WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 127 



who stop dreams nurses, mothers, policemen and preachers. 

 Alas, when you think of it, what genius has perhaps been 

 nipped in the bud by the reprehensible habit of such well- 

 meaning people. Where would art, science and literature be 

 to-day, we reflect, had dreaming not been discouraged by 

 those who took charge of our tender days. Mercifully, with 

 the advance of years, some of us learn to dodge these inter- 

 ruptions by going to sea, perhaps where one may dream or 

 follow out a train of thought, as it were, on the sly. For 

 dreaming is following out a train of thought. Newton 

 dreamed when he saw the apple fall. Mercifully he had got 

 beyond the nursery governess stage, or his line of thought 

 would have been nipped with : " Johnny, do wake up and 

 come along now, don't dawdle there, what are you dreaming 

 about?" Watt managed, on one occasion, to dream on the 

 sly and watched a boiling kettle, and was it not either an 

 Angle or a Saxon chief who dreamed and let cakes burn and 

 so united the tribes of Southern Britain ? Moral, when a 

 small boy dreams over dessert you may morally rap him over 

 the knuckles and he will eat his dessert, but you may have 

 spoiled the greatest mathematical genius of our age. 



So we muse or dream on ocean's bosom, and read a little of 

 monastic times, since we are on the St Ebba, and disagree 

 languidly with Froude's conclusions on Erasmus and Luther, 

 and occasionally we cast an eye round the empty horizon. 

 When suddenly, from starboard, come leaping dolphins, 

 breaking the smooth monotony of the blue water. They 

 sweep to our bows, we dive from bridge to bow, seize the hand 

 harpoon, and all our little community wakens up and collects 

 on our bows. Here they come to starboard ! and we get all 

 clear for a lunge at one no easy matter as our sails are 

 down, and we are doing eight knots by motor and roll heavily. 

 Swish, swish two leap near our bows and the writer nearly 

 goes overboard in an effort to drive the young pine-tree and 

 harpoon home, but it misses by an inch and the frightened 

 dolphins dash astern and come up to port bow as if we were 

 stationary, and so we pass the harpoon over to Henriksen. 

 He waits his chance and drives home a very clever thrust 

 and away goes the line and Henriksen very nearly after it, 



