76 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



eerie sough in our scanty wire rigging. We bury our bows. 

 For five minutes our faces pour with rain and spray, the next 

 five we dry and shiver in the cold and early sun, and vainly 

 search the horizon for a whale. We think, almost with 

 regret, of warm rooms in town in the South. There is no 

 rest anywhere, aft or forward, or on the bridge, and we plug 

 on northwards, and there's never a blow anywhere in this 

 useless bit of the world. It requires extreme sestheticism to 

 see beauty in such cold water and sky, and hope to see sun- 

 shine through these squalls. We peg away in silence ; 

 yesterday, we could talk ; to-day it is too cold. We bury 

 our hands in our pockets and weep with the sting in our eyes. 

 Yesterday, we discussed, as far as we could, the reason why 

 whales suddenly will not rise ; like trout, they do so one day 

 and not the next, but unlike the trout-fisher, who is usually 

 ready with a theory to explain the lethargy of trout, our 

 Norse whaler simply says : " I doan know ; der yesterday 

 now gone ; vee go vest hoondred twenty mile p'r'aps vee find 

 'em der." 



By midday we are thirty miles beyond the limit and are 

 going west, and the day seems to have regretted its angry 

 rising and is now making amends to us by putting on all its 

 best things. The colour of the water has turned from dull 

 lead to sunny emerald-green with belts of purple, and over it 

 all is a lacework of lavender, the tracery of reflected sky, 

 picked here and there with white sea caps. A jolly exhilar- 

 ating sea occasionally comes on board, and rollicks sparkling 

 round our deck, full of good intention, and we make it 

 welcome and enjoy it, and let bygones be bygones and pre- 

 tend to forget it is not always in such a jolly mood. 



I knew we would get sun and warmth out N.W. ; there is 

 a space of ocean if you can only find it just between W. and 

 E. that is always sunny and full of whales. I know it, but 

 cannot give exact latitude and longitude ; that is why it is 

 so hard to find, but you are sure to strike it in time ; so 

 probably we will do so again to-day. We are getting the 

 sun now, we only need the whales, and a little less sea for 

 pleasure and comfort. 



The writer and the skipper were discussing the colours of 



