WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 71 



whenever there is anything like " a blow," we swing about 

 in that direction ; rather a charming feeling after the usual 

 experiences of travelling at sea in one dead straight line. It 

 makes you feel as if the ocean really belonged to you, and 

 you are not merely a ticketed passenger sent off by the time- 

 table. 



In the forenoon we fall in with three whalers from Olna 

 Firth, the station of the Salvesens of Leith, and all of his had 

 been scouting in different directions, over hundreds of miles, 

 and not one had seen a spout, and yet where we are, there 

 were numerous whales only a few days ago. Like trout, 

 whales seem to be unaccountably on the rise one day, and 

 utterly disappear the next. So we resort to music and paint- 

 ing. Henriksen plays Grieg on the weather-worn melodeon 

 and the artist paints sea studies. 



At twelve comes a meal, usually called middag-mad on a 

 Norse whaler, Henriksen calls it tiffen. It is simple enough 

 a deep soup plate of hasty pudding (flour and water boiled), 

 on this you spread sugar half-an-inch thick, and then half-a- 

 packet of cinnamon, on your left you have a mug of tinned 

 milk and water, on your right a spoon, and you buckle to and 

 eat perhaps half-way through or till you feel tired ; it is 

 awfully good ; then you eat smoked raw herrings in oil 

 from a large tin, black bread, margarine and coffee, such 

 good coffee. I'd defy anyone to be hungry afterwards or 

 ill-content. Dolphins pass us and we pick up a drifting rudder. 

 Henriksen sniffs at its workmanship and says : " Made in 

 Shetland," so I quote the Norse saying: "The family is 

 the worst, as the fox said of the red dog." 



However, I suppose we will stay out till we do find whales 

 or finish coal. It almost looks as if whales could stay below 

 and sleep. One day's blank waiting seems a long time from 

 three A. M. to eleven or twelve P.M. We growl together on 

 the bridge, skipper, self, man at wheel and the cook. There 

 is no hard-and-fast distinction of rank on a Norwegian 

 whaler's bridge, and Henriksen counts up our mileage, one 

 hundred and sixty-nine since last night. " We might be 

 having cream and fruit in Bergen," he remarks; we are 

 about half-way across, and we all wish we were there. 



