THE DREAMER. 
165 
we begin to suspect the presence of another whale, 
when the boy Jack cries out, “A whale, a whale ! ” 
and receives condign punishment forthwith. This 
boy in his sleep often starts up with the same wild 
cry, in spite of the regular correction he receives 
from his father in whose bunk he sleeps. We sail 
along, passing through narrow strips of ice into inner 
lakes of open water, the ice growing larger as we pro¬ 
ceed ; the hard snow-covered surface occasionally 
rising into hummocks as we go. Here are floes of 
ice twenty miles in circumference, and fields of ice of 
several acres in extent. We see numbers of narwhals, 
but all our efforts to capture them as they swim north¬ 
ward prove unavailing. Next day we are forced to 
wait patiently at one place for a considerable time, 
and remembering the experience we had gained on 
a previous occasion we watch anxiously for the coming 
of some sleepy narwhal into our own scrap of open 
water. The hours seem to drag along wearily as 
we wait, and it is in the midst of our patient wait¬ 
ing the man from the nest aloft suddenly announces 
the presence of a polar bear, probably attracted 
towards us by his keen scent. As there is a likeli¬ 
hood of the chase being a protracted one we make 
all our arrangements with fitting care ; our rifles are 
examined, and the men provide a rope and haak- 
