120 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



wife, who were obliged, by overcrowding, to go steerage, and 

 both these people were helplessly sea-sick, and their poor 

 children just rolled about the floor till the two young seamen 

 took care of them, and held them in their arms all night. 

 The father pressed a whole 1 note on Henriksen, which 

 he refused, as he had plenty of his 3 remaining, but 

 the Englishman was stony, and he was persuaded to take 

 ten shillings, and the parents gave each of them their address. 



Afterwards Henriksen called on them and such a fine 

 house it was ! Henriksen reflects now he might have called 

 on these old friends in Belfast this journey. " They must 

 be old people now. Next time I come to Belfast," he says, 

 " I calls maybe they's in life." 



At Belfast he went on a local tramp, then got berth as 

 second mate, and had twelve months at sea without a day 

 ashore. For it was to Bahia that he went, where you anchor 

 almost out of sight of land. For I forget how many weeks 

 he lay at anchor, then sailed to another port, twelve men 

 in the fo'c'sle, seven with monkeys, the rest with parrots, 

 fancy the racket ! then to Mobile Bay and then back to 

 Troon, " two houses and a wall," as he describes our charm- 

 ing little Scottish seaport, then home to Norway. That is 

 all you sometimes see of foreign parts if you go down to 

 the sea in ships. Nine months at sea with one night ashore 

 is the writer's longest spell of salt water, but Henriksen 

 tells me he knows of a man being twenty-seven months at 

 sea without getting on shore. I think I must make a 

 special book of Henriksen's adventures. As told to me 

 they are interesting, but our surroundings count for a good 

 deal : over a chart in the little lamplit cabin or on our 

 quarter-deck (three steps and overboard), the moon over- 

 head, and our sails looking dark and large, and our ^Eolian 

 engine singing its steadfast song. 



Though only a little south of Ireland, we have the real 

 swell of deep sea ; rolling low hills that leave no level horizon 

 to us, for we are so close to the sea- surface, long, gentle undu- 

 lations that suggest a perfect golf-course for elderly people. 



We have a steady air from the north-east like the Trades. 

 Possibly we may never have to shift a sail till we reach 



