WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 211 



bear as it looked at us approaching in the boat, and long 

 before Ursus showed any fatigue from swimming and roaring. 



Then there was wild work in the boat getting the strop 

 round its waist oaths and foam, and flying ropes donkey- 

 engine roars from the bear shouts from the men steam, 

 and bear's hot breath, all mixed up. But out it came, only 

 as strong perhaps as two or three wild horses, and we managed 

 to drop it into the top of the cage, hauling its head down 

 with the lasso rove through the bottom bars of the cage, and 

 banged down battens on top, with great eight-inch nails 

 driven in, by six or seven strong Vikings, Gisbert leading 

 and having all they could do. Then we cut the lasso and 

 he was free of the loop in a second or two. So we have two 

 live bears now, possibly polar cousins. The first is to port, 

 the second to starboard of main-hatch, and their deep voices 

 give a strong accompaniment to our progression. They 

 have no qualms about eating ; they tear the timber of their 

 cage and eat seal's fat from our hand alternately. 



It is my early watch to-day, three A.M. to nine A.M., till 

 welcome coffee-time. There is nothing doing, no whale's spout 

 and no bears appear. Still one never knows, so Olaus paces 

 the foredeck with his hands deep in his pockets and Larsen 

 works away quietly at the bear meat, taking off every bit of 

 the fat, so that it will be good for our table. I write in our 

 little chart-room on the bridge, with a view all round of floes 

 of ice extending right round the horizon ; we are anchored 

 to one in its shelter. The wind is falling and it is very 

 quiet ; there is the lap, lap of the small waves against the 

 green edge of the floe, the tweet, tweet of some ivory gulls, 

 and the homely barn-door-fowl-like cluck, cluck of the 

 fulmar petrels, as they squabble and splutter under the 

 stern for scraps of food, not forgetting the frequent low, deep 

 growls of the bear we lassoed last night. His companion, 

 our first capture, is asleep, possibly dreaming that it is free, 

 poor fellow ! So I study my immediate surroundings with- 

 out interruption. A flight of ivory gulls has just come and 

 has lit beside us on the floe. They are white as this paper 

 and yet not quite so white as snow ; they have dark beaks 

 and feet and black eyes, so what you see when they stand in 



