182 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



I was never with such a musical party. The steward also 

 plays the guitar, and, with a wire arrangement attached to its 

 neck, holds a melodeon or mouth-organ to his mouth and 

 makes a very clever but horrible orchestral effect. 



To-day, the 7th of July, Monday, we are into calmer water, 

 grey sky and cold we passed a little ice at night and met 

 our first ivory gull, it is the harbinger of the North Polar 

 regions, as the white petrel down South tells of the ice edge. 

 Last night we drew lots for watches, Hamilton and I take 

 ours together we take the second six hours watch Don 

 Jose and his brother Don Luis l take the first six hours, and 

 their cousin, Don Luis 2 and De Gisbert take the third ; this 

 arrangement allows us a change of six hours each day. The 

 idea is that the two on watch are to risk their lives against 

 any whale, bear or ferocious animal that may turn up on 

 their watch. To cheer us up on this somewhat quiet evening, 

 Gisbert yarned to us about his previous trips to the Arctic ; 

 and told us about some of the ice-protected vessels that lay 

 round us in Tromso. One of them, the smallest, a mere 

 twenty-tonner, with a crow's nest at its short foremast, 

 he told us, came back from the ice single-handed a year ago ! 

 Another, a yacht-like auxiliary schooner, with fiddle bows, but 

 heavily protected, a year or two ago was up at the west ice 

 that is, east of Greenland with a party of Germans. They 

 became overdue and a search party in another small vessel 

 set out, which called at Jan Mayen Island on the way north, 

 but found no signs of the lost party ; so they pursued their 

 way north into the floes hunted about till they burst their 

 ship up, and only one man returned. On comparing dates 

 the first party was found to have actually called on their 

 return journey at Jan Mayen and left only twelve hours 

 before the relief party called. A letter left at the hut on the 

 island to this effect would have saved fifteen lives of the 

 rescue party. 



As we are going to the "West Ice," north-east of Green- 

 land, such stories give a sense of anticipated troubles to 

 our little trip if, however, one only thought of the dangers 

 of life, who would go motoring or eat a fish or go to bed ? 



1 Don Jose and Don Luis Gongolez Herrero, 



2 Don Luis Herrero Velasquez, 



