AN AUTUMN VISIT TO SPITZBERGEN. 439 



morning. A Norwegian " skjoite," * belonging to Aalesund, 

 Norwa} r , which had been beating up for the Middle Hook on the 

 21st, and had followed us in here, found herself in very shallow 

 water, and had to get out both her boats and tow out to a fresh 

 berth. She is a white-whaler, but has only twenty-five on board. 

 She relieved our minds as to the fate of the crew of a smack, under 

 the command of a man named Ingebretsen, whom we had heard, 

 from some of the smacksmen we met in Green Harbour, were 

 drowned. He had lost his vessel between Prins Carl's Foreland 

 and the mainland, and going off in his boat was finalby picked up 

 by a smack at Middle Hook, Bel Sound, and his boat lies on 

 shore there now. The skipper of the ' Skjoite' paid us a visit ; 

 he was up as far as Vogelsang about six weeks previously (that is 

 about a fortnight or three weeks subsequently to the attempt of 

 Capt. Palander and the Swedish Meteorological Expedition to get 

 to the north coast), and found fast pack-ice everywhere to the north. 

 Rain continued, with short intervals, throughout the afternoon ; 

 about 3 p.m. the wind began to blow again rough from south. 



September 24. — Soon after midnight the rain turned to snow, 

 and the wind fell calm, but at 6 a.m. violent squalls began every 

 few minutes from the west ; found the deck, &c, at this hour 

 white with snow. Squalls during forenoon so violent from every 

 point of the compass as to blow the buckets about the deck, and 

 sometimes to spin the ship round. When on deck at 6, saw five 

 young Mandt's Guillemots and a family of Eiders. About noon 

 many Fulmars, perhaps fifty or sixty, or more, wheeling about 

 high in the air, apparently about to start south. I also saw at 

 that time a young Kittiwake, and watched the two fox cubs on the 

 'Skjoite' playing on the boat reversed on her deck. Arnesen 

 went to the ' Skjoite' to try if he could buy the cubs for me, but 

 the Skipper would not part with them, as he wanted them as a 

 present for his owner. He had also on board, alive, a Pink-footed 

 and Brent gosling. Meanwhile M. Rabot, from the deck, shot a 

 young Mandt's Guillemot and two young Glaucous Gulls ; a third 

 (all these three were young of the year) settled on the water, and 



* A "skjoite" would be included in English under the generic name 

 " dandy." They are like schooners, except that the mainmast, instead of 

 being taller than the foremast, is about half the size, and the sails to 

 correspond. 



