72 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



Henriksen says, by way of consolation : " Well, I was once six 

 months whaling for Japs off the Korean coast, and I never saw 

 a fin, and fine weather just like this " ; and I tell him of our 

 being surrounded in the Antarctic with hundreds of whales 

 up to and over a hundred feet in length without sufficiently 

 strong tackle to catch them ; don't we both long for one of 

 these huge Southern fellows in this empty ocean. 



At evening meal, or aften-mad, are potatoes, tinned meat 

 and anchovies, bread, butter and coffee, and we feel vexed that 

 we do not have whale steak and onions as we expected. The 

 cook explains that owing to warm weather his last supply 

 went bad, a grievous disappointment, for whale meat is 

 worth travelling far to eat 1 ; it is superior to the best beef, 

 in this way, that after eating it you always feel inclined for 

 more. The evening we wiled away by making an invention 

 to kill mackerel, of course keeping a keen watch all the time 

 for a blow. Mackerel shoals appeared in every direction in 

 patches, rippling the smooth sea for miles. Our plan, inside 

 the three-mile limit may sound infernal ; a hundred miles out 

 it didn't seem so wicked, especially as we had keen appetites 

 for fresh fish. We filled a quart bottle half full of gunpowder, 

 put a cork and foot of fuse into it, slung a piece of iron under 

 it, lit the fuse and dropped it into a shoal of mackerel, and 

 sheered off. The result ought to have been lots of stunned 

 fish. A little thread of smoke came quietly up through the 

 falling sea and then nothing happened ! a faulty fuse, we 

 supposed. We tried a dynamite cartridge and fuse later, but 

 the fish had gone, and of course, it went off ; and gave our 

 little whaler a knock underneath as if with a hammer, then 

 we hove to, and all went asleep, and the Haldane watched 

 alone in the half light of the Northern night for a few hours. 



At three A.M. Sunday, we were under steam again, the day 

 very grey and the wind rising slightly from W. by S. " Like 

 to be vind," said a young, blue-eyed Viking with long fair hair 

 and a two-weeks' beard, but I doubted it ; youth is appre- 

 hensive or too sanguine age is indifferent. Which is best ? 



We are heading west again, east to west and back again 

 and north and south, we go in any direction we fancy, but 

 1 Far the best whale to eat is the Seihvale Balaenoptera Borealis. 



