BAD NEWS. 
259 
care had been to inquire how the ice was lying this 
year to the northward, and I had certainly been told 
that the season was a very bad one, and that most of 
the sloops that go every summer to kill sea-horses 
(i. e. walrus) at Spitzbergen, being unable to reach the 
land, had returned empty handed, but as three weeks 
of better weather had intervened since their discomfiture, 
I had quite reassured myself with the hope, that in 
the meantime the advance of the season might have 
opened for us a passage to the island. 
This news of Wilson’s quite threw me on my back 
again. The only consolation was, that probably it was 
not true; so immediately after dinner we boarded the 
honest Sea-horseman who was reported to have brought 
the dismal intelligence. He turned out to be a very 
cheery intelligent fellow of about five-and-thirty, six 
feet high, with a dashing “ devil-may-care ” manner 
that completely imposed upon me. Charts were got out, 
and the whole state of the case laid before me in the 
clearest manner. Nothing could be more unpromising. 
The sloop had quitted the ice but eight-and-forty hours 
before making the Norway coast; she had not been 
able even to reach Bear Island. Two hundred miles 
