264 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



noose off their heads with their paws so quickly that there 

 was not time to haul taut. 



Now there is a frightful row going on ; the two cubs are 

 roped alongside and the two seniors on board, all are shouting : 

 "B-e-a-r, b-e-a-r, w-augh, w-augh, b-e-a-r." Holy smoke! 

 It is as if half-a-dozen zoos were in chorus and were shouting 

 for dinner; it is a frightfully tiresome, irritating sound, 

 arranged so by Nature, I suppose. No mother bear could 

 shut her ears to it, were she alive. The two cubs, each on a 

 line, are swimming ; they seem to prefer the water to the floe- 

 edge. A huge mushroom of ice, pale blue and of exquisite 

 form, drifted alongside, and the young male cub got on to it 

 and it slowly turned over how he swore and gnashed at 

 his rope ; but what exquisite delicate colours, the bears, 

 the ice, and the reflections make. They are brother and 

 sister ; the brother is the stronger and makes, if possible, 

 more row than his sister in their struggles for liberty. But 

 he threatened his sister, thought it was all her fault. He 

 was swimming behind her and made a pretence at biting her ; 

 she did not argue, simply turned, and in a second put her four 

 white teeth into his cheek and the yellow face flushed with 

 blood and he said no more. So they go on complaining 

 together or alternately to us and to all nature. Now the 

 little woman goes on to the floe-edge blown, wheezing and 

 puffing how she tugs violently at the rope, a faint primrose 

 heap of impotent anger and wretchedness spurning the white 

 snow. " Bear " or " Be-waugh " in bear language must 

 mean " Mother, why don't you come to help us ? " The 

 sea is red with poor mother from our scuppers. Her skin is 

 off her pathetic-looking red body, to decorate the boudoir 

 of some lady of Spain. 



To condescend to the base commercial aspect of our 

 hunting, a living bear is undoubtedly of much greater value 

 than a dead bear's skin, yet I believe our joy would em- 

 phatically be greater were our four live bears dead, for apart 

 from the natural fear of our lives, should either of the larger 

 couple get out, we have to endure their ghastly chorus at all 

 hours. 



Hamilton, being nearest, perhaps suffers more than some of 



