WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 63 



doing well ; he had some harbour office and was neatly 

 dressed his name was Tulloch. I must meet him again and 

 have a yarn when there is more leisure. 



We have additional worry here besides the registration. 

 We have to have our vessel remeasured to satisfy our Board 

 of Trade. I fear it gave the registrar some trouble to come 

 from Aberdeen in rough weather, and he was very sick ; if 

 his eye ever falls on these lines, here are my thanks and sym- 

 pathy. If we had gone to him at Aberdeen he would have 

 put us into dry dock and kept us for weeks, but here we knew 

 there were no dry docks. 



At this point in our proceedings the writer left the St Ebba 

 and took the high road over the island, and left the measure- 

 ment business to Henriksen, for that is a matter that re- 

 quired tact and patience rather than the English language. 

 I went to see my friend R. C. Haldane, who has the property 

 of Lochend on Colla Firth, also to see our Alexandra 

 whaling station there, of which this writer is a Director. I 

 hardly dare mention this in Lerwick for the herring-fishers 

 are jealous of whalers whaling, they say, has spoiled their 

 herring-fishing and yet the herring-fishing is better than it 

 ever was ! The fact is, if the Man in the Moon made a half- 

 penny more than they did, at his trade, which I am told is 

 cutting sticks, they would eat their fingers off. Being 

 numerically superior to us whalers they carry the vote and 

 so our Government has forbidden us to kill whales within forty 

 miles of our Shetland shores during the best of the season, whilst 

 any Dane, Dago or Dutchman may kill them up to the three- 

 mile limit ! 



