Already in the first quarter of the century the fjords and 
bays of this west coast were the scene of vast whaling en¬ 
deavor; and in 1607 Hudson, the English voyageur, on his 
search for a trans-Polar route to China, (much the same quest 
as that causing Barentz, the Dutchman, to discover Spitz- 
bergen in 1696), noted, far to sea, the number of whales, 
seal, and walrus thereabouts. 
The great possibilities of the region were early recog¬ 
nized, and fisheries established by both English and Dutch. 
Greatest of all these was the Dutch settlement, Smeerenburg, 
on Amsterdam and Dane Islands, which boasted eighteen 
thousand souls at one time. 
Annually, in mid-June, with the opening of the ice, hun¬ 
dreds of sailing vessels came for whale, seal, and walrus, 
returning at the end of the short summer. So large was the 
slaughter that, about 1750, the industry was ruined. 
To-day the walrus are almost extinct, and the whales 
are only to be taken in the open sea, not over a hundred 
being secured in a season, despite its being a No-Man’s-Land 
and without game protection.* 
Since the days of Smeerenburg’s greatest glory the coasts 
of the larger islands have been explored, and hunters have 
wintered, often involuntarily, on their bleak shores, numbers 
dying there of scurvy. Here, through the four short sum¬ 
mer months the sun never sets, though obscured the greater 
part of the time by mist and clouds. In winter, on the other 
hand, it lies well beneath the horizon. 
Our rudder incident was not yet closed. The day fol- 
june 24 th lowing the accident, the tow-ropes became entangled in the 
propeller, and we had to lay to several hours to free it. 
Retracing, an anchorage was finally found, where the 
rudder might be repaired. 
One day, to the hour, after sighting Spitzbergen, we 
dropped into a sheltered bay east off her southernmost cape. 
A flock of eider duck, the first seen since leaving Norway, 
and another of teist, or black guillemot, (Cepphus grille), 
sometimes called the sea-pigeon, greeted us here. These lat¬ 
ter are small, black-and-white sea fowl, with red legs. 
*Note.—We learn with considerable pleasure that in the summer of 1908, the gov¬ 
ernments of Sweden and Norway, realizing the inroads being made on game in Spitz¬ 
bergen, passed laws providing for its future protection 
[36] 
