268 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



museum ; still, there is always some small corner in a house 

 or studio where such things may be stowed to serve as 

 reminders of days in the open. 



There is very fine ice forming on the still water; the 

 surface looks as if it had a scum of liquid like melted sugar 

 in an imperceptible form of ice. Other parts are covered 

 with more developed ice- crystals. There is a pleasant, soft, 

 rustling sound, or hissing, as we go through it. 



We have a seal or two in view a hooded-seal we have just 

 got. Don Luis Velasquez made a very pretty shot at its 

 neck at a hundred yards. Now there is a larger kind, a mile 



or two off in our line of route ; Gisbert will have a shot at it. 

 This thin ice forming now is pleasant enough, but the same 

 formation, if we were here a little later, would make us 

 anxious to get out and off home before it got too strong. 

 There is really colouring in the sky this midnight, sun 

 reflections, salmon and pink the first decidedly warm 

 colours we have seen since leaving Tromso. Some of the 

 ice-blocks assume strange tints, one piece with dark lilac 

 pillars supporting the portal of a cave with three arched 

 entrances each fringed with icicles inside a glory of greens 

 and blues. Did fairies live in this cold land, such should be 

 their palace. 



