24 BRIG " NOEDBTE." 



Tonsberg, the same brig I liad met last summer 

 amongst the Thousand Islands, and whose 

 master had initiated me into the exciting sport 

 of harpooning the walrus. I recognised the 

 portly form of Captain Ericson — very like a 

 "stour cobbe," or large seal himself — on the 

 deck, and requested him to come on board to 

 dinner, an invitation with which he promptly 

 complied. The " Nordbye " had left Tonsberg 

 in the Christiania Fiord in Eebruary, for the 

 seal-fishery in the great ice-field in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Jan May en's Island, and, having 

 been unlucky there, had only lately come to 

 Spitzbergen as a dernier ressort, in hopes of 

 making up a cargo; she is an unwieldy tub 

 of about 200 tons, with five boats and twenty- 

 four men, and is far too small for the north- 

 western fishery, as she is unable to hoist or 

 turn over a dead whale ; while, on the other 

 hand, she is too big for the Spitzbergen seal 

 and walrus fishery, as no one locality is gene- 

 rally able to employ five boats at a time, and 

 his crew are consequently only half employed. 

 Ericson told us that the spring fishery at Jan 

 May en's had been very unsuccessful and very 

 disastrous ; many vessels had gone home 

 "clean;" several Scotch and Norwegian vessels 



