WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 205 



De Gisbert's experience is similar; he has only killed 

 females with small horns or no horns. But with the be- 

 ginner's luck, a friend of his in his first season in the Arctic 

 Count Thurn got one with an immense horn of splendid 

 ivory ; we must have patience then. Does the reader know 

 what they do with these horns ? No one here can give a 

 definite opinion. Scoresby, the celebrated English Green- 

 land whaler and scientific observer, suggests that it may be 

 used for killing fish for their food. He found a portion of 

 skate inside one, and as they have small mouths and no 

 teeth, he concluded the horn must have been used to kill 

 the skate. His undoubted ability and his education in 

 science in Edinburgh University give considerable weight 

 to his conclusion. 



The little excitement of narwhal-hunting broke the still- 

 ness of rather a monotonous evening of mist and fine rain. 

 Pretty enough, though, for a little sunlight penetrates the 

 mist, giving the snow the faintest warm flesh tint, a pleasing 

 contrast to the green and blue underside of the snow blocks 

 on the floe to which we are anchored. We can study these 

 delicate snow tints through our cabin door, as we sit at 

 meals, always hoping that a whale may blow in the still 

 water, or a bear may cross the delicate tints of the middle 

 distance. Our language at table is in Spanish, French, and 

 Norwegian. Archie and I sometimes speak in our Doric for 

 a change. The talk is generally about whaling or hunting 

 of various kinds ; here and there, east, west, north, south, 

 Norway, Alaska, Bohemia, Arctic or Antarctic, with a certain 

 amount of more or less scientific discussion about natural 

 history and the elements. De Gisbert is the hub or centre 

 of the party ; he drops from one language to the other with 

 the greatest ease. We talk a good deal about the coming 

 Spanish National Polar Scientific Expedition which he is 

 to lead, and to which the writer is asked to give a " Scotch 

 escort " to a point with an unpronounceable name east of 

 the Lena river ; no polar sprint this, but a serious effort 

 to read the inmost secrets of the North Polar basin, by every 

 means known to modern science. An attempt to find answers 

 to all the riddles put before mankind, the why and wherefore 



