WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 147 



didn't start we would be drowned under the steep cliffs. 

 They have failed us once or twice lately, but this time 

 Hansen did his possible, and poked about, heating the cylinders 

 with the hand furnace, whilst we grew a little cold drifting 

 to the surf and rocks. In half-an-hour he turned on the air 

 and they went off with a welcome clash. All hands must have 

 felt as I did, a great sense of relief when they started, but 

 there wasn't time to speak. The writer took the wheel, 

 whilst Henriksen and his brother made a rapid note in the 

 cabin of the course and position, and we swung round into 

 the rapidly rising sea, heading north to get weathering to 

 round the mountainous west end of the island, and plugged 

 into wind and sea, completely smothering ourselves in foam. 

 The writer, struggling at the wheel on the bridge, had an 

 unconscious impression of the crew below busied in making 

 fast the main-hatch, and stowing away movable objects as 

 best they could in the darkness, and seas that broke over us 

 in wide white bursts, sometimes hiding everything from the 

 bridge except the upper part of our foremast, its shrouds 

 standing out black above the foam, through which we saw 

 faintly the gleam of the galley ports . 



What wild waves broke over us, leaving our deck full of 

 seething foam, with balls of light running about in the form 

 of lumps of phosphorus. The north-east wind and rain 

 tearing past was a little cold, and got down one's back, but 

 every slop of sea on our faces was almost alarmingly hot 

 in contrast to the wind. 



It seems to me that a higher, quicker sea rises in these 

 warm latitudes than in the colder northern or southern high 

 latitudes, in the same time and with same force of wind. 

 Possibly the greater density of the cold water may account 

 for this. 



Not till four-thirty did we make our weathering, and got 

 clear of the island, and safe from what seemed at first to be 

 quite probable destruction. 



By six-thirty A.M. we were past the light on the west end of 

 San Miguel, at least we believed we were it was not visible ; 

 being at an elevation of three hundred feet, it was, of course, 

 obscured by the low clouds ; it is no use putting lighthouses 



