90 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



sea-boots under the kelp before he had time to strike a light. 

 He came up all right, but four of his crew stayed down ; 

 that was recently. And my friend Sorrensen, engineer of 

 the Haldane, told me comfortingly last year, as we chatted 

 in the warm engine-room one dismal, dark, rough night, 

 when we were trying to find land, that on his last whaling 

 trip to Iceland, in making land in a gale of snow and wind, 

 " on a night like this," he observed a large rock suddenly 

 protrude itself through his engine-room floor, which finished 

 his trip for that year. " Yes, yes, two tree skip do so," he 

 said. 



The wonder really is that more accidents are not met with. 

 The whale's head is such a weight of bone ; the pointed mass 

 on the upper jaw or beak meeting the huge bent bones of the 

 lower make a most formidable ram. 



Another close shave there was the other day. A 



tried to lance a whale in its death-struggle from the little 

 steamer's bows. We have tried this ourselves with and 

 without success. On this occasion the whale raised its huge 

 flipper, swung it across the gun at the bow, which was loaded 

 with the harpoon in it, and its muzzle was thrown round so 

 heavily that the harpoon was shot out on deck and the shell 



exploded. No one was hurt, but A 's oilskin coat had 



holes torn in it between his legs and so on. . . . 



By eight P.M. we had eaten our whale steak (meals are at any 

 hour or no hour when you are whaling), discussed the latest 

 type of whaler, Captain Larsen's three-gun boat, and had 

 given up that wily old dodger of a finner, and now we peg 

 away over the blue sea to the N.E. The sun swings round 

 with us to dip quite near the north, whilst we wait and rest 

 until it comes up again in a few hours to form our gallery. 

 True, we have another companion beside the few petrels. 

 The Busta, our sister ship, is in the offing. She also has a 

 whale alongside ; we can make it out with the glasses as she 

 rises over a blue surge; and as I write, far to the west I 

 descry an almost invisible smoke, which I hope is a boat of 

 our Alexandra Company, the Queen, or the Haldane. 



At nine-thirty the sun slants below the horizon and the 

 colour display begins toning down to soft, warm light in the 



