WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 299 



(Is bjorn) and ice-floes, but I think they were more fetched 

 by a picture of the Fonix, done this morning, of the effect 

 yesterday morning at three o'clock in the gale. I daresay 

 they realised from it what sort of a life their poor dad leads 

 sometimes at sea. 



By the way, it was not a dangerous gale, though tiresome 

 and uncomfortable. But to show how differently things 

 strike people, I heard that our two youngest Spaniards, who 

 spent all night on the bridge, apparently as jolly as could be, 

 chatting and laughing, believed all the time the ship would 

 very likely go down plucky of them, I think. And yet 

 again, when we were in danger of being pinched be- 

 tween two ice-floes a few days previously, they were joy- 

 ously potting skuas and gulls on the floe, without an idea 

 of the danger, whilst the writer was hopping about like a hen 

 on a hot girdle, with apprehension. 



Hamilton will not look at this picture, it makes him simply 

 squirm, which is rather flattering to the artist. Just now he 

 says: " It is too beastly like." I must show him it again, 

 perhaps after many days say in a London or Clydebank 

 fog in November. Perhaps pleasure will then be what past 

 pain was. 



