WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 129 



P. S. All hands have dolphin steak with fried onions for 

 supper. It is not nearly so good as whale meat, but better 

 than cormorant by miles in fact, is quite palatable. 



Who said that the romance of the sea has gone, that 

 steam has driven it away ? But that is not true ; it is just 

 as blue and full of fresh life and romance for all of us as it 

 ever was. The new land or new port is just as new to me as 

 it was to Romans or Carthaginians. 



With every new type of vessel there comes a fresh aspect 

 of the romance of the sea. 



Our new type will revive or open a new chapter of sea life. 

 No more black coal and smoke, but a clean, silent engine, 

 petroleum plus sails ; sails must come back ; look at our run 

 down here, half sails, half motor ; the modern steam- whaler 

 could not have done it, even the old sailing flyers could not 

 either. 



I think we could have converted any disbeliever in the 

 romance of the sea if they'd have come aboard last night, 

 when Henriksen and I had our southern charts out, studying 

 the lonely islands away down there. 



Visiting the islands of the world alone would fill books of 

 sea romance ; think of them, the thousands there are, some 

 of them never visited. Those in the south of the Antarctic 

 edge are described in the Admiralty books we have in such 

 terse, dry words as these : " Of no interest geographically " ; 

 " Dangerous " ; " Only of interest to sealers " ! " Provisions 

 for ship-wrecked crews were deposited by H.M. (? ship) in the 



year " before the Flood ! And they say : " There are only 



kergulen cabbages a red root like a carrot " on one, and wild 

 pigs on another ; and on another the beach is covered with 

 innumerable sea-elephants and penguins. Ghost of Robin- 

 son Crusoe, what else can a man want ? Why, even these 

 islands, the Azores, so close to home, how the prospect of 

 seeing them fills us with eagerness ! What will the hills be 

 like, and the people, and the fruit, and the wine, and birds, 

 and flowers, and fish ! We long to see them with the utmost 

 impatience now that only a narrow strip of rough blue sea 

 lies between us and them, to-night we may fetch its lights 

 to-morrow we will see the land in full sun for a certainty. 

 i 



