PETEBHEAD S1EAMEBS. 
129 
very small quantity of coal per diem, and carry in 
anticipation of a cargo of oil, a store of coal in the 
oil tanks. Such vessels are necessarily costly, being 
constructed to steam and sail whenever the occasion 
may demand it. Owners of steam-vessels or of 
sailing crafts suffer from want of some such combi¬ 
nations ; and although on some voyages such vessels 
make a lucrative venture, there is no question about 
the greater value of a sailing-steamer in these Arctic 
seas, adapted as well for one purpose as the other. 
Ordinary masses of ice offer no opposition to the 
whaler under steam, and beyond the shock to the 
system of the sailor, who is not ready when the look¬ 
out man calls out, “ Hold fast! ” there is rarely any 
perceptible injury done to the craft itself. 
Hurrying towards the north, we overhaul two more 
Peterhead steamers, and early on the 12th a Nor¬ 
wegian brig hove in sight. Her beams would serve 
for the timbers of an old line of battle ship. She is 
put together so stoutly that we cannot but admire her 
bows, iron-bound, and having great sheets of iron 
overlaying her on either hand. She was clean— i.e. 
empty—and her captain was the true type of a 
Norwegian, tall and handsome ; and though his fea¬ 
tures were bronzed by exposure to the Arctic atmo¬ 
sphere, which has the same effect upon the skin as the 
