148 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



very high, as witness Sumburgh Head, south of Shetland ; 

 I have been within two miles of it in clear water, and it was 

 invisible in the clouds above, and we only heard its bray ! 



Then our guiding angel, to play with us, stopped our engine. 

 But in spite of her, we got it to go again, and crept into the 

 lee of San Miguel, on one or two groggy cylinders, and 

 rolled about in the downpour of rain, and the poor engineers 

 are now sweating again to get even one cylinder to take us 

 back to Delgada, where we will have an overhaul ; and 

 Henriksen and I, poring over our sodden chart and the well- 

 washed cabin amongst sea-boots and oilskins cast aside this 

 morning, decide that the weather of the Azores is not suited 

 for whaling at this time of the year. If there were harbours 

 or bays or lochs such as we have in Shetland we would stick 

 here, but long, black nights to windward of islands, with 

 strong gales starting from anywhere, and only one day in 

 five smooth enough for even our St Ebba to whale in, " is 

 not good enough." 



Now the engine is going ; bravo, stick to it ! Very, very 

 slowly and gingerly with three cylinders we crawl away 

 with a fearful roll to Delgada again. 



But the day fades before we get opposite Ponta Delgada, 

 a yellow sunset and rain clouds and cumuli to west, the pin- 

 point of light on W. of the island beginning to show, and 

 another pin-point on Delgada about ten miles to windward, 

 so we stop engines, hoist foresail, and drift, rolling very 

 gently and quietly, waiting for dawn, and the local pilot's 

 awakening ; we could go into the breakwater ourselves, but 

 his services are compulsory. 



All is very quiet and peaceful to-night, and no references 

 are made to last night. Sailors have nerves as well as other 

 folk, and I daresay all on board will take a day or two to 

 recover from the excitement and drenching, and the bitter, 

 nauseating feeling of being up against one's end on a storm- 

 beaten coast in black night. I have a curious feeling that 

 even writing about such a recent and painful situation is 

 almost indelicate. To put in time Henriksen draws on his 

 recollection of killers or grampuses attacking a whale, and I 

 help it with what I have seen of a similar incident. He saw 



