from our west or north coast, by his soft 

 accent, which was much to my taste ; how much there must 

 be in a voice if it makes even a seafarer almost welcome a 

 Customs officer ! 



As he opened the stores and checked coffee and tobacco, we 

 " tore tartan " a little. I said my heart was in Argyll but 



