180 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



for my friend C. A. Hamilton of Cochno, and Dunmore, 

 Stirlingshire, and myself; we have done a little whaling 

 together, and he gave me his good company a few years ago 

 through the rough and smooth of hunting black bear and 

 caribou in the barrens of Newfoundland. The rest of our 

 party were four Spaniards, one of whom, F. J. de Gisbert, 

 made the bundabust for this voyage, chartered our diminu- 

 tive whaler, at Tromso, provisioned her and arranged about 

 captain and a Norwegian crew. De Gisbert is to lead the 

 proposed Spanish National Polar Expedition, and is at 

 present building his vessel, which ought to be second to none, 

 as a floating oceanographical laboratory and ice-ship. It is 

 to be a four or five years' drift across the Polar basin east to 

 west, somewhat after the manner of the Nansen expedition, 

 benefiting from their work, and carrying out still further 

 observations with a staff of Spanish naval scientists specially 

 trained in the various branches of natural science in the 

 high northern latitudes. 



It is a long road to North-East Greenland by Tromso 

 and the north of Norway, and so many people are familiar 

 with the Norwegian coast that the reader may care to 

 make one jump right north and join us on the Fonix, a few 

 hours out from Tromso to join our rather curious little 

 party in the cabin of a very small whaler ; so we will avoid 

 wearisome detail in the latter part of this book about fitting 

 out our vessel, such as those with which I have perhaps 

 burdened the first part about our St Ebba. 



So we raise the curtain in the cabin of the Fonix; De 

 Gisbert and Archie Hamilton are at chess, whilst the writer 

 and our young Spanish comarados, two brothers Herrero and 

 their cousin, Don Herrero Velasquez, are playing cards, draw- 

 ing, and speaking in French, English, and Spanish, separately 

 or all at the same time. 



To add to the vocabulary, Svendsen, our skipper, comes 

 in with his collar up, from the cold outside, and taking 

 Gisbert 's guitar trolls out Norse sea- songs. Three of us 

 " touch " the guitar, and we also have bagpipes and a mouth- 

 organ. It promises to be quite a homely and musical party. 



The engine goes beautifully quietly but we know from 



