WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 163 



The cooking pots worked all night, and in my watch below, 

 half awake, I dreamed of a hundred kitchens cooking beef- 

 tea, then turned over with a sense of great satisfaction at 

 having seen our show well started the motor is going all 

 right and we have proved we can approach whales as well 

 as with a steam-whaler a great satisfaction and have 

 proved we can flense a sperm at sea with such tackle as we 

 have : and both the approach and the flensing before we 

 left home were said to be impossible. 



It is true that our flensing took a long time. But in the 

 case of Right whales, Australis, if we are lucky enough to fall 

 in with them, it will pay at least to take their whalebone 

 at sea if nothing else. 



On the old sailing-ship whaler, with large decks and powerful 

 masts to use tackles from, and a crew of fifty men, more 

 rapid flensing could be made than we can manage with only 

 fifteen all told, including engineers, and a very small ship. 



Our plan now is to try round about the Azores, if the 

 weather is good, for another whale or two, then to proceed to 

 Madeira, about two days' sail I have seen several kinds of 

 whales off its north coast and then hunt south and west of 

 Africa, down to the Cape, and then to the Crozet Islands for 

 seals, or to the Seychelles, north of Madagascar, for sperm 

 and blue whales, and possibly thereafter to New Zealand. 

 Some islands we have information about south of New 

 Zealand for Bone whales or Australis. 



St Ebba got a few more whales in the latitudes of the 

 Azores and Madeira, but the weather got too rough, so she 

 continued southwards. 



Possibly the end of the last chapter was rather oily and 

 whaley, and smelt perhaps a little of filthy lucre. Perhaps 

 I may be allowed, therefore, a chapter on flowers and 

 Madeira a day or two on shore and some tunny-fishing for a 

 change from whale-hunting ; though I must say that no two 

 whale-hunts are quite alike ; each has its particular thrilling 

 interest, more especially the big firmer hunting, for they are 

 ten times more powerful than sperm. But repeated de- 

 scription, without depicting boats flying in the air and whales 

 standing on their heads, and so on, must become tiresome 



