CHAPTER XXIX 



BEFORE we left our last misty anchorage we partook 

 of a meal of both bear and narwhal. The nar- 

 whal's flesh is blacker than an old mushroom, and 

 as food it is only passable. Young bear is our best 

 food, but there is a lot of trouble about preparing it, for we 

 remove all the fat, which has not a good taste. 



This morning one of these little grey seals or floe rats 

 looked at us from astern, and as I plan a motoring coat I 

 felt called upon to deprive it of its pelt, painlessly, after 

 administering a tabloid lead in nickel. I do not think 

 there is any sport in shooting seals without a pucca stalk, 

 still, the skins of these little grey fellows (Vitulina, or are 

 they a new species ?) are too good to leave. I think six will 

 be enough for a coat. I have got three now. 



The flippers of the seals here are highly developed, with 

 distinct claws. In the Antarctic the flippers are less distinctly 

 articulated. The finger-bones are more bound together by 

 ligament, and the claws or nails are scarcely noticeable. 



All day we travelled north and as westerly as possible, 

 trying to get within sight of Greenland, and for once the 

 sun came out and we felt as if we could paint on deck, and 

 did so for a little dead smooth sea, with fine icicles forming 

 and very level fields of ice, with few hummocks, extending 

 to the pigeon-grey ribbed sky on horizon rather monotonous. 

 The guitar was going somewhere on board and most of us 

 cooling our heels in the silence. Only the captive bears 

 seem busy grate, grate, grating at their wooden walls ; 

 one got nearly out last night, when we were off after the 

 narwhal. We saw excited figures jumping about on our 

 foredeck, and when we came alongside there was fierce 

 growling, poor old Port bear being prodded in the back to 

 draw its attention, whilst three seamen struggled to nail on 

 new wood in front of its nose-end of the cage. 



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