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Title: Modern Whaling & Bear-Hunting: A record of present-day whaling with up-to-date appliances in many parts of the world, and of bear and seal hunting in the arctic regions
Author: Burn Murdoch, W. G. (William Gordon)
Language: English
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BEAR-HUNTING ***
[Illustration: LANCING A WHALE.
An eighteen-foot spear is the lance—half iron half wood. The pram is
swung out; and Jensen is handed the lance. We reach the whale and Jensen
makes a lunge, and the spear goes in five feet and is twisted out of his
hand; the vast body rolls over, the tail rises up and up and comes down
in a sea of foam.]
MODERN WHALING
&
BEAR-HUNTING
A RECORD OF PRESENT-DAY WHALING WITH
UP-TO-DATE APPLIANCES IN MANY PARTS
OF THE WORLD, AND OF BEAR
AND SEAL HUNTING IN THE
ARCTIC REGIONS
BY
W. G. BURN MURDOCH, F.R.S.G.S.
AUTHOR OF
“FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC”
“AN ILLUSTRATED PROCESSION OF SCOTTISH HISTORY”
“FROM EDINBURGH TO INDIA AND BURMAH”
_&c. &c. &c._
With 110 Illustrations
chiefly from Drawings & Photographs
by the Author
LONDON
SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LIMITED
38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET
1917
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
The readers of this book will be interested to learn that the expedition
from Dundee which set out for the Antarctic regions in 1892 to the
Weddell Sea, south and east of Graham’s Land, and in which the author
of the present volume took part, was the first of its kind since the
famous expedition commanded by Sir James Ross in 1842. Dr W. S. Bruce,
the distinguished polar traveller and oceanographer, was the scientific
naturalist, and Mr Burn Murdoch, the author of this volume, was the
artist and historian of the expedition, which is described by his pen in
“From Edinburgh to the Antarctic.” It consisted of three whaling vessels
specially built of great strength to withstand ice pressure, barque
rigged and fitted with auxiliary steam power. They were accompanied by
a Norwegian barque of similar type. The chief object of the expedition
was the capture of the Right or Bowhead whale by old methods, from small
boats. For three months these vessels were continuously amongst the thick
pack ice and enormous bergs on the east side of Graham’s Land.
The publication of the above-mentioned book, and lectures by Dr Bruce
and Mr Burn Murdoch, revived both at home and abroad interest in the
Antarctic regions, and in 1897 the Belgica expedition followed in their
wake, and this again was followed by expeditions of various European
nations.
During the expedition of 1892-1893 vast numbers of the largest-sized
finner whales were observed in the neighbourhood of Erebus and Terror
Gulf, and between South Georgia and the South Shetland Islands. The
report brought home of these whales being in such numbers led to the
development of the present great whaling industry in the Southern Seas.
Companies were formed and modern steam whalers were sent South to hunt
these powerful rorquals or finner whales. The extent of this industry and
the methods of modern whaling are described in the first part of this
volume.
In the second part, which is concerned principally with bear-hunting in
the Arctic regions, some description is also given of the old style of
harpooning narwhals from small boats.
* * * * *
The publication of this volume has been held over owing to the war.
Part of the text was printed off, and it contains references to events,
current at the time, which, without this explanation, might puzzle the
reader. The prices of the products of the whaling industry are for the
same reason more up to date in the Appendix than in the text.
LIST OF CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
Planning a Modern Whaler—Towing a Whale—Our Whaler, the
Haldane, in Shelter—Balta Sound, Shetland—We plan a Company—Our
New Whaler, the St Ebba, in Tonsberg 17
CHAPTER II
Norway to Tonsberg—Comparison between the Old Viking Ships
and our Modern Vessel—Similarity of Lines—Modern Methods
of Whaling—“Modern Whales” compared with Old Style—Whales,
Sperm—Right Whales—Finners—Tackling a Finner with Old Style
of Gear—Whaling Stations—Utilisation of Whole Carcass—Whale
Products—Modern Whaling in Southern Hemisphere—Stations round
the World—Decrease and Increase in Numbers of Whales—Natural
Close Season—Increase of Biscayan Whale 21
CHAPTER III
In Southern Norway—Building our Whaler—Cutting Lance
Shafts—Tanks—Whale Lines—Outfit for Prolonged Cruise—Rigging
and Arrangements of Hull—Our Harpoon Guns—The Henriksens
of Tonsberg—Svend Foyn inventor—The Henriksen Works—Early
Experiments with Modern Harpoon—Tonsberg Yacht Club—Tonsberg
Whaling Captains—Successors of Svend Foyn—Development of
Modern Whaling in South Atlantic—Weary Waiting—Trial Run
of Engine—Provisioning—At the Rope Factory—Spinning our
Whale Lines—Norwegian Hospitality—The St Ebba’s First
Journey—Studying Charts—The Winch 27
CHAPTER IV
Clear St Ebba from Quay Side—Anchor in Sheltered Fiord—Getting
our Fishing Gear, Guns, etc., in order—Adjusting Compass—Final
Provisioning—Ammunition—The Islands in the South Atlantic we
hope to visit—A Fault in our Accounts—Harpoon Gun Drill 38
CHAPTER V
Leave South Norway for the Shetlands—Anchors foul—At Sea at
Last—Down the Skagerak in Calm—Picking up Lights—Unpromising
Weather—Half a Gale—Digging into same Hole—Full Gale—St Ebba
a Dry Ship—Hove to—A Sick Crew—Our Cook—Engine will not
start—Drifting across North Sea to Yorkshire Coast—Recollection
of a Previous Whaling Voyage—All Hands to Air Pump 45
CHAPTER VI
Drifting—Gale falling—Engines start—Set Sail—The Name St
Ebba—We put aside our Plans for Arctic Whaling—Fair Isle
Light—Sumburgh Light—Bressay and Lerwick—Quiet and Greyness of
Lerwick—Shetland Anæmic 53
CHAPTER VII
The Waiting Part of Whaling—Before “grassing a Fish”—Waiting in
Japanese Seas—Poultry on a Whaler—Small Whale Yarn—Tied up in
Lerwick—“Customs” on Board—“Tearing Tartan”—Entangled in Red
Tape—Are we Pirates?—A Mass of Fish and Cormorants—Shetlands
held in Pawn—A Burly Type of Old Whaler—About the Old Dundee
Whaling Captains—The Registrar braves a Storm—Herring Catchers
_versus_ Whalers—British Restrictions on Whaling Industry 57
CHAPTER VIII
Visit to R. C. Haldane at Lochend—Return to St Ebba—Captain
Henriksen entertains the Board of Trade Inspector—Registers
our Tonnage at Sixty-nine Tons—A Sunday Saturnalia of
Shag Shooting—How to cook Shag (Cormorants)—The Quiet of
Lochend—Haldane’s White House, Peat Fire and Illuminated
Missals—Stories—Our Shetland Whaling Station 64
CHAPTER IX
Extracts from Whaling Log and Sketch-Book—In Shetland—Sea-Trout
in the Voe—The Whaler Haldane calls for the Writer—The
Forty-Mile Limit—Seals and Birds—The Modern Whale
Gun—Difficulty of shooting it—Various Whales—Their
Names—Idyllic Sea—A Bad Day for Whaling—Hunting—Freedom of the
Sea—Try to blow up Mackerel—Sabbath Calm—No Whales—Fascination
of watching for a Blow—Hark back to Shetland—New Departure—A
Bag of Wind—Across the Limit again—Fine Weather—Æsthetics on a
Whaler—A Blast, Whales at last!—A Rough Chase—A Bull’s Eye at
Forty Yards—Lost! 68
CHAPTER X
Better Luck—Spectacular Effect—Whales and Rainbow—On
Chase—The Sea teems with Life—Our Chance comes—Heart-stopping
Excitement—A Close Shave—In Tow—Seventy Tons in the Basket—Ten
Whales in a Day—Vexatious Government Restriction—Uses of Whale
Meat, Oil, and some Values in £ s. d. 80
CHAPTER XI
Whaling has its seamy Side—A Whale Hunt—Colours of the Sea
and Whales—In Tow—Whale is killed—Another Whale—“Thrilling
Dangers” of Whaling and Exceptional Behaviour of Whales—Dangers
of Whaling—Whale Steak—Whale Guano as Fertiliser—Lancing a
Whale—Exquisite Colour of Whales—Pedigree of Whales—Rolling
Home, Two Whales in Tow 85
CHAPTER XII
Back to the St Ebba on West of Shetland—Fine Weather—No
Competition—All Hands busy but no Whales—Our Last Night in
Port—Out to the West—The Ramna Stacks as Targets for H.M.S.—A
Sailing Ship once more 97
CHAPTER XIII
A Fine Weather Chantey “California”—Back to Lochend—Cormorant
Hash—Up Anchor and leave the Shetlands—Cape
Wrath—Lewis—Dunvegan—Picking up Lights—South to Tobermory—Our
West Coast on a Dark Night—Ardnamurchan and Coll—Morar,
the Most Beautiful Country in the World—Drimnin next, Glen
Morven—Tobermory—Relatives and the Lady of Aros Castle 102
CHAPTER XIV
The British Fleet at Oban—A Union Jack made in Norway—St George
_versus_ Imperial Idea—Violation of British Constitution—John
Knox a Sunday Golfer—Wives at Sea—A Yarn—A Spy in Tobermory—The
Tobermory Policeman 110
CHAPTER XV
Harvest Moon—Across the Irish Sea—Belfast—Origin of our Name
Scotland—Erin go Bragh—What brought us to Ulster Day and the
Covenant—The Crew’s Adventures—Greenhorns in Ballymacarack
Street—Down Channel for the Azores—Spun Yarn—Deep-sea
Swell—Inspection of Rifles 115
CHAPTER XVI
N.E. Gale—“Oot o’ this intil a waur”—Into Deep Soundings—It
Blows Hard—Black Night and Phosphorescent Wake—Oil on the
Waters—Driving through—A Scrap of Sail—Attempt at Dolphin
Spearing—A Whale in Phosphorescent Sea—An Idyllic Sunday—A
Shoppie or Sale of Clothes from the Slop Chest—Æsthetic
Music—Grieg on a Melodeon—M’Crimmon on Practice Chanter—Men who
have dreamed—A Demonstration on flensing a Whale—Dolphin Steak
and Onions—The Islands of the World 122
CHAPTER XVII
A New Land (to us)—St Michael of the Azores—Bens and
Glens—Colour of the Island—Portuguese Pilot—Talk by Signs—About
Sperm Whales—Ponta Delgada—Its Remarkable Beauty—Arcades—Colour
Reflections—The Inner Harbour—Sea Fishing—Bonita—A Trammel
Net—Hunting for Whales round the Island—Distress Signals—The
Wreck 130
CHAPTER XVIII
Notes about the Island—Compared with Madeira—Its
Sights—The Streets of Delgada—A Café—Vino Tinto—Guitar
Melody—Costumes—Chase Small Whales—Whales’ Ocean Routes—“The
Ladies’ Gulf” 139
CHAPTER XIX
A Sudden Gale—Driving on to a Lee Shore—Bad Night—Engine
Trouble—Killers attacking Whale—Recollections of the
Antarctic—Oddments—An Eight-Foot Ray or Skate—A Jaunt on
Shore—The Writer’s Excursion to “The Seven Cities”—Up the
Hills—Wind up Affairs in Delgada—Up Anchor 146
CHAPTER XX
Leave the Azores and San Miguel—Madeira in Prospect and
Tunny Fishing—Whales at Last!—Sperm—A Chase—Prospects of
Success—Long Chase—Fast!—A Straight Shot—A Bull Sperm—Cutting
up a Sperm Whale’s Anatomy—Sharks—Creeling a Shark
Single-handed—Spermaceti Oil—Blubber like Marble—Cooking
Process—£. s. d. on the Horizon—Sharks and Pilot Fish—General
Satisfaction—Whaling off Madeira 154
CHAPTER XXI
Madeira at Dawn from the Sea—Description—Funchal Flowers—Tunny
Fishing—Early Morning Start—Splendid Colours of Native Boats
and Crews—Small Fry for Bait—A Large Tunny caught by next
Boat—Our Tunny and Pulley-haul Fight—Sailing Back 165
CHAPTER XXII
We leave the North Atlantic—Engine Troubles—Slow Voyage to Cape
Town—New Engineer puts Diesel Engine right—Up the East Coast of
Africa—The Seychelles Islands—Many Whales—We decide to make a
Land Station—Apply to Government for Licence 176
CHAPTER XXIII
Going to the Arctic—Objects in View—Our Little Company in
the Fonix—Rough Weather—The First Ice—Draw for Watches—A
Party lost in the Ice and a possible Cure for Scurvy—A
Lunatic in the Ice—The Coming Spanish Arctic Expedition—Clay
Pigeons—Fencing—We aim at Shannon Island—North-East
Greenland—Ice Floes and Mist 179
CHAPTER XXIV
Arctic Ice compared to Antarctic Ice—Colours of the Floes—First
Blood—Habits of Arctic Seals compared with those of the
Antarctic—Stopped in the Floes—Cobalt Ice Water—White Bears’
“Protective Colouring”?—Watching a Bear Hunt—Flea of _Ursus
Maritimus_—Scoresby on the Danger of Bear-hunting 187
CHAPTER XXV
Six Bears in the Twenty-four Hours—A Bear’s Meal—C. A.
Hamilton’s Veteran Bear—The Writer and a Bear stalk each
other—Tips for Animal Painters—Sensation facing a Bear at Three
in the Morning—Bear Flesh as Food—The colour of the Polar
Regions—Method of pulling a live Bear on Board—A Bear eating a
Seal 196
CHAPTER XXVI
Waiting for Whales—Narwhals at last!—Our She-Cook—An Arctic
Sanatorium—A Shark—Arctic Seals and Seals of the Antarctic—Our
Bear’s Food—_L’éscrime_—Rifle, Pistol, Lasso—Lasso our
Starboard Bear—Morning Watch in the Ice—Ivory Gulls, Fulmars,
Skuas—Small Life—More Bears—A Bear Stalk before Breakfast—Fears
about reaching Greenland—Bears on Board—Cachés in Franz Joseph
Land—Bear Stories—“The Ends of our Garden” 204
CHAPTER XXVII
A Walk on the Floe—Bear takes a Football—Lasso Practice—A Piece
of Driftwood—The Bagpipes—Pushing West—A Cold Bath—Chasing a
Bear and Cubs—Lost in Mist—Clever Mother Bear—Bear-hunting, a
Man killed—Expectations of Walrus 219
CHAPTER XXVIII
A Narwhal and a Bear in the Bag—Missing Whales—Old Style
of Whale Gun—Svend Foyn’s Cure for Toothache—Is Whaling an
“Industry” or a “Speculation”?—Whales “Tail up”—Excitement
of Whaling—Svend Foyn overboard—Floe Rats—Bears struggle
for Freedom—Size and Strength of Bears—The Silence of the
Arctic—Seals—Painting Ice Effects—Our Gifted Steward and our
Vivandière on the Ice—A Bear on the Floe Edge 231
CHAPTER XXIX
Arctic and Antarctic Floes compared—The Writer, the Bear and
our “She-Cook”—Bear bids for Freedom—Rope-throwing—An Artist’s
Points in a Little Seal Stalk—Man and his Works in Arctic and
Antarctic—Whales’ Food 240
CHAPTER XXX
On Sitting up late—Harp Seals—Young Bears and Seniors—A Family
Party—An Ice Grotto—A Hot Grog and Another Bear—A Tight Place 248
CHAPTER XXXI
All Hands to secure the Bears—Two Bear Cubs captured—Invidious
Comparisons between the Starboard and Port Bear—Another
Bear for the Larder—Greenland’s Icy Mountains—A Blue
Seal—“Starboard” makes more Trouble—A Spanish Yarn—Why the Harp
Seal blows its Nose 256
CHAPTER XXXII
Sports on the Floe—Notes on Protective Coloration 263
CHAPTER XXXIII
Bear Cubs, “Christabel” and “William the Silent”—Bottle-nose
Whales—Bear _versus_ Bull—The Dons back the Bull!—Getting out
of the Pack to Open Water—Meet Spitzbergen Ice 276
CHAPTER XXXIV
We get out of the Ice—Open Sea again—Spanish Airs—Killers—A
Whaler’s Esperanto—Killers attacking a Rorqual—A Gleam of
Sun—Then Rough Weather—Then Shelter in a Fiord—Beards off and
Shore Togs—Our Engineer’s Children and the Bagpipes 281
CHAPTER XXXV
Trömso again—Down the Coast—Selling our Bears—Bears
Escape—Eat the Fish in Market-place—We put our Bears into
New Cages—Notes amongst the Norwegian Islands—Recollections
of Hunting—Fishing—Music—A Viking Air—Talk in the
Smoking-room—Drawings of Whale’s Structure 287
CHAPTER XXXVI
Killers—Stomach of Whales—Grampuses and Whales—William and the
Mandolin—The “Prophet”—Hard Waves—Back to Trömso 291
CHAPTER XXXVII
Teetotal Travellers—Fate of the Bears—Bears at
large—Trondhjem—Folk Songs 300
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Whalebone—Whales’ Food—Head of Sperm Whale—Value of Whale Oil 308
APPENDIX 312
INDEX 317
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Lancing a Whale _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Piping in the Arctic 24
Modern Whale Gun and Harpoon 24
Stern View of the St Ebba 40
The St Ebba in the Fiord of the Vikings 40
Dead Seal on the Floe Edge 48
Mouth of a Finner Whale 72
Leaving our Two Whales at the Station 76
A Finner Whale being cut up 76
Towing a Whale 80
Two Whales being hauled on a Slip 88
Flensing Blubber off a Polar Bear’s Skin 102
Whale Under Side up 102
The St Ebba Motor Whaler in Oban 112
The Arcades at Ponta Delgada 136
Tunny on the Beach at Madeira 136
Killers attacking a Finner Whale 152
Cutting up a Cachalot Whale 156
Sperm Whale sounding 156
Trying to get rid of the Lasso 157
Cutting up Sperm Blubber 158
Hauling Sperm Whale’s Flipper and Blubber on Board 160
A Sleeping Bear and Cubs 168
A Dead Bear 184
Reloading a Gun with a Harpoon 192
Towing a big Bear’s Skin 192
The Last Cartridge 200
Arctic Shark 208
A Modern Steam Whaler 208
Fulmar Petrels 216
Starboard being hauled on Board 216
A Polar Bear 224
The End of the Trail 232
Towing Two Bear Cubs 264
The Captain’s Polar Bear Cub 264
Bears in the Water 272
Our Last Glimpse of the Ice 288
Our Engineer’s Daughter 296
Photo of Starboard 304
Species of Whales 310
[Illustration: ST. EBBA]
MODERN WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING
CHAPTER I
It blows, it blows, at Balta Sound, a cold, strong wind, and yet we are
in June. I think it always blows at this northern end of Shetland, but we
on our little steam-whaler, the Haldane, are sheltered from the sea by
the low green shore and the low peaty hills half shrouded in mist.
One after another herring steam-drifters come up the loch and collect
round the hulk of a retired sailing-ship to sell their catch on board it
by auction. The hull of the wooden ship is emerald-green and the small
sombre-coloured steamers crowd around it. On their black funnels each
shows its registered number in white between belts of vivid scarlet, blue
or yellow.
Our Haldane lies at anchor somewhat aloof from these herring-boats, as
becomes our dignity and position, for we are whalers!—in from deep-sea
soundings—hunters of the mighty leviathan of the deep, the Balænoptera
Sibbaldii, the Balænoptera Borealis, the Balænoptera musculus: commonly
called Blue, all of which we call Finners, the largest mammals living or
extinct. We are smaller than the herring-drifters. They are a hundred
to a hundred and twenty feet long and we are only ninety-five, still we
consider ourselves superior: are we not distinguished by a crow’s nest
at our short foremast, and all the lines of our hull are classic—bow and
stern somewhat after the style of the old Viking ships—meant for rapid
evolutions, not merely for carrying capacity?
Our colour is light greenish khaki, and if red lead paint and rust show
all over our sides, it is an honourable display of wounds from fights
with sea and whales—better than herring scales!
We enjoy the enforced rest: all last night we towed a big whale
alongside—seventy tons’ weight in a rising gale! The bumps and thumps and
jerks and aroma were very tiresome.
We towed it ninety miles from the outer ocean to our station at Colla
Firth, on Mr R. C. Haldane’s property of Lochend, in the early morning
(it is light all night here), and left it floating at the buoy, went
alongside the trestle pier, helped ourselves to more coal, and slipped
away again before the station hands had time to rub their eyes or show a
foot.
We came up through the islands, ran to the north of Shetland, passed
Flugga Light, then turned tail like any common fishing-boat and ran back
before a rising gale to this Balta Sound on the east for shelter.
Our little Haldane doesn’t care a straw for heavy weather, but we
on board her can’t harpoon well or manage a whale in heavy seas, so
“weathering it out” only means waste of coal.
Therefore we spend the morning in shelter, tramping our very narrow
bridge (three steps and a spit, as the sailors say), and we talk and
sometimes go into our tiny chart-room and draw; and Henriksen plays Grieg
on the melodeon! Henriksen is a whaler by profession, an artist under the
skin; and the writer is an artist by profession and harpooneer on this
journey from choice and after long waiting.
As we draw and chat we notice with admiration Swedish line-boats like the
Norwegian pilot-boat in type, sailing-boats with auxiliary motors, coming
up the loch with their sails down, pit-put-a-put, dead in the wind’s
eyes! We know they have been cod and ling fishing in the North Atlantic
for several months, and are now full of fish packed in ice.
“Ah,” sighs Henriksen, “if I had a boat half the size of this Haldane,
with a motor and crude oil like them, I’d make a good thing of whaling
round the world,” and the artist agrees, for both have seen many whales
in far-away seas. Henriksen knows the Japanese seas where there are Right
whales—Australis with bone, and Sperm, or Cachalot, with spermaceti; and
the writer has seen sperm in other warm seas in numbers, and big Finners
or Rorquals in the Antarctic seas by the thousand. So we blow big smokes
in the chart-room and draw plans in the sketch-book of a new type of
whaler. And she will be a beauty!
The Haldane we are on is second to none of the modern kind of
steam-whaler, and we have killed many whales with her up to seventy or
eighty tons in weight. But she requires to be frequently fed with coal,
and has to tow her catch ashore, possibly one or two whales, or even
three at a time, for thirty, forty or even ninety miles to leave them to
be cut up at the station.
We plan a vessel that shall be able to keep the sea for a long time
without calling for fuel like these Swedish motor-boats, and that will
hunt whales and seals round the world, and carry the oil and bone of its
catch on board.
Can there be any drawing more fascinating than the designing of a new
type of vessel for whaling round the world, for warm seas where the grass
and barnacles will grow on her keel, and for high latitudes where cold
seas and perhaps ice will polish her plates all clean again?
So after some more whaling and planning, round the Shetlands in fine
weather and storm, the writer goes south with rough plans, and in a
few days two good men and true have agreed to be directors of a little
whaling company; and, the whaling season over, Henriksen goes home to
Norway, and with a shipbuilder they draw out our plan in detail, for
a new patent Diesel motor-whaler for hunting all kinds of whales and
whaling-grounds round the world, a combination of the old style and new,
with sails and motor to sail round the world if need be with never a call
at any port for food or fuel.
All winter Henriksen the whaler and another Henriksen a shipbuilder
toiled at the planning and building of the St Ebba, Henriksen driving
every day from his farm five miles into Tonsberg with his sleigh behind
slow Swartzen; and the writer pursued his calling in Edinburgh, receiving
occasionally fascinating drawings or detail plans of the whaler in white
line on blue paper, and then he joined Henriksen in summer in South
Norway and both together they drove out and in to Tonsberg, behind slow
Swartzen, day after day for weeks, till weeks ran into months, and it
seemed as if our ship would never be done.
A coal strike in Britain was the first cause of delay, our Colville
plates were kept back by that. Still, we had her launched in little more
than a twelvemonth from the time we first planned her, which we thought
after all was not half bad.
We called her the St Ebba—why, it is hard to say.
It would take volumes to describe the trouble there is in preparing a
boat for such a purpose, especially a new type such as ours. Further on
in this book the reader will be able to understand from the drawings and
descriptions the different styles of whalers of the past and present.
CHAPTER II
In August I went to Tonsberg, the capital of the old Viking days, and
over the wooden housetops saw the two bare pole masts of our ship and a
little later saw her entire hull! How infinitely satisfactory, to see
our dream of a year ago in Balta Sound realised in hard iron and pine on
the slip. She is one hundred and ten feet over all, with twenty-two-foot
beam—just a few feet longer than the Viking ship of the Norwegian princes
that was found a year or two ago buried within a mile and a half of where
our vessel is being built. Tonsberg was the Viking centre, now it is the
centre of the modern whaling industry of the world.
Years ago we thought of whaling as connected with the hunting of whales
in the Arctic regions, or of cachalot or sperm whaling in sub-tropical
seas, carried on by sailing-vessels which had several small boats and
large crews: in the eighteenth century 35,000 men and 700 vessels hunted
the Greenland Right whale.
This modern whaling, however, that I write about just now is a new kind
of whaling of only forty-eight years’ growth. It has grown up as the old
styles went more or less out of practice.
Two or three New Bedford sailing-ships still prosecute the old style of
sperm whaling south of the line, but the Greenland Right whale hunting
has been almost entirely given up within the last two years. The Dundee
whalers gave it up in 1912, because this new whaling brought down the
price of whale oil, and because the Right whale or whalebone whale,
Balæna Mysticetus, had become scarce and so wary that it could not be
killed in sufficient numbers to pay expenses.
This Balæna or whalebone whale has no fin on its back.
A large Right whale, or Bowhead, as it is sometimes called, has nearly
a ton of whalebone in its mouth, which a few years ago was worth about
£1500 per ton; previously it was worth as much as £3000 per ton, so
one good whale paid a trip. It was pursued from barques like the one
below—sailing-ships with auxiliary steam and screw, fifty men of a crew,
and small boats, each manned with five men, with a harpoon gun in its
bows, or merely a hand harpoon. When the harpoon was fired and fixed into
the whale, it generally dived straight down, and when exhausted from want
of air, came up and was dispatched with lances or bombs from shoulder
guns; they measured from forty to fifty-five feet.
On another page is a small picture of the sperm or cachalot, valuable for
its spermaceti oil, and for ambergris, a product found once in hundreds
of whales caught. It is a toothed whale and carries no whalebone.
[Illustration]
But during the centuries these Right whales and sperm were being
killed there were other larger and much more powerful whales, easily
distinguished from the “Right whales” by the fin on their backs. These
were to be found in all the oceans and were unattacked by men. They have
only a little whalebone in their mouths and were much too powerful to be
killed by the old methods.
Once or twice the old whalers by accident harpooned one of these “modern
whales” or finners, and the tale of their adventure, as told by one of
Mr Bullen’s Yankee harpooneers, bears out exactly what we ourselves
experienced down in the Antarctic, off Graham’s Land, in 1892-1893, when
one of our men tried to do the same. We had been for months hopelessly
looking for Right whale and only saw these big finners in great numbers
close alongside of our boats, so one of our harpooneers in desperation
fastened to one.
In his book, “The Cruise of the Cachalot,” Mr Bullen describes sighting
a finner whilst they were hunting the more pacific sperm or cachalot.
Bullen asks his mentor, a coloured harpooneer, why he doesn’t harpoon
it, when Goliath the harpooneer turns to him with a pitying look, as he
replies:
“Sonny, ef yeu wuz to go and stick iron into dat ar fish yew’d fink de
hole bottom fell eout kerblunk. Wen I wiz young’n foolish, a finback
ranged ’longside me one day off de Seychelles. I just gone miss’a spam
whale, and I was kiender mad—muss ha’ bin. Wall, I let him hab it blam
’tween de ribs. If I lib ten tousan year, ain’t gwine ter fergit dat ar
wan’t no time ter spit, tell ye; eberybody hang ober de side ob de boat.
Wuz-poof! de line all gone, Clar to glory, I neber see it go. Ef it hab
ketch anywhar, nobody ever see us too. Fus, I fought I jump ober de
side—neber face de skipper any mo’.”
I have described our similar experience elsewhere—Weddel sea in the
Antarctic—with the old-style whaling tackle and a hundred to one hundred
and ten foot blue whale or finner. It took out three miles of lines from
our small boats—the lines were got hold of from board ship, and the whale
towed the procession for thirty hours under and over ice, on to rocks;
then the harpoons drew, and it went off “with half Jock Todd’s smithy
shop in its tail”—our sailor’s parlance for its going off with most of
our shoulder gun explosive bombs in its lower lumbar regions. These big
fellows were so numerous in the ice off Graham’s Land that we sometimes
thought it advisable to keep them off our small boats with rifle bullets.
Now we can kill these big fellows. Captain Svend Foyn, a Norwegian,
mastered them by developing a new harpoon. Svend Foyn and the engineer
Verkseier H. Henriksen in Tonsberg worked it out together. A big harpoon
fired from a cannon, a heavy cable and a small steamer combined made the
finner whales man’s prey. Captain Foyn had made a considerable fortune
at Arctic seal-hunting, and thereafter spent five years of hard and
unsuccessful labour before he perfected his new method in 1868. Eighteen
years later there were thirty-four of such steamers engaged in the
industry in the North Atlantic, to-day there are sixty-four hunting from
the Falkland Islands and other dependencies. In the neighbourhood of Cape
Horn last year their gross return amounted to £1,350,000.
These Balænoptera, averaging fifty to ninety feet, are fast swimmers and
when harpooned go off at a great speed and require an immense harpoon to
hold them, and when dead they sink, and their weight is sufficient to
haul a string of small boats under the sea. To bring them to the surface
a very powerful hawser is attached to the harpoon, and is wound up by a
powerful steam winch on the ninety-foot steamer, which can be readily
towed by the whale, but which is also sufficiently buoyant to pull it to
the surface when it is dead and has sunk.
In order that a whale may not break this five-inch hawser (or five and a
half inches in circumference) the little vessel or steamer must be fairly
light and handy, so as to be easily swung round. If the steamer were
heavy and slow, the hawser, however thick, would snap, as it sometimes
does even with the small vessel when the whale puts on a sudden strain.
In the old style the Greenland whale which floated when it was dead was
pulled alongside the sailing-vessel, when the whalebone was cut out of
its mouth and stowed on board, as was also the fat or blubber, and the
carcass was left to go adrift. The sperm also floats when dead.
But the “modern whales,” as I call them, when killed are towed ashore
and pulled upon a slip at a station or alongside a great magazine ship
anchored in some sheltered bay and are there cut up, whilst the little
steam-whaleboat killer goes off in search of other whales. All parts of
the body, at a fully equipped shore station, even the blood, of these
finners are utilised, the big bones and flesh being ground up into guano
for the fertilisation of crops of all kinds, and the oil and small amount
of whalebone are used for many purposes. The oil is used for lubrication,
soap, and by a new “hardening process” is made as firm as wax and is used
for cooking, etc. Some of the whalebone fibre is used for stiffening silk
in France, but of these uses of the products we may only give the above
indication, for every year or two some new use is being found for whale
products.
[Illustration: PIPING IN THE ARCTIC]
[Illustration: MODERN WHALE GUN AND HARPOON
Ready for firing.]
Though so large, these whales are not nearly so valuable as the Greenland
whale; still their numbers make up for their comparatively small value.[1]
In the last five or six years these finner whales, formerly unattacked by
man, have been hunted all round the world. In 1911 there were one hundred
and twenty modern steam-whalers working north of the Equator, and in the
Southern Hemisphere there were eighty-six. The total value of the catch
for the year was estimated at two and three quarter million sterling.
These whales are rapidly becoming more shy and wary, still the catches
increase and the value of oil goes up. The more unsophisticated whales in
unfished oceans will have soon to be hunted. There is not the least fear
of whales ever being exterminated, for long before that could happen,
owing to reduced numbers and their increased shyness, hunting them will
not pay the great cost incurred. So there will some day be a world-wide
close season—just as has happened in the case of the Greenland whale,
which is now enjoying a close season and is increasing in numbers in the
Arctic seas.
[Illustration: NORD CAPPER
BALÆNA AUSTRALIS]
Captain T. Robertson of the Scotia in 1911, though he came home with a
“clean ship,” saw over forty of the Mysticeti east of Greenland, but
could not get near them, for they kept warily far in amongst the ice
floes.
The sperm whale is also recovering in numbers. I have seen them in great
numbers only last year in warm southern waters, where twenty years ago
they had become very scarce.
We must mention here another whale that was actually supposed to be
extinct. This is the Biscayensis, commonly called a Nordcapper; it is a
small edition of the Greenland Right whale and is practically identical
with the Australis of the Southern Seas.
This is the first whale we read of being hunted; in the Bay of Biscay and
along the west of Europe it was supposed to have become extinct, but of
recent years we have found them in considerable numbers round the coasts
of Shetland and Ireland; a few years ago there were, I think, eighty of
them captured in the season.
CHAPTER III
It does not surprise me that the Vikings of the olden days used to leave
the southern coast of Norway for summer visits to our Highlands and
western isles, for the climate in this Southern Norway in August is most
relaxing; there is absolutely nothing of that feeling of “atmospheric
champagne” that you expect to enjoy in Northern Norway in summer.
We drive into Tonsberg from Henriksen’s farm every morning, and after
spending the day in the shipyard, come out again in the evening with our
ears deafened with the rattle of steam-hammers on iron bolts, rivets and
plates. And at night in the quiet of the country we pore over Admiralty
charts of the world, especially those of islands down in the South
Atlantic, about which we have special knowledge, where we hope our new
whaler will pick up cargoes of whales and of seals.
Our first Sunday off work, 4th August, came as quite a relief, the
quiet of the country was so welcome. We wandered through the fields of
Henriksen’s farm with his wife and their jolly children, and Rex, the
liver-and-white collie, smuggled into Norway from Shetland, then through
woods and heather till we came by an ancient road to the summit of a
little hill and the remains of a Viking watch-tower, where we lay amongst
blaeberries and heather and enjoyed the wide view of sea and islands at
the entrance to Christiania Fiord, a pretty place to dream in and plan
raids to the Southern Seas. As we rambled homewards through the pine wood
that belongs to the farm we selected fir-trees to be cut down later for
boat masts, lance shafts and flensing blades.
By the end of August we realise that our small ship is rapidly
approaching completion. What a little while ago was only unkindly iron
ribs and plates, with the added woodwork of the deck and masts, has now
become a little more personal, and more homelike. We have had our engine
hoisted from the slipside by a great crane and slowly and tenderly sunk
into the engine-room, a very modern six-cylinder Diesel motor made in
Stockholm. The fo’c’sle is well aired and lighted, and is fitted up with
comfortable bunks and mattresses on wire stretchers. Each man has a long
chest beside his bed, for we believe in making the men as comfortable as
the after-guard.
The binnacle is now on the bridge, in front of the wheel; its bright new
brass looks resplendent; and two hermetically closed boilers we have
fixed on deck on either side under the bridge for boiling down whale
blubber at sea.
Our hull forward of the engine-room is made up of iron tanks, and in
these we hold crude oil for the engine. They will be filled, we hope, by
whale oil and whalebone as we use up the crude oil for the engine’s fuel.
Above the most forward tanks is the hold, where we shall stow our whale
lines—light lines for sperm or cachalot, or the small Right whale,
Australis, of the Southern Seas, and our heavy lines for the great
fighting finners will be in two bins to port and starboard. Forward of
the hold there is the fo’c’sle and men’s quarters, with more space under
their floor in the peak for more spare lines and sailcloth, and many
other necessaries for a prolonged whaling cruise.
We have a small cabin aft, below deck, with four little cabins off it—to
starboard, the captain’s; the writer’s temporary berth is to port, to
be used later for any extra officer or pilot or for stores; the first
mate’s and first engineer’s cabin are a little aft on either side of the
companionway.
The iron galley with its small cooking-stove is forward, on deck, and
attached to it we have a mess-room, into which four or even five of us
can squeeze at one time for meals.
Aft of this mess-room and the foremast we have a very important part of
our gear, a powerful winch driven by a donkey steam-engine. This is our
reel, to wind up or let out our line, the five-inch cable when we play a
finner. The line passes five or six times round two grooved barrels of
the winch, and with it we haul up to the surface the dead whale. But
more about this winch when we tackle a whale.
The 9th of August was a great day for us, for we started our 200 h.p.
engines, and drove them at half-speed for an hour and never moved an
inch, for the very good reason that our bows were still against the
quayside. How quietly and simply they work. We then got our big traveller
fixed across our deck for the sheet of our foresail. We are schooner
rigged, foresail and mainsail both the same size, and count on doing
eight to ten knots with engine, and six or seven with a fine breeze and
sails alone.
In the morning we look at our guns in the harpoon factory. The gun or
cannon for the bow weighs about two tons. It is already in position; the
bollard on which it pivots is part of the iron structure of the bows
and goes right down to our forefoot. Its harpoons weigh one and a half
hundredweight: we shall take twenty-five of these, and forty smaller
harpoons for sperm or cachalot or Right whale. On either side of the bows
there is a smaller gun pivoting on a bollard to fire these harpoons.
These two small guns and our twenty-five big harpoons and forty of the
smaller size we find arranged in order at the works—a charming sight to
us. Harold Henriksen, the builder of our ship, takes us to these works,
where his brother Ludwig and his father make the harpoons and guns that
are now sent all over the world. The father is very greatly respected
in Tonsberg; he is called the “Old Man Henriksen,” to distinguish him
from the younger member of his family. I have already mentioned him as
being co-partner with the famous Svend Foyn, the inventor of the new big
harpoon for finner whales.
He has made many inventions for marine work on all kinds of ships,
for which he has received many medals, and only lately he received a
decoration from the hands of his king, which is shown in the portrait
given by him to the writer, a rare and highly appreciated gift.
He is seventy-eight years old and sails his own cutter single-handed.
I wish there were space here to tell of his experiences whilst working
with Svend Foyn developing the big harpoon. He takes us round the works,
where forty years of fire and iron have made their mark; remains of
failures are there; of burnt building and scrapped metal, but, besides,
there are these fascinating stacks of modern harpoons and piles of their
shell points to be used for great hunting in all seas.
The “Old Man” chuckles as we wander from forge to forge and out
amongst the geraniums in the yard as he tells me how the first harpoon
they tried went over the walls of the works and landed through the
umbrella of an old lady in the street, and stood upright between the
cobblestones. You may believe they practised out of town after that!
Though old—seventy-eight years to-day—he is enthusiastic about our new
plan of whaling. He has formed a yacht club; everyone yachts at Tonsberg.
It is on a small island of little plots of grass between boulders and
small fir-trees. We were invited there to-day for the celebration of his
birthday. There were ladies in pretty summer dresses in groups, cakes,
teas, fruit and pleasing drinks, coffee and cigars, and wasps by the
thousands. Norwegian ladies cultivate coolness, and merely brush these
away as they hand us cakes and wine; and they would be greatly offended
if a man were to attempt to hand tea cakes. For the carpet knight there
is no show. I wish he could be exterminated at home. Do the gods not
laugh when they see our menkind in frock coats or shooting kit handing
tea and cakes to females?
These pretty groups of summer-clad figures amongst lichen-covered rocks
and rowans, fir-trees, oaks and honey-suckle were all reflected in the
still water. As the sun sank low and a mosquito or two began to sing,
fairy lamps were lit amongst the trees, and softly shone on groups of men
and women in light raiment in leafy bowers. The light from the yellow
and red lamps contrasted with the last blue of day. There was warm air
and moths, cards and smokes, and then came music, and a perfect ballroom
floor and blue eyes and light feet—a kindly welcome to the stranger in
Gamle Norge.
In the dark before dawn, with lighted Japanese lanterns, ladies and
men threaded their way over the flat rocks to motor launches and bade
good-bye to the hosts. I shall not soon forget the long walk home across
our island, the low mist, the warm, dark night, and wringing wet fields.
There is one place in Tonsberg of which I must make a note before I come
back to our shipbuilding. It is the Britannia. Anyone who wishes to
learn all there is to know about modern whaling must get an introduction
to that cosy, old-world club. It is a low-roofed wooden house, with
low-roofed rooms; one big room adjoins a kitchen, in which broad, kindly
Mrs Balkan, wife of my friend the engineer on the whaler Haldane, sits
behind a long counter and rules supreme. You leave the shipyard and drop
in there for _middag-mad_, or shelter if it rains. It seemed to rain
very often in August. The “old man” Henriksen’s portrait and one of the
great Svend Foyn are, of course, in evidence, and Svend Foyn’s whaling
successors come there for _middag-mad_ or _aften-mad_, and some of them
drink, I dare say, a silent skaal of gratitude to the memory of Svend
Foyn, who gave them the lead to success, to become small landholders,
each with his home, farm, and family.
Burly fellows are his successors, the pick of Norse sailor captains. One
is just home from the South Shetlands. I saw these desolate, unhabitated,
snow-clad islands many years ago, and saw there finner whales, thousands
of them! and knew they must some day be hunted, but I did not calculate
to a penny that there would be over a million pounds sterling invested
in whaling stations there to-day; in one bay alone in Clarence Island,
and that round these islands in 1911, twenty-two whalers would bag 3500
whales. So whaling here is an assured _industry_. In Britain the few who
hear about it call it a _speculation_.
Another ruddy-faced, broad-shouldered, fair-haired captain comes from
South Georgia and tells me of my friend there, Sorrensen, the bigger of
two big brothers, both great harpooneers—they are both quite wealthy men
now. They whaled with us from our Shetland station a few years ago, and
between hunts we talked of a whaling station we were going to start in
South Georgia; two or three years at this station has set them up for
life.
Most of the men who come into the Britannia have been over all the
world; half-a-life’s experience of any of them would fill a book. But
of them all I think I’d sooner have my friend Henriksen’s experiences.
Young as he is, he has perhaps had more experience in whaling than any
of them. He was whaling for the Japanese when they opened fire on the
Russian fleet. At least he had been—he stopped when the guns began to
fire, and took his little whaling steamer behind an island, and he and
another Norsk whaling skipper climbed to the top of it and viewed the
fight from shelter. I believe they were almost the only Europeans besides
the Russians who saw that spectacle. Henriksen has a red lacquered cup—a
present from the Mikado in recognition of his services for supplying food
in shape of whale to Yusako during the war. In time of peace there they
eat the whole whale, paying several dollars a kilo for best whale blubber
and as much or little less for the meat.
We in the Shetlands turn the fat oil into lubricants, etc., and the meat
into guano for the fertilisation of crops. I suppose it comes to the same
thing in the end, if “all flesh is grass.”
So the talk, as can be imagined, wanders far afield in the Britannia. I
heard a skipper asked by a layman what corners of the world he had been
in, and he paused to consider and replied: “Well, I’ve not been in the
White Sea.” From Arctic to Antarctic he’d sailed a keel in every salt sea
in the world bar the White Sea and the Caspian. The telephone interrupts
many a yarn; perhaps Jarman Jensen, our ship’s chandler, calls up someone
about provisioning a station, say for three years—food, etc., for one
hundred men for that time or longer; or perhaps there is a less important
order from Frau Pedersen ringing up her husband from their little farm,
telling him to call at the grocer on his way home, and he perhaps tells
her he thinks he may not get out in time for dinner, and “Oh, buy a house
in town, Olaus” is possibly the jesting answer—a great saying here in
Tonsberg, where men sometimes are said by their wives to dawdle away the
afternoon in the Britannia, when they are really deep in whaling finance,
planning whaling stations for islands known, or almost unknown down south
on the edge of the Antarctic, or on the coast of Africa or the Antipodes.
Here is the 12th of August, day of Saint Grouse, and we should be
treading the heather at home, but we are still on the island of Nottero,
with rain every day; and every morning the same slow drive behind
Swartzen into Tonsberg, longing all the time for our ship to be ready for
sea. We hoped to have had it ready in June!
We have, however, made almost our last payment, and have her insured.
What a lot it all costs!
We tried to console ourselves to-day with the interest of our first
trial run of our engine as against loss of pleasant company and grouse
at home, also we have the pleasure of seeing the last of our whale lines
being made and we get our chronometer on board, stop watch, etc., and
spend hours in Jarman Jensen’s little back shop with three skippers
giving us advice, as we draw up lists of provisions for the St Ebba for a
twelvemonth.
In the rope factory run by Count Isaacksen we watched the last of our
great whale lines being spun; three five-inch lines we have to port and
three to starboard, one hundred and twenty fathoms each—that is, we can
let a whale run out three times one hundred and twenty fathoms on our
port lines, three hundred and sixty or two thousand one hundred and sixty
feet. I have seen that length run straight out in a few seconds at the
rate of sixty miles per hour, with engine going eight knots astern and
brakes on, and then it snapped; for some big blue whales five of these
lines are attached to give greater weight and elasticity, because, you
see, there is no rod used in whale-fishing.
The rope factory and Jarman Jensen’s store are two wonders of Tonsberg.
The store is a small front shop, generally pretty full of townspeople
making domestic purchases, butter, potatoes, coffee. Jensen, with perfect
calm and without haste, weighs out a pound of butter, wraps it in paper
and hands it with a bow to some customer, gives a direction to one or
two heated assistants, and comes back to us in the den behind the shop
and continues to tot up the provisioning for our ship for a year, or the
stores for some far bigger whaling concern running to thousands of pounds.
So much business done in so small a space and with such complete absence
of fuss! Jensen in his leisure hours is antiquarian and poet. He
possesses a valuable library in Norse antiquities and will write a Saga
while you wait. He must have burned a good deal of midnight oil over the
splendid saga he wrote about our St Ebba which was rich with historical
reference to the amenities between Scots and the Norwegians in ancient
days.
The slowest part of the outfitting for our whaler was, for me, the
customary expressions of hospitality. I hope my Norwegian friends will
understand and forgive my criticism. It is the result of my being merely
British, with only a limited knowledge of Norse and a comparatively
feeble appetite. A quiet little dinner given to us as a visitor and
representative of our Whaling Company would begin at three P.M. and wind
up at ten—eating most of the time—plus aquavit and the drink of my native
land, which seems to be almost as popular in Norway as it is in England.
Think of it—five or six hours’ smiling at a stretch, pretending to
understand something of the funny stories in Norsk and joining in the
hearty laughter! I could have wept with weariness. They are to be envied,
these Norse, with their jolly heartiness, the way they can shake their
sides with laughter over a funny story. The world is still young for
them. I remember that our fathers laughed and told long stories like
these people.
One chestnut I added as new to their repertoire. I believe it has
spread north as far as Trömso, about the man with a new motor who, when
asked about its horse-power, drawled in reply it was said to be twenty
horse-power, but he thought eighteen of the beggars were dead! And as to
speed, it had three—slow—damned slow—and stop! It seemed to translate
all right—_saghte_—_for-dumna-saghte_, and, _Stop!_ fetched the audience
every time. At least it did so when Henriksen told the story, but he is a
born raconteur, and infuses the yarn with so much of his own humour and
jollity that everyone, especially the womenfolk, who are very attentive
to him, laugh till they weep.
A perfect wonder to me is the way in which women here can prepare meals
and entertain a lot of people single-handed, or with, say, the help
of one maid, at a couple of hours’ notice; have a spise-brod ready—a
table covered with hors-d’œuvres at which you can ruin the best appetite
with all sorts of tasty sandwiches, aquavit, liqueurs and beer till the
Real dinner is ready, say, of four substantial courses and many wines,
custards and sweets. Between times she will possibly see her own children
off to bed, probably alongside some of the visitors’ children; then she
will sing and play accompaniments on the piano, and join heartily in the
general talk, and later will serve a parting meal and a deoch-an-doris,
and walk a Scotch escort of a mile or two with the parting guest as the
morning sun begins to show.
They seem very jolly though they are so busy. Everyone on this island
knows everyone else: they were all at school together, as were their
parents before them. Most of the married people have a little farm. The
wife looks after this when the husband is at sea-whaling. The women have
the vote too! They voted solid a year or two ago for a neatly dressed,
plausible young orator who came round the island, and when their husbands
came home after the whaling season was over, found he was a Socialist;
and if anyone’s interests are damaged by the Socialist in Norway, it is
the whaler’s. So the vote for some time was not a favourite subject of
conversation here when ladies were present. I think the wealthiest family
in Tonsberg, a millionaire’s household, runs to two maidservants.
But this is dangerous ground; let us upstick and board the St Ebba. “Once
on board the lugger” we cast off wire hawsers, let on the compressed air
with a clash in the cylinders, then petrol, then crude oil, back her,
stop her, then motor ahead easily.
The St Ebba’s first journey! We passed down between Nottero and the
mainland, rapidly passing the small motor craft that seemed to be timing
us, travelling at nine and three quarter knots. She seems to go as
quickly as our steam-whaler the Haldane—less “send” in calm water. The
Haldane and her like pitch a little, St Ebba makes no turn up behind to
speak of at half speed, which is fast enough for actual whaling. She
seems particularly quick in turning, and in a very small circle.
We had charts out all the morning planning our southern route, possibly
to the Crozets, possibly the Seychelles or the Antipodes. We have
information about whaling in these waters; I wrote our directors about
the possibility of running a shore station with St Ebba, and painted the
St Ebba flag.
[Illustration]
Then we went by our launch, a Berlinda motor-boat fitted with bollard
or timber-head at the bow for small harpoon gun for killing sperm or
Australis. We found St Ebba’s engineer very busy, and worried. The
cooling water inflow was stopped by something from outside. The British
engineer was also very busy with our Cochran steam boiler for our winch.
This winch seems very satisfactory—a sixty-horse-power salmon reel, with
ratchet and noise in proportion.
We continued working at the engines till seven P.M., then motored in the
St Ebba launch down the side of the island, and got home in the dark at
ten-thirty.
I must cut down these day-to-day notes. “Launching a whaler” sounds
interesting enough till you come to read about details. Little troubles
and big troubles and worries arose to delay the getting afloat, signing
on men took time, signing off an engineer who got drunk, and getting
another in his place caused another delay; and delays occurred getting
our papers audited. They had all to be sent back to Christiania to
get a “t” crossed or an “i” dotted. Rain came and helped to delay
getting our lines on board. Then we had to have an official trip, with
representatives of Government, etc., etc., on board, a curious crowd all
connected with the sea, most of them captains, a Viking crew on a British
ship, still with the Norwegian flag astern!
At the next trip, however, given by us, when we had accepted deliverance,
we unfolded the Union Jack and had what I’ve heard called a cold
collation on our main hatch. There were the captain’s and friends’
relatives, photographers, reporters and skippers all intensely interested
in our new type of whaler.
On page 36 are depicted figures looking into the engine-room, because
there was no room inside! There our engineer is discoursing to whaling
and mercantile skippers, showing how he can be called from his bunk and
have the engine going full speed ahead in less than four minutes; and all
the wonders of a modern Diesel motor.
And one by one the carpers climb down, each in his own way—for you see
almost all the “men-who-knew” said something or other would happen or
wouldn’t work. But once they saw our engine work and the arrangement of
harpoons, guns, lines, and oil tanks, all of them prophesied success.
CHAPTER IV
At last! on the 23rd of August, the St Ebba was ready to be taken away
from the slip, and the town, and the noise of the builders’ yard, and one
morning, with rain blotting out the grey stone hills and threshing the
trees, and the country a swamp, Henriksen, Mrs Henriksen and the writer
went into town for the last time about St Ebba’s affairs, motoring in our
whale-launch nine knots through the spray. It shows how hard some people
are to please, for Mrs Henriksen vowed she preferred her recollection of
the motion of a Rolls Royce in Berwickshire on a dead smooth road. Fancy
comparing metal springs and the hard high road to the silky rush over
spuming surge down the fir-clad fiord, the wind right aft, and each wave
racing to catch us.
So we took St Ebba from town and the grime of the quayside and cleaned
her decks and laid her alongside a wooden pier a few miles from Tonsberg,
brought a flexible pipe on board and filled her tanks with sixty tons of
solar oil from an oil refinery, enough to take her at one ton a day to
Australia without a call! That went on board in eight and a half hours,
one man on watch with his hands in his pockets. How different from the
work and dirt of coaling!
Then clang goes the bell for stand by—let go, fore, and aft—half-speed
astern and we back away from the pier, with Henriksen on the bridge, our
crew young and nimble as kittens and our young mate or styrmand forward
alert and the picture of smartness. He is twenty-one, is Henriksen’s
brother, and has held master’s certificate for three years.
Round we come with the wind out of shelter into rougher sea—half-speed
ahead—full speed—and away we go, our first trip with no one but ourselves
aboard, no pilot or town ties—ready for a year at sea.
But we have arrangements to make on board yet, arranging lines, and
guns, and testing them, and a lot of small work with wood which we will
do ourselves down the fiord opposite Henriksen’s home, a sheltered nook
with fir-trees round, five miles from Tonsberg. Knarberg they call this
little bay or arm at Kjolo, in Nottero, where long ago Viking ships were
built, where Henriksen’s father sailed from, and his father before him in
the days before steam. Now we revive the past glories with a split-new
up-to-date six-cylinder Diesel motor-whaler!
We slide down the fiord before the wind and rain and squalls, smiling
with pleasure at our freedom from the wharf-side. With a foremast tackle
the port anchor is heaved up and hung over the side—the chain stopped by
a patent catch; it is the first time we have gone through the manœuvre in
the St Ebba, so even anchoring is full of interest. And in a few minutes
more we swing to windward in the narrow Knarberg and drop port anchor and
swing to starboard and drop starboard anchor, drop astern and lie where
all the winds can blow and never move us.
One anchor might have been enough. But, as Henriksen said to his young
brother: “Styrmand, you remember, father always put down two anchors, we
will do the same.”
Then we open out the foresail and spread it over the boom above the
main hatch, and our little crew gets to work, sheltered from the rain,
shifting and arranging our goods and chattels below, laying timber balks
over the tanks under our main hold so as to form a flooring to support
the weight of casks and spare gear, furnace, anvils, lance shafts, etc.,
that must lie on top.
A glow comes up from the red-painted ironwork on to the faces of the crew
that is almost like the effect of sunlight.
Our whaling lines we have to stow away carefully; it takes eight men with
a tackle to lift one hank of line on deck, one hundred and twenty fathoms
of five-inch rope. And there are stacks of fascinating harpoons, large
and small, to be arranged.
We have adjusted the compass to-day by bearings, a long process requiring
a specialist down from Tonsberg. The operation gave us a good chance to
test our engines—so much backing and going ahead and turning in small
circles, just the manœuvres we will require in pursuit of whales.
More homely work consisted in getting potatoes on board from Larsen’s
farm—a retired American naval man—whose farm adjoins Henriksen’s. He
has cut the spruce shafts in our wood for lances, light and pliable,
carefully chosen for the quality of each stem, and so as to leave room
for growth of the younger trees. And we have cut down a venerable
oak, for we need a stout hole for our anvil, and other smaller pieces
for toggles for whale-flensing. Anvil and forge are of goodly size,
for we shall have heavy ironwork making straight the big harpoons
(three-and-a-half-inch diameter) after they have been tied into
knots by some strong rorqual. A turning lathe we must have, and an
infinity of blocks, bolts, chains, and shackles. Veritably our little
one-hundred-and-ten-foot motor, sailing, tank, whaling, sealing, cookery
ship is _multum in parvo_, and _parva sed apta_.
We have got our ammunition on board. We brought it from Tonsberg
yesterday ourselves, on our Bolinder launch, so saved freight and
fright! for the local boat-owners were a little shy. Henriksen packed
the powder in tins on the floor of our launch in the stern sheets,
rifles and cartridges on top, and he himself with his pipe going sat on
top of all. I think he smoked his pipe to ease my mind, to make me feel
quite sure that _he thought_ it was quite safe, now the ammunition is
being stowed away under my bunk! Two thousand express rifle cartridges
with solid bullets we have, for we will call on the sea-elephants at a
seldom-visited island we know of just north of the Antarctic ice. One
load we should surely get in a few weeks’ time: their blubber is about
eight inches thick, and is worth £28 per ton; a load of one hundred and
sixty tons (I think we could carry as much as that at a pinch) at £28 per
ton will equal £4480, not a bad nest egg, and why not two or three loads
in the season, not to speak of the excitement of landing through surf and
the struggle through tussock grass. Man versus beast, with the chances in
favour of man, but not always; men I know have been drowned, and others
nearly drowned, in the kelp and surf that surrounds these islands in the
far South Atlantic. Once I had to swim in it, and do not wish to do so
again, and it’s one bite from a sea-elephant or sea-leopard and good-bye
to your arm or leg.
[Illustration: STERN VIEW OF THE “ST. EBBA” AT TONSBERG]
[Illustration: THE “ST. EBBA” IN THE FIORD OF THE VIKINGS]
We now have salted ox on board, oxen grown at Kjolo and salted down last
winter by Henriksen; and Larsen, the neighbour, brought us vegetables.
He is almost a giant, and as he stood in our flat-bottomed dory with two
men rowing he made a picture to be remembered, for he was surrounded by
lance shafts, sacks of potatoes, red carrots and white onions, so that
the dory was down to the water’s edge! I prayed she might not upset.
Larsen himself stood amidships with three enormous green balloons in his
arms—such giant cabbages I have never seen before—each seven-and-a-half
kilos (fifteen pounds), in weight, the result of whale guano.
The children of the neighbourhood played on our decks; Henriksen’s two
boys and daughter soon knew every corner of the ship, just as he learned
every part of his father’s vessel when he lay at Kjolo, only in those
days there were higher masts to climb, and yards to lie out on, and
tops to pause in, to admire the view and get courage to go higher. Our
crow’s nest on our pole-foremast is the highest they can attain to on the
St Ebba. The aftermast—or mainmast, I suppose I should call it, as we
are schooner rigged—is of hollow iron cut short above the top (this is
technical, not a bull); this forms the exhaust from the engine. You see
only a little vapour, still, it does seem a trifle odd even to see faint
smoke coming out of a mast! We will rig up topmasts in the South Seas,
and have topsails in fine winds and the Trades, when we do not need the
motor, and will then look quite conventional.
Here is a photograph of some of the children that play on our decks and
round about the St Ebba in boats. They are of the sea. “It is in the
blood,” as Mrs Henriksen replied to me when I asked her how she got
accustomed to her husband’s long voyages and absence from home. It is
their tradition to go to sea, and Elinor, Henriksen’s daughter, will be
surprised if her brothers William and Henrik do not follow their father
to sea in a few years. In ancient days it was the same here, womenfolk
thought little of the men who had not done four or five years’ Viking
cruising, gathering gear from their own coast or from their neighbours’.
We hope that this Monday, the 22nd of September, will be our last day on
shore, and it rains and rains, and we long for the shelter of board-ship
where there is no soppy ground or puddles, and there will be the fun of
going somewhere instead of inhabiting this one spot of earth for days,
till days become weeks and weeks months for ever and for ever without
getting anywhere farther.
We have now almost everything on board, books, charts, bags of clothes,
but we have still to wait for some spare parts for the engine from the
makers at Stockholm, which they advise us to get before going on a
southern voyage. We intended to have got away in time to do a preliminary
canter, as it were, for whales up north to the edge of the ice—not into
it—for bottle-nose and finners, so as thoroughly to test our engine and
crew before going to the Southern Seas. Now it is too late for that, so
we shall only go “north-about” round Shetland, where we may be in time
for the last of the whaling season, and then proceed south.
The spare parts of the motor arrived, but it rains and blows a fierce
gale from S.W., and we could get out of our fiord but no farther against
such a gale, so we cool our heels and Henriksen works at accounts, a
serious matter. It is a new departure, a captain acting in so many
capacities, manager, navigator, harpooneer, etc.
This is my fifth week of waiting here, the most wearisome time I have
ever spent in my life. So much for whale-fishing and its preliminaries!
The time actually spent in connection with the ship’s affairs passes
pleasantly enough, and curiously the sense of weariness goes, once on
board. Perhaps getting off clay soil on to salt water accounts for this.
The sea-water in the fiord here stands abnormally high all these days. It
came running in two days ago in calm weather. So outside the North Sea
and Skagerak we knew it must be blowing hard. To-day, though finer, the
fiord water still remains high, so we know from that and the newspapers
that there is strong southerly wind outside.
For two days past a cloud has hung over us. Henriksen found a deficiency
in his accounts, found that the outfit for the St Ebba cost 10,000 kroner
more than the receipts vouched for, and went over and over accounts, till
yesterday we made another pilgrimage to Tonsberg and interviewed a banker
and said politely, “How the deuce can this be?” And he cast his eye over
his account-book and found his clerk had merely omitted a figure in
addition; a trifle of 10,000 kroner = £550! So we came away smiling, but
it gave us a bit of a shake, rather an aggravating and superfluous piece
of worry added to vexatious delays and bad weather.
We motored back in the launch much relieved, and on reaching the St
Ebba practised big harpoon-gun drill. Henriksen and I are the only men
on board who are familiar with its workings, but one or two of the crew
have used the smaller bottle-nose or Right whale guns. It was interesting
watching Henriksen’s demonstration to all hands. Smartly they picked up
the drill; quickly, for all of them have served in the naval reserve or
army, and anything to do with a tumble about or small craft they are
familiar with from childhood to old age. Yesterday you could readily
fancy one of these old Viking fights, for a boatload of ten small boys
was fighting another boatload, a free fight, legs and arms in the air,
a fearful turmoil, and two boatloads of yellow-haired girls smilingly
looked on.
“Old Man Henriksen,” the oldest of the Tonsberg inhabitants, came down
the fiord from Tonsberg to-night to wish us God-speed. He sailed down in
his cutter single-handed, shot into the wind round our port bow, jibbed
and swung alongside round our stern; seventy-eight years old and sailing
his home-built, prize-winning twenty-footer as well as the best of his
juniors. On board we had the tiniest skaal, which finished our last
bottle of whisky, the remnant of our hospitality in the trial trip; we
are drawing our beer and whisky teeth, as the sailors say, before taking
the high seas.
Then he went off in the twilight, as the lights began to show in the
gloom of the pines on shore, alone, sailing single-handed, against the
wishes of the family, who say he is old enough and rich enough to employ
a crew. He will spend the night alone on Faarman Holme, at the club he
started there; in the morning he will dip his flag to us as we pass.
We all go for our last night on shore, walking home in the dark. Not
all—I forgot. William and Henrik are curled up in their father’s bunk in
great glee at being left to look after St Ebba, along with the crew for
its last night in the fiord of the Vikings.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V
Then it’s hey! and it’s ho! for Scotland, chilly Lerwick and the
Shetlands and kindly English-speaking people. My heart warms at the
prospect of seeing our western hills and heather and relatives and a
language we know.
It rains again, tropical rain. We stand and bid farewell in the
homestead, round the little dining-room table, each with a liqueur glass
in hand. Suddenly I see eyes are wet, and the stranger nearly pipes an
eye too, for it is a bit harrowing even to cold hearts to see married
people with children still lovers. My host has been, for him, at home
so long, nearly eleven months now! So the parting from wife, children,
homestead, farm, woods, horse and hound, all of which he loves, must be
sore for however hardened a seafarer.
Our last cargo from home goes to the ship on a hand-cart towed by the
children and Rex the collie in great glee—curious luggage—Japanese
wicker-work baskets and parcels of foreign-looking clothes for their
father. The writer goes ahead with them, leaving the lovers to follow
their lone, past the little home they built after Henriksen’s first
success at whaling, on a three months’ spell from sea, down the road and
past the school in the birches where they played as children together,
down to the _brig_ or rocks where their fathers before them careened
their ships and made the same sad partings.
Perhaps the captain is the only sad man to-day. From first mate downwards
eyes are sparkling, in spite of the dull day of rain, at the prospect of
the rough, bracing, salt seas in front of us. We think nothing just now
of cold, wet, dark, dangerous nights; the future is all couleur de rose,
whale-hunting, new lands and people, sea-elephants, movement and life for
us, death to them and profit for us all!
Was it lucky or unlucky that our anchors held to Norway and the
sea-maids’ hair or grass, like grim death? A sailor would be interested,
perhaps, in a description of how the two chains were fouled or twisted,
how one shackle opened and the starboard chain went slap into the water.
I thought, we are in for more delay, trying to pick it up. But Henriksen
spotted that it had caught on the port chain, and his young brother, our
mate, promptly slid down it—a nice muddy slide down and to his waist in
water—got a rope through its links and stopped it on the port chain, and
so we got both back. All the sea fairies of Norwegian seas could not have
given us more trouble in taking our British ship from the Norse anchorage.
As we motored from sheltered Knarsberg to Christiania fiord we passed
Faarman Holme and the yacht club and dipped our Union Jack, and saw the
Norse flag dipped in return, no doubt by old Henriksen, who had stopped
the night there to flag us adieu in the morning.
There was more heart-string-breaking before we left. Mrs Henriksen and
the children, and Hansen the steward’s newly married wife, came part of
the way, and we dropped them a few miles down the fiord in a motor-launch
we had in tow. There are tender hearts in Norway, tender and brave.
And now we are out of the great Christiania fiord or firth, passing
Færder Light that marks its entrance, Norway faint on our right and
Sweden over the horizon to our left, the sun shining for the first day
this summer. The sea has a silky swell. We have shaken off all things
earthy except a little mud on our anchors now being stowed away, and
three or four green oak leaves and moss on the hole of the oak-tree
brought for the anvil.
Henriksen and I stand for a little on the bow and rejoice in the heave
and send, and compare the movement of St Ebba with that of the Haldane
and other whalers we know, and we think that she makes good. There
is sun, sea, cloud-land, rippling swell and fresh, cold air, with a
luxurious roll; and we feel an hour of such a day at sea is reward for
all the months of worry and waiting and planning on shore.
A pleasure in store for us will be setting our new sails. But even now,
with the motor alone and fully loaded—with sixty tons of fresh water
alone—we make nine and a half knots! but with our canvas unloosed and a
light breeze behind us might even reel off eleven to twelve.
Not many miles out at sea a Killer (or Orca gladiator) appeared coming
from starboard. Our guns were all covered with canvas so we did not clear
for action, and the Killer is not of much value. He came towards us and
passed forty yards astern, a fact which greatly comforted us, for “those
who know” on shore informed us a motor would drive away whales, but how
they knew it is hard to say. Then it was said so often, and with such a
sense of conviction, that without acknowledging it, we had a slight sense
of chill. This Cetacean, a whale of, say, thirty feet, took not the least
notice of our crew, and as our fortunes depend on being able to approach
the leviathans of the ocean, without frightening them, the incident,
though apparently small, gave us considerable encouragement.
Our first day at sea has passed very busily and we go below for a spell
to our blankets, early, and tired, but with a joy beyond words at turning
in again to a cosy bunk with everything at hand—pipe, books, paints, even
music (practice pipe chanter), all within arm’s-reach, an open port and
chilly, clean air, and the faintest suggestion of movement; such luxuries
you may not have on shore.
The sea did not hide its teeth for long. After sundown skirts of rain
appeared from threatening clouds on the distant Norse coast. Gradually
they spread across our track, bands of little ripples, like mackerel
playing, appeared on the smooth swell, and these spread and joined till
all the sea was dark with a breeze, which in a few hours grew to a strong
wind against us.
As we passed Ryvingen Light on the south of Norway the night grew dismal
and rough; we watched its revolving four-flash light, which seemed to be
answered by the three flashes we saw lit up the sky from the light on
Hentsholme in Denmark, over forty miles to our south, and the gloomy sky
over the Skagerak was lit with occasional angry flashes of lightning.
Unpromising weather for our first night at sea!
By two in the night we were digging into the same hole, making little or
no way, with more than half-a-gale from sou’-west.
In the morning we were a very sad lot of whaler sailors. Fore and aft all
were sick, or at least very sorry for themselves. All but Henriksen and
the mate and the writer and one man were really ill, and we, I believe,
only pretended to be well—such is the effect of the motion of a small
whaler vessel on even old sailors on their first experience of them. I
have known Norsemen who have been at sea all their lives on large craft
refuse to go on a modern whaler at any pay.
We aim at getting up the Norse coast as far as Bergen, then going west
towards north of Shetlands and, given fine weather, we ought to pick up a
whale or two before putting in to Lerwick, where we must re-register our
vessel.
But the wind increases to a full gale. All the sea is white and the sky
hard, and rain and sun alternate and our nine-and-a-half-knot speed is
reduced to about four.
But St Ebba is a dry ship. She proves that at least. Any other vessel I
have been in, whaler or other, would ship more water than we do.
There is no use trying to steam or motor against this N.E. gale, so it’s
up close-reefed fore and mainsail and staysail; only four men to do it,
and that for the first time of this ship at sea, and in a gale. Reef
points are made and all got ready; then it’s “Haul away on throat and
peak” and up goes the scrap of sail, and what clouds of spray burst over
the oilskin-clad figures as they haul away cheerily! The writer, at the
wheel on the bridge, even comes in for a bit of the rather too refreshing
salt spray.
Now the after or main sail is set like a board, and we are transformed
into a sailing-ship.
A ring on the bell and the engine and sick engineer get respite; a point
or two off the wind and there is the silence of a sailing-ship—no engine
vibrations. True, we make little or no progress and some leeway, but the
motion is heavenly compared to the plugging away of an engine into a head
sea.
[Illustration: A DEAD SEAL ON THE FLOE EDGE]
The decks get dry though the sea is very rough, another proof of the St
Ebba quality. We wish, however, we were further on our road to “our ain
countrie.”
The mess-room of St Ebba is not extensive, a little iron house built
round the foremast. One third of it is the steward’s or cook’s galley. He
acts both parts. He is almost like a fair Greek, rather thin, with golden
hair and a skin as white as his jacket; poor fellow, he is sick, but
sticks to his pans, and tries to forget the young wife he left behind him.
His galley is about three feet by six feet beam, and his stove and pans
and coal-box just leave him room to stand in. Our mess-room is what I
consider a very cosy room for a whaler; it is fully five feet by six
feet beam of iron, grained yellow oak—iron ties and bolts grained like
oak. It may not be æsthetic, still in some ways it is the best part of
the ship. It seems to be the pivot of our movements. There is a round
port-hole or bolley to port, and two looking aft towards our stern and
a little round-topped iron door on the starboard. Through the two ports
astern comes the sunlight and the iron door keeps out sea and wind, so
in this stormy weather our mess-room has its points. There is another
round-topped door from it to the galley. So Hansen (cook and steward) has
merely to stretch his arm round to us to hand the coffee-pot, or sardines.
Sardines and brown bread are on the table this morning. I notice about
two sardines have been eaten by our after-guard, so even if we claim
not to be sea-sick we cannot claim any great appetite. Poor cook—he has
upset a pail and dishes in the galley. I help him with his stores a bit,
but it is no use—he is a bit on edge, so the bridge is the place to sit
on and sketch, for one must do something to keep the mind occupied in
rough weather. And it is precious cold and comfortless. You have to twist
a limb round something to prevent being flung about, steering requires
gymnastics.
There is a pale wintry sun, but the air is cold and clammy—all right on
shore, I should say, for a September day.
Two masts and a funnel go driving across our track, almost hull down
before the gale, a wreath of black smoke dispersing to leeward in wind
and spray. I almost regret I am not on board, with steam and the wind
aft. I’d be in Leith before many hours, then with Old Crow and the dogs
on dry stubble. Just the day this for shore, and partridges, or to look
for hares on St Abb’s Head.
One or two of the crew are reviving this afternoon, though it is still
very rough, but the first engineer, a Swede, is still very sick.
One of the crew this morning told me as he steered: “Dem mens forward
all seek, but me no seek, so I have six eggs to mineself”; but he looked
pale, and in a minute or two he gave the wheel to me and went to the side
of the bridge and came back wiping his mouth with the back of his hand,
and took the spokes again, muttering: “Fordumna, now I’se loss dem.” Such
details of life at sea you find in the Argonautica; they give colour and
conviction; only the Argonauts in their days were laid out on the beach
with too much purple wine.
Yesterday morning about four we tried the engine, but the Swede could not
start it. Either he had let the compressed-air supply run out or water
had collected and blew into first cylinder or—or—anyway, sick or well,
all hands had to pump on till late last night, and only raised pressure
to over sixty pounds and it requires to come up to one hundred and fifty.
Henriksen has been saying the wind is going to moderate by such and such
a time; when I see a sky such as this round the horizon, with haze and
cold, I give several days of gale.
It is very wearisome; Henriksen is pretty quiet. At breakfast we have
each half-a-cup of coffee! We are simply drifting across this shallow and
somewhat dangerous sea, sometimes called the German Ocean, a crablike
course to Yorkshire coast, or will it be St Abb’s Head we are to knock
against if the wind does not change or the engine go?
It would be an interesting point to get wrecked at, for I’ve a bet on
that the lifeboat a lady started there won’t save ten lives in the next
ten years. It is only allowed out if the wind is off shore and if the cox
first gets her leave. It costs £700 yearly to keep it up, for motor-slip,
man’s house and storehouses. Seven hundred pounds per year for a lady’s
whim seems an extravagant way of running the Lifeboat Fund.
With a few hours’ lull the engineers would get well, and possibly get the
engine air-starting apparatus to work; meantime it is a bit trying having
the elements against us, plus engine difficulty, as no engine, no success
to our whaling. Thank heaven we have sails; but we must be absolutely
sure of our powers of starting the motor, and that at short notice, or St
Ebba dare not venture into certain anchorages we hope to visit, such as
the east of Crozets and other islands.
Wind always N. by W.; we are drifting close hauled S.W.
There was watery sunlight this forenoon, now in the afternoon the wind
is even stronger, and it is dull with spits of rain, and spindrift;
everything is quivering, and throbbing, with the strain, and we shall
have to take in staysail. I think of my first whaling voyage many years
ago, when for twenty days we lay hove to, out west of Ireland about
Rockall. Days of gale are totting up for this trip now! And yet our waist
is full of water only now and then! On that old Balæna, barque-rigged,
and twice as big as this little St Ebba, it was knee-deep on an average,
and waist-high at times. This boat is marvellously dry; of course we
planned her from a very seaworthy type of boat, the Norsk pilot-boat
shape such as those we saw come into Balta Sound last year; after they
had been three months north of Shetland, they had never taken a drop of
sea-water on board, and we think we have improved on them.
As afternoon wore on the wind grew very heavy indeed, and the sea was
very high. It was Henriksen’s worst experience of the North Atlantic. We
watched on the bridge all afternoon, and took in the reefed foresail, so
we have only the close-reefed mainsail, and we watched it anxiously lest
it should burst. But it is of new strongest sailcloth, Greenock make, and
it held.
The watch taking in foresail was a pleasant sight to see. The young
fellows, all deep-sea sailors, sprang at the boom like kittens and
struggled with the billowing hard wet canvas, tooth and nail, till it was
brailed up. I was too cold and wet to get my camera, but what a scene,
say, for a cinematograph—figures on deck swaying at the halyards and
figures clinging pick-a-back to the sail on the boom!
Oh, it was a beast of a day! even though the wave effects were fine;
of about five or six I thought each would be our last. But we lay so
far over with gunwales under so that we simply shot to leeward with a
heavy sea, so there was much “keel water” which, rising from under us to
windward, seemed to prevent the waves breaking over our beam.
The crew are all taking turns at air-pumping; they kept at it all day
yesterday, and till one o’clock to-day, and we are soon going to see if
the pressure will start the engine—it is rather critical.
CHAPTER VI
We drifted about ninety miles S.W. in the three days’ storm, S.W. of
Norway, and now are just the same distance from Lerwick as when we
started.
Nine watches with the engine going will take us there.
It is blue and sunny to-day, wind N.E., so we have set staysail and
mainsail and go along in a real sailing-ship style.
But the old sea still runs high from N.W. and the wind blows little
ripples down the long furrows, and the lumpy waves stop our way down to
four or five knots.
In smoother water and with all hands free we would get a jib and topsail
on; meantime we want the engine to work.
At night the blasts became gradually less furious and the seas less
precipitous.
At two-forty as I write, rolling along through lumpy blue sea at four
knots, the engineer lets on the air all have been labouring at, clash
goes the engine, subsiding into its steady business-like stroke, and away
we ramp; cheers from some of us. The St Ebba vindicates itself.
How our feelings are changed! “How is the air pressure?” is a question
which will be poked at the engineers for many a fine day to come; and
they will take care, sick or not sick, never again to let it run out. We
surely do twelve knots with sails drawing and engine running. The log
line will soon show....
We run all afternoon finely—sails, wind and motor—till the wind
heads us and the foresail comes down, and we roll, roll as I think
only a whaler can roll, and the expression on faces changes. But our
engineer—_mechanicien_, we call him—is now no more sick and has the
engine going, and is washed and is as spry as usual again.
Evening meal comes (_aften-mad_) with ship’s provender, which is not bad,
and what is called tea in Norway; and the surges come over our bow and
we sit in the tiny galley, Henriksen, styrmand, mechanicien and myself,
and St Ebba rolls dishes, pots and pans all about. But what care we,
reeling off eight to nine knots against wind with little or no water in
our waist; an ordinary tramp at three knots against the same tumble of
sea would be half under water.
Night falls, the Plough lights up, and our pole mast and crow’s nest and
steamer light go swinging against it.
We ought to sight Fair Isle and Sumburgh Light and Bressay Light,
Lerwick, to-night about twelve. The breeze is northerly and for these
parts the air is clear and chilly and bracing, giving the energy of the
northern electrical condition that we cannot explain but which we know
does exist.
We overhauled all our charts this morning in the little cabin after
marking our position—a pleasing pastime; charts are better pictures than
the most valued engravings if you have fancy enough to see coral islands
and waving palms where are only copper-plate engraved lines. Our Arctic
charts we roll away in the very centre of our other charts, for alas,
we are now months too late for Davis Straits: the polar bears and white
whales and Arctic poppies and the bees humming in the white heather we
must visit some other time. These are the happy regions the old whalers
speak of with glistening eyes as they recall the joys, the hauls of
salmon in nets, the reindeer flesh, and the Right whale hunting. No, no
long sunny nights for us this journey. Possibly there will be room for
some such description further on in this book, perhaps of whaling and
sealing by the light of the midnight sun in the Antarctic or the Arctic.
We must make the best of this northern latitude and get braced up a
little with Shetland, which is astonishingly bracing, before going south
again. A dip into its cold, salt, crystalline water as you get out of bed
is a better tonic than quinine for fever; and against the grey skies and
grey houses of Lerwick and its pale, yellow-haired and kindly people we
will picture before us the blue of the south, say the hot side of Madeira
with the brown, bare-legged grape-pickers, the sugar cane and the deep
blue sea or the hot volcanic dust and fruit at the Azores, the Canaries
and Cape Verde, and the hunting and waiting for the cachalot or sperm,
small game for our big harpoon, but worth much money.
Perhaps we may have a chance down there of Tunny Bonita Sharks and flying
fish to put in our bag, and possibly even a turtle.
Fair Isle flashes N.W. at eight-twelve P.M., then Sumburgh Head.
We have been doing eight knots with the wind against us, consuming two
tons of oil, from Tonsberg to Shetland, which would have taken sixteen
tons of coal.
Then Bressay Light red and white, the night hazy, wind going to S.W.
As we come into lee of the island we slow down to three miles an hour,
for Lerwick and its light on Bressay Island are only a few miles off
and—well, it is just as good fun going into harbour by daylight—so we
go slow and the St Ebba’s engines start a new chant. This music of our
engine we hear sometimes, and do not quite understand. And now Henriksen
hears the music; we lean over the bridge in heavy coats in “the black
dark and feen rain,” as he calls it, and he hears the singing. Yes, at
“Slow” we have the full chorus of voices coming up from the engine-room
into the silent night, the general theme a chant, of young voices
repeating musically the creed, these change to sopranos, and interludes
of deeper women’s voices speaking low-toned instructions—then all united!
It is just as if we stood at the entrance of some Gothic cathedral at
night.
But I leave the fascination of deck and “feen rain and black dark” plus
cathedral music to Henriksen and light the midnight oil, and Henriksen
hangs on to Mousa green light and dodges fishermen’s nets and boats, and
in the grey morning tells me it blew up from sou’-west and got very cold.
I was not the least aware of above, as we slipped into Lerwick at five,
but yesterday’s rapid rise of glass promised as much.
Lerwick at five A.M. in the morning in summer is the same as at any other
hour in the twenty-four; it is always light and grey. Green fields and
low peaty hills lie behind grey stone houses, and the grey clouds hang
low on the hills. The sea-water is grey-green. You might call the houses
a sort of lilac-grey, to be flattering. One or two of them painted
white and a black steamer or two on their sea-front give relief to the
greyness, and the white steam from their banked fires gives a slight
sense of life and joins the grey below to the grey above. Always Lerwick
seems instinct with this sense of coming life; here it always seems to be
on the point of dawn or beginning of twilight.
Not all the herring-boats, herring men and herring women that congregate
here in summer, not even the most brilliant blue summer day, can do away
with this twilight; people and boats come and go but Lerwick preserves
the same pleasing grey expression of quiet reserve.
To let you into the secret, Lerwick and the Shetlands are slightly
anæmic! The best blood of several countries has been flowing into the
islands for ages, yet always intelligence remains in excess of physical
vigour, always the Scots and Norse say: “Let us go and make use of these
islands.” “Look at the wealth there is there of sea-fish and sea-birds,”
says the Norseman, “give me one little island there and I will envy
no man.” But they forget their starting-points are lands of assured
summer, where trees grow (and, for Norsemen, where wild fruit ripens),
and they come, and have come, conquering or peacefully hunting, catching
sea-trout, whales or herring, and either go away again, or stay, and
become like the islanders anæmic, and slightly socialistic, and lose
the sense of industrial enterprise, and other people come and take the
herring and whales and sea-trout from their doors.
It is greatly a matter of geographical position and climatic conditions.
The one tree that grows on the islands could tell you this if you could
hear it speak to you of its struggle for existence.
CHAPTER VII
Whaling is like salmon-fishing, but the waiting part is on an enormous
scale, bigger in proportion than even the game or the tackle, however
huge that is. Fancy waiting and fishing for nine months for your first
fish. That was my first whaling. Henriksen in Japanese seas on his first
whaling command was, I think, a year before he saw a whale. Then he had a
lot of shots in succession and missed every time, till he discovered the
powder was at fault, and then he killed about ninety in three months.
He sometimes gives me thumb-nail jottings of his experiences.
Once he ran into port. Yusako, I believe, and the harpoon-gun on the bows
was still loaded, and the Japanese Bos’n fiddled with it and let it off.
Two white chickens were resting on the forego (coils of rope under muzzle
of gun), and Jap shoemakers, tailors with their goods and chattels,
were on foredeck, sitting on the line, and they were all upset by its
tautening suddenly. The boom brought Henriksen on deck, he found his
bos’n standing pale as china, and a few white feathers floating in the
air—a rather Whistleresque picture, is it not? Another time he himself
upset all his poultry. He had quite a lot of hens on board, and they
rather took to him. He had stood for hours on hours chasing two finners
that never gave him a chance of harpooning them, and just at twilight he
grew tired waiting and let drive a long shot on chance, never noticing
that the fowls had collected round his feet and on the coiled forego.
Overboard they went, every hen and chick of them, and great was the
retrieving in the pram.[2]
Another curious mistake by a gunner I have heard of. He’d been chasing
for a long time and fired at a whale, as he thought, but could not see
where the harpoon went for the smoke. “Have I got the beggar?” he said,
turning round to the Jap at the wheel. “Yes, captain, veree good shot.”
The smoke cleared and a moak or gull lay with its head off, a bight of
the forego had chopped it off; the Jap on bridge had seen no whale and
thought the captain fired at the gull. The gunner’s expletives followed,
and he threw his hat overboard, and stamped and swore accordingly.
And now here we are tied up, waiting again in Lerwick in September, and
on the 1st of June we should have started fishing between Iceland and
South Greenland, at a place we know there are certain to be the small but
valuable Atlantic Right whale, Biscayensis, or Nord-Capper, as the Norse
call it, a small edition of the Greenland Bowhead or Mysticetus (see page
26).
We waited and waited all that August in Norway, our grouse-shooting has
gone, and now partridges are going, and we wait still. This last wait is
due to an entanglement in red tape, a difficulty in getting our vessel
registered here. We have the British Consul’s form of registration, a
temporary affair from Norway, that has to be renewed here.
Soon after dropping anchor those agreeable and necessary officials, the
Customs officers, came on board, in oilskins, which they discarded,
disclosing blue jumpers and his Majesty’s brass buttons, all showing
the effect of the climate, and they set to work overhauling our stores
most carefully. If officials are to be maintained work must be found for
them and we must all pay; we have assisted the Norwegian and British
governments incalculably for weeks and months past. They earn their
country’s pay by overhauling poor mariners’ tobacco and provender, only
intended to be chewed and eaten far away in the North or the Southern
Seas. Their chief, I knew at once, came from our west or north coast, by
his soft accent, which was much to my taste; how much there must be in a
voice if it makes even a seafarer almost welcome a Customs officer!
As he opened the stores and checked coffee and tobacco, we “tore tartan”
a little. I said my heart was in Argyll but my people came from
Perthshire, and suggested he might be from Islay. And from Islay he came!
the island of Morrisons and whisky. But MacDiarmid was his name. “But
that’s a Perthshire name,” I said. “Yes, yes,” said he, “to be sure, from
Perthshire my people came.” “And from Glen Lyon, possibly?” I said, “and
the Seven Kings?” And “Yes, yes,” he said, “to be sure, and it is Glen
Lyon you know? Well, well, and that is the peautiful glen—and that wull
be suxty poonds of coot tobacco, and wan hundred and suxty poonds of
black twust. And did you see the Maclean was back to Duart Castle? Aich,
aich! it was a ferry fine proceeding! You see, his mother’s grandmother’s
daughter’s niece she would come from Glen Islay, and so it wass they came
to their own again. Noo hoo much tae will you have here—we must mark it
a’ doon seeing you may be callin’ at another Brutish port or in the back
parts o’ Mull or maybe in Ireland too.”
His junior was Irish, with a Bow Bells accent, and the speech of both
was very pleasant to me after months of Norse. The junior leant against
the galley door as I had morning coffee, and leisurely interviewed our
very busy cook—told him about Lerwick, asked him, “Did yew ’ave a good
viyage, stooard?” to which pale Hansen with the golden hair answered,
“Yah, yah, goot,” indifferently, but he brightened up when told of the
fish to be had in Lerwick. “Wy, yuss, for a shillin’ you can git as much
’ere as will feed all ’ands, woy, for a sixpence or fourpence you can
git a cod ’ere of saiy fourteen or sixteen pounds!” “Yah, yah, but vill
it be goot?” said incredulous Hansen. “Yuss, you bet y’r loife. Ain’t
no Billinsgaite fish ’ere, matey! wot I mean is you git ’em ’ere ’alf
aloive! But did ye git any wyles?” he continued, “on yer weigh accrost?”
“Wyles?” repeated Hansen. “Wy, yuss, wyles, wyles I say; you’re a wyler,
ain’t yer?” and it dawned at last on Hansen—“Vales! nay, nay, ikke
vales—no seed none.”
We went ashore with the brass-bounders rowing hard against wind over
the fizzling sea amongst hundreds of tame herring gulls, most of them
in their young brown plumage, and amongst armies of these sea-robbers,
scarts, or cormorants, that are here as tame as chickens and numerous
as sparrows. Why they are allowed to exist is what we trout and salmon
fishers wonder at; in Norway the Government pays fourpence a head. I wish
we were as fond of eating them as the Norwegians are.
On shore we got fairly messed up with red tape at the Customs office. The
officials were charmingly polite and really wished to be of assistance,
but duty first; and the very young man in authority showed us, with the
utmost patience, how essential it was for the interests of everybody that
we should be able to prove that the makers of the St Ebba made it really
for us, and that the British Consul in Norway should also believe this,
and certify that the Norwegian builders had really built it, and also
that they had done so to our order, for if they had not done so, it might
belong to someone else. Consequently if they, his Majesty’s Customs House
officers in Lerwick, were to register it as ours, and it wasn’t ours,
many things might happen, and so on and so forth. And we went back and
forward to the ship to get papers and more papers, and each helped, but
each and all were smilingly explained to be not absolutely the documents
necessary to satisfy his Majesty’s Government that—that—we weren’t bloody
pirates. So give us School Board education and Socialist officialdom and
we see the beginning of lots of trouble. Finally, after much pow-wow,
we telegraphed the gist of this to Norway, asking the Consul there, in
polite language, why the devil he hadn’t given us the papers needed to
prove we were we, and the St Ebba was the St Ebba, and not another ship,
and that it belonged to her owners—that is, to a little private British
Whaling Company.
And poor Henriksen, who had spent days and more days getting all these
formalities arranged with the Consul in Norway (whilst I used to wait
outside under the lime-trees flicking flies off Swartzen), seemed to be
almost at breaking-point of patience, and I wondered in my soul how ships
ever got out and away to sea free from red-tape entanglements.
A pleasing interlude and soothing was the pause we sometimes made between
ship and office to watch the fish in the clear green water along the edge
of the quiet town. The water was clear as glass above white sand, and
against the low stone quay or sea face were driven, by cormorants, shoals
of fish, dark, velvety-green compact masses, of saith or coal-fish,
actually as thick as fish in a barrel. These ugly dusky divers paid
little heed to people on shore, but in regular order circled round the
shoals, coming to within eight yards of us, and every now and then one
would dive under the mass of fish and fill itself as it went, and an
opening through the mass would show its horrid procedure as it straddled
across white sand under the fish, till it came up with a bounce at our
feet, shaking its bill with satisfaction and then go back to do its turn
at rounding up, whilst another of its kind took its turn at eating the
piltoch.
No wonder, with this wealth of fish and fowl round the shore, that the
Norsemen rather hanker after their old islands; they cure these saith and
eat them through winter, and very good they are, and they also eat the
cormorants (I give you my word, they are bad; I’ve eaten many kinds of
sea-fowl and the cormorant is the worst). The reader may have heard that
Norwegians claim the Shetlands, for they say Scotland only holds them in
pawn, for the dowry of Margaret Princess of Denmark, wife of King James
III., estimated at 50,000 florins, which has not yet been paid. So when
Norway offers the equivalent, plus interest, which now amounts to several
million pounds sterling, the islands may be returned to Norway. Possibly
international law, recognising the amalgamation of the two companies,
Scotland & Co. and England & Co., into Great Britain & Co., may not now
admit the claim.
A specimen of a really stout Shetlander came on board with the Customs
House men, Magnus Andersen, a burly, ruddy type, not so intellectual or
finely drawn as the typical Shetlander—a pilot by profession—what seamen
call a real old shell-back, with grizzled beard and ruddy cheeks—about a
hundred years old and straight as a dart, stark and strong, with a bull’s
voice and a child’s blue eyes. I said: “Why don’t you have an oilskin
on?” It was raining a little and blowing. “I’ve been at sea all my days,”
he said, smiling, “and never wore an oilskin”; one of the old hardy
school, with a look of “Fear God, but neither devil, man, nor storm.”
He spoke of all the lines he’d been on—old flyers like the Thermopylae,
and others, sailing cracks that we read of, Green & Smith companies, and
the old tea traders, and then he told me he had been at the Greenland
whaling, and mentioned a Captain Robertson, and I said: “D’ye mean ‘Café
Tam’?” and he looked at me with a little surprise, but was so pleased
to hear the nickname of his old skipper. “Why,” I said, “I was with him
on board his last ship, the Scotia, in Dundee, not a year ago, and,
bar a slight limp, he’s as good as a two-year-old.” And from that we
started off yarning for as long as there was time, which was not much.
Old “Bad-Weather” and B⸺ Davidson I asked about. He knew them from their
boyhood: old B.-W. came here to Lerwick on his last voyage and ordered
Magnus on board. He was to go whether he did a hand’s turn of work or
not. Magnus admired B.-W., even though he had the common failing; but
now he has gone——? may peace be with him. Magnus blamed the steward and
mate for his end, on that last voyage, blamed them for not having his
temptation in greybeards thrown overboard. My opinion is that the ice
finished him. Take a boy as a mill hand and let him struggle through the
fo’c’sle to be bos’n—second mate—first mate and master, then keep him
whaling year after year with ice perils and whaling problems and the
intense strain and excitement of Arctic ice navigation, and he must die
before seventy! Ice navigation is a severe strain.
I’ve known of a strong man, a Norwegian skipper, who when he saw the ice
for the first time, and got his vessel well into it, was so scared that
he locked himself into his cabin and was fed through the skylight for a
week!
Another old whaler (I mean this time a man of thirty-five) I met
in Lerwick. I heard he wanted to see me, for he said he had been a
“shipmate” of mine; “shipmate” to one who only plays hide-and-seek with
the sea sounded rather pleasant, so we shook hands very heartily for a
few seconds, but we had no time for a “gam,” for I had to go about our
business with these horrid Custom affairs. He seemed to be doing well;
he had some harbour office and was neatly dressed—his name was Tulloch. I
must meet him again and have a yarn when there is more leisure.
We have additional worry here besides the registration. We have to have
our vessel remeasured to satisfy our Board of Trade. I fear it gave the
registrar some trouble to come from Aberdeen in rough weather, and he was
very sick; if his eye ever falls on these lines, here are my thanks and
sympathy. If we had gone to him at Aberdeen he would have put us into dry
dock and kept us for weeks, but here we knew there were no dry docks.
At this point in our proceedings the writer left the St Ebba and took
the high road over the island, and left the measurement business to
Henriksen, for that is a matter that required tact and patience rather
than the English language. I went to see my friend R. C. Haldane, who has
the property of Lochend on Colla Firth, also to see our Alexandra whaling
station there, of which this writer is a Director. I hardly dare mention
this in Lerwick for the herring-fishers are jealous of whalers—whaling,
they say, has spoiled their herring-fishing—and yet the herring-fishing
is better than it ever was! The fact is, if the Man in the Moon made a
half-penny more than they did, at his trade, which I am told is cutting
sticks, they would eat their fingers off. Being numerically superior to
us whalers they carry the vote—and so _our Government has forbidden us
to kill whales within forty miles of our Shetland shores during the best
of the season, whilst any Dane, Dago or Dutchman may kill them up to the
three-mile limit_!
CHAPTER VIII
I have just come over the island and on board ship after a week-end
trip to the north of this main island to my friend R. C. Haldane, of
the distinguished family of that name, associated in historians’ minds
with Halfdan the Viking leader, and to newspaper readers with a younger
brother—late War Minister and present Lord Chancellor. I came over the
island in a single-cylinder motor-car, a splendid new departure for
these parts, over the windy, wet moorland track, four hours to do forty
miles, but what glorious speed compared with only the other day, when we
stiffened for long hours doing the same journey in a slow dog-cart.
The old whaler, Magnus Andersen, took me off to St Ebba in the wind and
dark and splashing sea in a leaky cobble.
How jolly and cheery it is to be back in the cosy, lamplit cabin. The
first mate is busy at his log, trying to write in English, and soon there
is the bump of a boat alongside, and down the companionway comes our
burly youth of a captain, and what a hearty handshake he gives, as if we
had been away for weeks, or months, instead of only a week-end: and we
compare notes. His day has been full to overflowing.
He had prepared the fatted calf—tinned meat and fish balls and beer,
and whisky and soda, against the Board of Trade inspector’s visit for
measurement and registration; and then he turned out to be a teetotaller
and vegetarian! We had telegraphed to Aberdeen for this poor man and
he had torn himself from the bosom of his family, faced two days’ gale
and arrived white as paper and rather on edge. But he was profoundly
clever, all admitted that, and he was impressed with Henriksen’s books
in the cabin, three big shelves, all of them scientific sea-books, and
directories. And he said: “Where are the novels?” And there were none!
At least there were none visible. I have two or three about heroes and
heroines of Park Lane and country mansions, into which I sometimes dip
a little just to give renewed zest for the wide horizon and the tang of
wind and sea out-by. And he measured this and that, and, much to our joy,
he practically accepted the Norwegian Lloyd registration, and put us down
at sixty-nine tons instead of a larger figure, which we feared; now,
registered as under seventy tons we need not have pilots, and we save in
many ways on entering port.
Sunday afternoon with Norwegians is a playtime and holiday, so our master
and mates and engineers had a Saturnalia of shag or cormorant shooting
and rather shocked the natives of Lerwick who heard the shooting. Our
men rejoice more heartily at banging down these marauders than you and
I, gentle reader, would rejoice at clawing down the highest birds in
Britain, and we all eat them. To cook them, we skin them first, then lay
breast and limbs, without the back, in vinegar and water for a night, and
wash them in milk and water next morning, then they are stewed; there is
a good deal of trouble taken with the cooking, and when done they are
extremely bad to eat!
My Sunday, however, was passed in unbroken peace and quiet at Lochend
on the west of Shetland. There is a silence at Lochend and on the
silvery shingle beach, and over the crystalline rippling green bay
that is astounding; a bee humming over the patch of yellow oats sounds
quite loud, and a collie barking in the distance beside one of the grey
thatched cottages sounds quite close. Haldane’s white, thick-walled stone
house looks out on to a silvery shingle that makes a perfect crescent
between a fresh-water lake of brown peaty water and the sea-loch where
the water is green above the white sand, and purple above tangle.
Ah! the purity of the air there, with its scent of peat! How I have
longed for it in town, and even in warm South Norway counted on breathing
it again, and at every breath thanked heaven for its restorative energy.
The morning dive was past expectation—how the Shetland sea makes the
blood tingle and the skin glow! And the contrast from the outside
keen air, after days buffeting on the North Atlantic or North Sea,
to come into the warm stone house, to sit by the glowing peats and
coal, surrounded by books of travel, illuminated missals and natural
history, to read or to listen to my host telling tales of the times of
our fathers, told as they told them, without haste and with exquisite
inflection and skill in picturing peoples and places at home or abroad.
One family story he told me should be of national, or even international
interest, so I must make it a classic. It was in the first days of trains
in this country that my host and his brother were coming back to school
in Edinburgh from Cloan in Perthshire with their father. The father was
considered a splendid traveller, for he could actually sleep in these
Early-Victorian carriages! As he lay asleep with a red rug drawn over
him—which Haldane says figures largely in his boyish recollections—he
and his brother plugged cattle and engine-drivers and various things as
they passed, or at the stations, with their catapults, till at Larbert
old Haldane awakened and saw the instruments and asked the boys what they
were. “Never had such things when I was a boy,” he said. They explained
to him how to fit a stone into the leather, and he did so and held the
catapult out of the window and let fly, and with inexpressible joy the
boys watched the stone go hurtling into the centre of the stationmaster’s
window. Old Haldane promptly pulled the red plaid over his head, and out
came the wrathful stationmaster, and the guard, and a boy clerk, who
took them to the Haldane carriage. Wrathfully the stationmaster pulled
open the door, and met the gaze of the cherubic innocents. Then angrily
he pulled the red rug aside and disclosed the stem, judicial features of
Haldane senior.
“How dare you, sir, disturb me in this rude manner?” he demanded of the
guard he knew so well, and “Och, sir! Save us!—It’s you, Mr Haldane!
A’ maist humbly apologise. A’ maun hae made a mistake,” and he bustled
away, angrily elbowing the boy clerk and muttering: “Yon’s Mr Haldane, ye
fuil, ye gowk, Haldane o’ Cloan, yin o’ the biggest shareholders o’ the
Company.” “Ye may ca’ him what ye like,” said the clerk, “but A’ saw him
let flee yon stane.”
As the train proceeded, Haldane _père_ emerged from the red rug again and
the three laughed long and loud, and the juniors told their father more
about catties and what they did with them at school. And this led to talk
of fights, and they asked their father if he ever fought at school, and
he confessed to having done so and pointed to two metal teeth, mark of
an ancient fray or “bicker” between the Edinburgh Academy boys and the
boys of the Old Town on the mound. It is at this point that this domestic
tale becomes of national interest, for the present Viscount and our Lord
Chancellor appears on the scene; he was much the junior of these two
elder brothers, and soon after this, when they had all got back to their
respective schools, “Campy” and his brother asked Bob, the Benjamin, if
he ever had a fight, and jeered at him for being at such a school where
they didn’t fight—I forget which it was, possibly Henderson’s, and he
replied that they were taught at school that it was very wrong to fight,
and they referred to the two metal teeth of their father, and gentle
Bobby went away thinking. A few days later he came home from school with
two black eyes, and his poor little nose pointing north by south, and
Lispeth, the old family nurse, was nearly broken-hearted. “Oh, wae’s me,
puir wee lambie, wha’s gaun an’ made sic a sicht o’ ma bonnie wee bairn?”
And he explained. He was top of his class, and “I thought I ought to
fight, so I looked at the other boys, and there was one long one, at the
bottom of the class, and I just gave him one on the eye—and he licked
me.” And there were poultices applied to the black eyes—and his nose you
have seen—and much pity from Lispeth for her bonnie wee laddie.
So the elder brother, R. C. Haldane, after travelling the wide world
o’er, has found the most quiet, most restful spot in Ultima Thule, and
the youngest is, we trust, still fighting for universal service, we
trust, in London, England.
On this Haldane senior’s property we have the land station of our
little whaling company, the Alexandra Company, which by our Government
is allowed to run two small whaling steamers only, and incidentally to
employ many Shetlanders at 23s. a week. More steamers we may not have.
Ask herring-fishers why we may not!
CHAPTER IX
Perhaps it will be as well for me to hark back here and make some
extracts from my last year’s whaling log and sketch-books, for who knows
when this St Ebba will fall in with whales; in this way the reader will
the sooner be made acquainted with the procedure in “Modern Whaling.”
The extracts that follow have appeared in magazines—in The Nineteenth
Century, The Scottish Field, and in Chambers’s Magazine, and Badminton,
but possibly the reader may not have seen them; and I am sure that the
illustrations have not yet been submitted to the criticism of the general
public.
The first begins one evening in June a year or two ago, when we were
fishing sea-trout in the Voe at Lochend, beside our whaling station,
putting in the time till our whaler came in from the outer sea.
* * * * *
On the evening of the second day of waiting a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked
boy with great grey eyes and a ragged red waistcoat came down from the
hill bare-footed and breathless, and said: “She is there!” and went off
in astonishment at the unfamiliar silver. Then we got our bag down to the
shore and waited for the smoke above the headland which would tell us
that our little steam-whaler had been into the Colla Firth station and
had left the last captured whale there, had taken coal on board, and was
coming out again for the high seas.
Henriksen has heard of our arrival and, as she swings into the bay in
front of Haldane’s house down comes her pram, and two Norsemen come off
in it and take the writer on board.
Ah! it is good to feel again the rolling deck, on “the road to freedom
and to peace,” to the open sea and big hunting, and to read in a note
from the Works Manager that we have at last to act as harpooneer.
Yell Sound is calm as a mill-pond, with swiftly running tides as we go
south and east past the Outer Skerries. We aim at a latitude N.E. of the
Shetlands beyond the “forty-mile whaling limit” made against British
whalers only.
Even with a glassy calm a steam-whaler has a rolling send. She seems
to make her own swell to plunge over, but it’s a silky, quick, silent
motion that, once accustomed to, you never notice; though old seamen are
prostrated with it when they first experience it. Round about the islands
we see many seals and an endless variety of divers and other sea-birds
and some herring-hog or springers, a small finner whale (Balænoptera
Vaga), and porpoises in great numbers, so we practise swinging and aiming
our gun in the bows at them, against the time when we have to fire at the
mighty Fin whale (A), Blue whale (B), Seihvale (C), Nord Capper (D), or
Sperm (E),[3] for even Sperm and the Nord Capper we have killed in the
last two years off the Shetlands, yet the Nord Capper or Atlantic Right
whale, Biscayensis, was supposed to be extinct! and the sperm or cachalot
is a warm-water whale and only occasionally is found as far north as the
Northern Shetlands, or as far south as the South Shetlands south of Cape
Horn.
The modern whale gun or swivel cannon is on the steamer’s bow and is
swung in any direction by a pistol grip. It weighs about two tons, but it
is well balanced when it has the one-and-a-half hundredweight harpoon in
it so that a hefty man can swing it fairly easily in any direction. The
difficulty for the landsman shooting is, of course, in his sea-legs—you
must be absolutely unconscious of them and of the vessel’s movement, or
of pitch and roll, and the wet of cold, bursting seas that may come over
you at any time in the pursuit; but, given good sea-legs and indifference
to a wetting, and there is nothing in ordinary circumstances to prevent,
say, a fairly quick pistol shot from killing his whale, a certain amount
of strength and nerve is required for the final lancing from the pram
or small boat, but that is seldom done nowadays, for a second or third
harpoon is usually resorted to, as being more effective and less risky.
At midnight we turn in with regret from the pink light and calm sea, for
Henriksen the master, and the writer, have much to talk of about whales
in other seas; but a few hours’ sleep we must have if we are to be steady
in the morning.
You turn in “all standing” on a whaler, you have no time to dress when
the call comes; so much time is saved out north-east. At three A.M.
perhaps you tumble out, there is enough daylight to read by all night,
but between eleven and twelve, and three o’clock, you are pretty safe to
have a nap, for you cannot then see a whale’s blast beyond a mile or two.
We are now (five A.M.) going N.E.—a lovely smooth sea—nothing more
idyllic we think than at five in the morning to be steadily pegging
away over the silky swell seventy miles north of the Shetlands into the
sunrise on a warm morning, watching the circle of horizon for a blow. One
man is in the crow’s nest on our short foremast, another at the wheel,
and you lie your length on the bridge, on the long chest used for the
side lights, which of course are never used here, with glass in hand,
watching. The gun is ready in the bow, and the harpoon and line are all
in order. There is no hurry for a blow, you have to-day, and to-morrow,
and the next day before you to hunt in, food and fuel for a week, and the
wide sea to roam over in what direction you please, towards whichever
cloud castle you choose, and if rough weather comes, you are confident
your little ninety-five-foot whaler will ride out anything, if she is not
pressed.
It is turning out a beast of a morning for whaling. Oily calm but a lumpy
swell, making us crash about, and never a blow in sight; I have been
handling gun for practice, an excellent opportunity in this swell from
the N.W. crossing the swell from N.E., the gun muzzle yaws a bit and
our feet are apt to be insecure on the little platform in the bows, and
there is nothing to hold on to but the pistol grip of the gun. We pursue
our north-easterly course, then go at forty-five degrees, say ten miles
N., then say ten miles N.E. again, a simple way of keeping our position
on the chart. Of course whenever there is anything like “a blow,” we
swing about in that direction; rather a charming feeling after the usual
experiences of travelling at sea in one dead straight line. It makes you
feel as if the ocean really belonged to you, and you are not merely a
ticketed passenger sent off by the time-table.
In the forenoon we fall in with three whalers from Olna Firth, the
station of the Salvesens of Leith, and all of his had been scouting in
different directions, over hundreds of miles, and not one had seen a
spout, and yet where we are, there were numerous whales only a few days
ago. Like trout, whales seem to be unaccountably on the rise one day, and
utterly disappear the next. So we resort to music and painting. Henriksen
plays Grieg on the weather-worn melodeon and the artist paints sea
studies.
At twelve comes a meal, usually called _middag-mad_ on a Norse whaler,
Henriksen calls it tiffen. It is simple enough—a deep soup plate of hasty
pudding (flour and water boiled), on this you spread sugar half-an-inch
thick, and then half-a-packet of cinnamon, on your left you have a mug
of tinned milk and water, on your right a spoon, and you buckle to and
eat perhaps half-way through or till you feel tired; it is awfully good;
then you eat smoked raw herrings in oil from a large tin, black bread,
margarine and coffee, such good coffee. I’d defy anyone to be hungry
afterwards or ill-content. Dolphins pass us and we pick up a drifting
rudder. Henriksen sniffs at its workmanship and says: “Made in Shetland,”
so I quote the Norse saying: “The family is the worst, as the fox said of
the red dog.”
However, I suppose we will stay out till we do find whales or finish
coal. It almost looks as if whales could stay below and sleep. One day’s
blank waiting seems a long time from three A.M. to eleven or twelve
P.M. We growl together on the bridge, skipper, self, man at wheel and
the cook. There is no hard-and-fast distinction of rank on a Norwegian
whaler’s bridge, and Henriksen counts up our mileage, one hundred and
sixty-nine since last night. “We might be having cream and fruit in
Bergen,” he remarks; we are about half-way across, and we all wish we
were there. Henriksen says, by way of consolation: “Well, I was once six
months whaling for Japs off the Korean coast, and I never saw a fin, and
fine weather just like this”; and I tell him of our being surrounded in
the Antarctic with hundreds of whales up to and over a hundred feet in
length without sufficiently strong tackle to catch them; don’t we both
long for one of these huge Southern fellows in this empty ocean.
At evening meal, or _aften-mad_, are potatoes, tinned meat and anchovies,
bread, butter and coffee, and we feel vexed that we do not have whale
steak and onions as we expected. The cook explains that owing to warm
weather his last supply went bad, a grievous disappointment, for whale
meat is worth travelling far to eat[4]; it is superior to the best beef,
in this way, that after eating it you always feel inclined for more. The
evening we wiled away by making an invention to kill mackerel, of course
keeping a keen watch all the time for a blow. Mackerel shoals appeared
in every direction in patches, rippling the smooth sea for miles. Our
plan, inside the three-mile limit may sound infernal; a hundred miles out
it didn’t seem so wicked, especially as we had keen appetites for fresh
fish. We filled a quart bottle half full of gunpowder, put a cork and
foot of fuse into it, slung a piece of iron under it, lit the fuse and
dropped it into a shoal of mackerel, and sheered off. The result ought
to have been lots of stunned fish. A little thread of smoke came quietly
up through the falling sea—and then—nothing happened!—a faulty fuse, we
supposed. We tried a dynamite cartridge and fuse later, but the fish had
gone, and of course, it went off; and gave our little whaler a knock
underneath as if with a hammer, then we hove to, and all went asleep, and
the Haldane watched alone in the half light of the Northern night for a
few hours.
At three A.M. Sunday, we were under steam again, the day very grey and
the wind rising slightly from W. by S. “Like to be vind,” said a young,
blue-eyed Viking with long fair hair and a two-weeks’ beard, but I
doubted it; youth is apprehensive or too sanguine—age is indifferent.
Which is best?
[Illustration: MOUTH OF A FINNER WHALE
Showing the hairy surface of the whalebone plates on the palate.]
We are heading west again, east to west and back again and north and
south, we go in any direction we fancy, but never a whale, so the
Sabbath is devoted to the melodeon and painting. We have a book to read
but the cloud pictures and their reflections always take our eyes from
the print.
So we live on a whaler, in old clothes, seldom changed. I think we
rather affect worn, patched clothes. Our cook or steward, a man of
means, I have no doubt, in his own country, has a faded blue jersey, the
darning of which must have pleasingly occupied many of the few hours of
leisure he has on board, and the men, too, have most artistic patches
on their clothes. They differ from their superior the skipper in that
their coats are torn and darned, and his is torn and not darned. The
writer’s is neither, but will be shortly, and the crease in the trousers
is a memory; it goes soon on a whaler, where you waste no time changing
clothes—certainly not oftener than once a week. But, though we are
roughly clad, we have Grieg’s music, rye bread, and whale meat, luxuries
we often have to do without on shore; the black-bread Socialists will
have none of it, and the meat for which the Japs, even for the fat, pay
twenty-five cents a pound.
The melodeon player’s biography would make good MS. He is young and big,
weaned from shore to sea by his skipper father at thirteen; master’s
certificate at seventeen; then mate on a sailing ship to the Colonies;
master and gunner on a Japanese whaler; twenty pounds a month; seven
pounds for each whale and all found; large pay in Norway; purchaser
of his own island; farm, wife, three children; a sixteen-hand fast
trotter, sleighs, guns, rifles; six months on shore; six at sea; youth
and exuberant spirits and as keen about securing a guillemot for the pot
as for a four-hundred-pound sterling Nord Capper.... The day passes and
it seems as hopeless as ever, but I find Henriksen knows some useful
fo’c’sle language for the relief of feelings; it gives a little lurid
colour to the otherwise monotonous soft pigeon-grey landscape.
For hours at a time the fascination of watching the horizon for a blow
is enough to keep one’s mind fully occupied, but at length and at last
the writer begins to count painting and reading as of equal interest—a
deplorable state of affairs. It is almost hopeless, from a whaling point
of view, so we are going to give up this ocean north-east of Shetland,
and go south-westwards some seventy-five miles till we see the Flugga
Lighthouse, thence we will make a new departure and go and have a cast in
the North-West Atlantic.
Ah! but I have hopes—there were big finners in families out there last
year, at about this time they came up from the south, possibly from even
south of the Line. I remember the oldest members were very exclusive,
but some of the younger people made our acquaintance. There was one, an
island!—may I have a shot at it is my prayer, then would there be some
real interest in life for us all.
So we practically put in the Sunday without work, only watch and hope,
and make a passage; but the two engineers and two boy stokers work. One
of the stokers looked as if he did so hate work this morning—came on deck
with his black face disfigured with an expression that meant: “I could
kill anyone if I was strong enough!” He is such a sleeper that Larsen,
his master, to waken him, took down the foghorn in the small hours and
blared it into his ears. Henriksen in the chart-house where he sleeps,
jumped at the sound, and I too, sleeping aft over the rudder, dreamt I
heard the sweet note.
It is a curious little family party we are; bit by bit, I begin to know
about the individual, gentle, blue-eyed Vikings, about their farms, and
boats, at home; for farms and even sheep have a certain interest at sea,
when you are not watching for whales.
One of them, a long, young man, with pale eyes and three or four fair
hairs on his chin, has such a kind expression, and a stutter! It is
the funniest thing in the world, in the beginning or the middle of
a chase, if he is at the wheel, to listen to him, as he tackles the
speaking tube. He spits hurriedly, then in a sing-song note, he says:
“F-f-ulls-s-speed,” twists the wheel and spits again, saying some Norse
expression for “Tut-tut” or “Oh, bother,” and then the same performance
at “S-s-saghte” (_i.e._ Slowly). Finally he gives up stuttering words
down the tube and resorts to the engine-room bell for signalling.
I have already touched on the interesting subject of meals on a
whaler; I have known one begin at five P.M. and finish at eleven P.M.,
the prolongation being the result of frequent dashes from the minute
mess-room to the gun platform in bows or to the bridge, in the immediate
prospect of getting alongside a whale. To-day we begin our midday meal
at the sweet end—why, the Norse only know!—prunes and rice, winding up
with tinned herrings and coffee. After food we studied Art, did bits of
sea from the bridge and pretty faces from fancy, the skipper played on
the melodeon, and we exhibited in the chart-room, and each of the unshorn
Vikings as he came to the bridge for his trick at the wheel or on one
excuse or another came in and looked long and admiringly. Of course I had
painted to the gallery—the girls had blue eyes and fair hair, the colours
of birch bark, the silvery harmonies of nature beloved by the Norse and
the artist.
At three in the afternoon we got sight of the Shetlands and Flugga to the
west, and made a new departure to the N.W. We were only three miles south
of our dead reckoning; not so bad, after several days lying hove to, and
dodging about in all directions, with neither sextant nor chronometer;
a chronometer gets knocked out of time in such a small craft with the
shock from the gun. Towards night the Haldane’s engines slowly stopped
in accordance with orders; which orders our friend the stutterer at the
wheel did not know about, and his muttered imprecations on the lazy
engineer stopping, as he thought, for a rest, made us all on the bridge,
skipper, steward, and two of the crew, laugh till the tears came! a
little goes such a long way at sea in the way of a jest (in fine weather).
So we lash the wheel to windward and roll about just over that scandalous
limit line—forty miles N. of Shetland—inside of which any foreigner may
whale, but we may not! We have seen nothing for twenty-four hours and
the sea is as empty as the Sahara of herring-boats; the crew have three
hours’ sleep.
Monday, 4th July, three A.M. A most bilious morning, enough to make a
seagull ill or upset the hardiest shell-back; the world seems just a bag
of hard wind and cold water, squalls, and scraps of rainbow, and tossing
seas, with the eerie sough in our scanty wire rigging. We bury our bows.
For five minutes our faces pour with rain and spray, the next five we dry
and shiver in the cold and early sun, and vainly search the horizon for a
whale. We think, almost with regret, of warm rooms in town in the South.
There is no rest anywhere, aft or forward, or on the bridge, and we plug
on northwards, and there’s never a blow anywhere in this useless bit of
the world. It requires extreme æstheticism to see beauty in such cold
water and sky, and hope to see sunshine through these squalls. We peg
away in silence; yesterday, we could talk; to-day it is too cold. We bury
our hands in our pockets and weep with the sting in our eyes. Yesterday,
we discussed, as far as we could, the reason why whales suddenly will not
rise; like trout, they do so one day and not the next, but unlike the
trout-fisher, who is usually ready with a theory to explain the lethargy
of trout, our Norse whaler simply says: “I doan know; der yesterday now
gone; vee go vest hoondred twenty mile p’r’aps vee find ’em der.”
By midday we are thirty miles beyond the limit and are going west, and
the day seems to have regretted its angry rising and is now making amends
to us by putting on all its best things. The colour of the water has
turned from dull lead to sunny emerald-green with belts of purple, and
over it all is a lacework of lavender, the tracery of reflected sky,
picked here and there with white sea caps. A jolly exhilarating sea
occasionally comes on board, and rollicks sparkling round our deck, full
of good intention, and we make it welcome and enjoy it, and let bygones
be bygones and pretend to forget it is not always in such a jolly mood.
I knew we would get sun and warmth out N.W.; there is a space of ocean if
you can only find it just between W. and E. that is always sunny and full
of whales. I know it, but cannot give exact latitude and longitude; that
is why it is so hard to find, but you are sure to strike it in time; so
probably we will do so again to-day. We are getting the sun now, we only
need the whales, and a little less sea for pleasure and comfort.
[Illustration: LEAVING OUR TWO WHALES AT THE STATION]
[Illustration: A FINNER WHALE BEING CUT UP
Commencing to cut strips of the blubber with a flensing knife. The
blubber is being pulled away as the man cuts by a chain and steam winch.]
The writer and the skipper were discussing the colours of the sea;
Henriksen, unlike the average whaler, does not despise things æsthetic;
on the contrary, he takes delighted interest in Nature’s picture-book. As
we painted, and discussed how to get this effect, and the other, there
came from the crow’s nest the welcome cry of “A blast!” and the response
from the bridge: “How far?” We were bowling south with a blustering,
following wind, really too rough for whaling, for the sea made us yaw
this way and that. However, there was no choice; there was half-a-chance
and it was not to be missed. It did not turn out to be a long chase; it
was a solitary finner and we swung after his first blow a mile to port
and at his third blow were within a quarter of a mile. Then he sounded,
and in twenty minutes came up again and blew a twenty-foot blast of
steam into the bright windy air. Again we pursued and were nearly in
shot at his second blast, and were following him north against the sea
with the foam coming splendidly over us at every dive, making one fairly
gasp with excitement and cold, but feet and legs held good; they shake
a little, we notice, whilst we look on at another gunner. We were all
wrong at the third rise; a mile out and very disappointed, then, to our
astonishment, three minutes after appeared a blast to leeward, and the
huge, plum-coloured shoulders of a leviathan coming right across our
course—the same whale or another we could not tell. A turn of the engine
then “Saghte” (Slowly), and we surged ahead, rising and falling on the
far too big waves. Then a strange and rare sight came; owing to the
position of the sun, the light shone right into the banks of waves, and
inside one and along it, we obtained a splendid full-length view of the
whale under the greeny water looking almost yellow and white. We have
only on very few occasions obtained such a complete view of a whale, when
looking down on one, but in this case, it was a complete side view. Up we
rose in a thirty-foot surge, and the top of his dark shiny head appeared,
up rushed the blast, and over went his enormous back. How we wished it
was higher out of the water. As we plunged down a wave its back showed
at its highest, and we pulled the trigger, aiming almost uphill as we
plunged our bows under. It was a longer shot than usual, about forty
yards and in rougher weather, and the harpoon plunged in at the centre of
the target! What a boom and whirl of rope and smoke, and what a glorious
moment of suspense and then intense satisfaction when the great line
tautened up and began to run—some excuse for a wave of the cap.
[Illustration: Harpooning a Whale]
But wait...! What is this? the line is suddenly slack. There was no
miss—what has happened we cannot tell. All we can do is to wind up—we
have lost him, somehow or other!
I know men who feel almost relieved at missing a whale, for they say
they have had the hunt, which is better than the actual harpooning, and
after-play, and so I have heard some salmon-fishers talk, who say they
hook their salmon, then hand the rod to their gillie. Not so with the
writer; one part of whaling or fishing is as good as the other to me, and
to harpoon your whale and lose it is too distressing for words.
At last the harpoon comes on board—the flanges have never opened!—there
is flesh on them, and a foot up the shaft—two and a half feet it had
entered, and yet came out! possibly the marlin round the flanges was too
strong to allow of them spreading. Possibly the explosive point made too
great a hole and allowed the flashes to miss their anchoring hold. It was
bad luck for us and for the whale. Our leviathan disappeared and we wound
up, very melancholy.[5] A slight consolation was that a neighbouring
whaler was seen to fire at another whale; we heard the boom and saw the
smoke, and nothing more—she had made a clean miss! probably owing to the
roughness of the sea.
[Illustration: View of Whale under Water]
CHAPTER X
The solitary finner we hunted disappeared, and we hunted for hours
towards heavy purple clouds in the S.W., and the sea seemed deserted as
before, till towards six o’clock we saw a blow, and soon after saw the
crow’s nest of a whaler above the horizon; she appeared to be working to
and fro as if hunting a whale.
In half-an-hour we were amongst great large whales! and began the most
spectacular whale-hunt we have ever seen. For two and a half days we
had hunted blank, lifeless ocean, then, without rhyme or reason, it was
brimming with life! An indigo bank of cloud there was for background, a
complete vivid rainbow against that—beneath it the swelling seas, dark
green with purple lights and white foam, with here and there whales’
white blasts catching the western sun from a score or fifty enormous
finners. In every direction were dolphins with yellow and white stripes,
and porpoises spurting water up like cannon shots as they dived; overhead
were petrels and dark skuas. The whales’ plum-coloured backs caught the
western light and reflected the sky on their upper surface in tints
of lavender as they rose, glittering and powerful, in green and white
foaming water, thousands of pounds sterling, and millions of horse-power,
in groups of three or four surging along beside each other, east and
west, sending up mighty jets of steam, to be carried away in the wind.
As we went in chase of a group of these we saw the other whaler was fast
to a whale, over which she apparently had no control.
[Illustration: TOWING A WHALE
The top plate shows a fluke, that is, one half of a whale’s tail,
fastened by a chain to the bows. This is cut away to prevent resistance
to the water. Note the gun and harpoon on the bows.
The middle plate shows two 5½″ lines attached to a whale.
The bottom plate shows the double-barrelled winch and line and grooved
wheel on which the hard wood brake acts.]
The whales were feeding, but travelling so fast that we could not come up
with them, so we cut across their course, and dozens of times we thought
we were going to get our chance. Then other bigger whales crossed, and
we gave up the first lot and went plunging after the others, throwing
up grand showers of foam over our bows and oilskins. But cold and wet
you do not think of, with seventy or eighty tons charging in front of
you and the chance of getting in the harpoon any moment. For several
hours we chased in this wonderful piece of sea, so brimful of life, but
the whales dodged about at a most unusual rate; possibly their rapidity
of motion was caused by the host of dolphins and porpoises that leapt
alongside them and crossed their course; and for all these hours we could
occasionally descry our neighbour through the rain showers and failing
light, still in tow of her prey. Not till about nine o’clock did she fire
a second gun and we hoped she had got in another harpoon to finish her
prolonged fight.
Often we were close to a whale but not in such a position as to be able
to swing the gun towards it. For some time a huge fellow surged close
alongside within one or two feet of our starboard beam and never touched
us. I think they must have a sense by which they can judge their distance
from a vessel’s or boat’s side or ice: one can hardly believe they judge
the distance by the eye alone.
At about ten o’clock our real chance came—we crashed down from a high sea
almost on top of a whale as it rose unexpectedly, but it was too close,
we could not depress the gun enough to get the foresight on, but the next
rise, the moment after its blast we were high in air and let drive as we
came down and were fast and sure.
I do not know how to describe the grand rush of a huge whale or that
fractional pause of uncertainty after the boom and smoke and flame and
the whirl of great rope. It is heart-stopping, almost solemn. You watch
the seething black boil where the whale has gone down, with small flecks
of scarlet in it, and the great cable fading down into the depths, and
the gun-wads smoking on the water. Then off goes the cable to right or
left! Sixty to seventy miles an hour, cutting the water into foam, and we
swing into the course of the whale. Before going fairly in tow on this
occasion, an unusual thing happened. The whale’s huge head, immediately
after it sounded, suddenly shot up twenty yards in front of our bows,
twenty feet in the air, and went as quickly down. We were glad it had
not touched us, or we would have had quick work to get into our boat, and
our little steamer would have made a deep-sea sounding.
About three hundred and sixty fathoms ran out before we saw further
sign; running over the two ringing barrels of our strong steam winch,
five times round each barrel with the brake such as you see on a railway
engine wheel hard down and burning; then foam appeared a quarter of a
mile in front, and our whale’s flippers, then the mighty flukes of its
enormous tail, slowly threshing the sea into white. To right and left
it travelled, towing us ahead whilst our engine reversed at eight knots
but not for long. We managed to wind up some line and got the gun loaded
again, thinking it might take another harpoon to stop it, for lancing
from the small boat in such a heavy sea would have been too dangerous,
even if possible.
It was a short fight. At ten-thirty we harpooned it; at eleven-thirty
we had it alongside; a weight and line thrown over its tail; took out a
heavy chain which was shackled round above the tail and hauled by the
steam winch to our port bow beside the anchor davit, then with the huge
body with its lovely white corded underside above water surging alongside
we steamed ahead. It seemed to be about seventy feet and would probably
weigh about seventy tons, and it made us lie well over to port. To float
it a little higher out of the water, we drove a pointed tube with holes
in its side through the white kid skin, and blew in air and steam. We
began our day’s hunting at three A.M. and wound up and started home at
eleven-twenty P.M. We have to go, without waiting for another whale, for
we fear the station hands may be standing idle and we have ninety miles
to cover at not much more than six miles an hour, for the dead whale
alongside stops our speed.
No two whale hunts are alike; one trip you come home with a “clean
ship” and empty bunkers, the next you get two or even three whales in a
couple of days and come home at once and give all hands, Shetlanders and
Norsemen on shore, work for night and day.[6] Here we consider three in
a day for one steamer a big catch.
Another Government regulation restricts our number of steamers and we are
allowed to have only two, so that often it happens, owing to our only
having two steamers and both of them being out hunting, our station hands
stand idle, but the restrictions put on this new industry by official
“experts” at home and in our colonies, who have only recently learned
that this whaling exists, make too tearful a subject to insist on here.
During a summer season, our Shetland station, with only two steamers, may
catch from seventy to one hundred. There are any number of whales, but
they are becoming every year more wary. Needless to say that a whale, if
it is frightened, cannot be approached. The whole of the whale’s body
is used. The best of the meat is sent to Copenhagen, bought by Danish
butchers at the stations for 18s. a barrel, sold at Copenhagen as a
delicacy at £9 a barrel. It is very good to eat—between beef and veal,
but rather better than either. The Japanese pay 25 cents a pound for it,
but we use it for fertilising fields. The oil extracted from the blubber,
meat and bone, sells now at about £4 a barrel; six barrels equal,
roughly, a ton (2240 lb.). But the value of whale oil is increasing owing
to the invention of a “hardening” process by which the oil is turned into
white tasteless edible fat excellent for cooking purposes.
The Right Atlantic whale (Biscayensis), of which we get one or two in the
year, is worth £300 to £400, owing to its having good whalebone. What
we usually catch, “seihvale,” and “finners,” have only a little bone in
their jaws, worth about £30 per ton. The Greenland Right whale that used
to be fished had sometimes a ton of it, which a few years ago was worth
from £2000 to £3000. The prices fluctuate considerably. When this modern
whaling began oil went down £10 a ton; now, even though the production is
enormously increased, its value is £24 per ton, and will rise in a year
or two very much.
In the north the largest whale we have killed was seventy-five feet in
length. But in the south, in the Antarctic regions, we have fired into
whales well over one hundred feet in length, and have heard from reliable
observers of whales killed and measured up to one hundred and twenty feet.
To get the full value out of a whale it must be taken to a station on
shore or to a floating factory. After the blubber is removed thirty per
cent. more oil is obtained from the carcass by cooking the meat and bone
in huge tanks. This meat oil is twenty per cent. less in value than the
blubber oil.
The residue of bone and meat is ground into guano, which fetches about £7
per ton. This meat oil and guano together give an addition of more than
fifty per cent. to the value of the blubber alone. This guano is much
used in America for exhausted cotton soils, and I have been told that it
is beginning to be used for rubber estates.
Before writing more about the cruise of the St Ebba, I may be allowed
to insert here another chapter of notes on modern whaling made on board
another whaler in these same seas—that is, to the north, east and west of
the Shetlands.
CHAPTER XI
Whaling has its seamy side. We met it outside the loch going up west of
Shetland—the wind had almost dropped, but the cross sea it left was as
if several Mulls of Cantire had been rolled together, and neither our
little whaler nor its crew liked it a bit. Rocky capes and islands were
blurred in mist and spouting foam, and sometimes obscured by passing rain
and hail showers. About eight or nine, morning, we were off Flugga, the
most northerly point of Britain’s possessions, and the weather was simply
beastly; by two in the afternoon, we were about sixty miles north-east,
in an intensely blue sea, with immense silky rollers, it might have been
in the N.E. Trades. It was just what I expected; thirty to forty miles
north of the islands you strike sun and clear sky—we always do, then go
west fifty miles and you come up against a curtain of rain.
At three-five we are sloping along half-speed north-easterly over a
splendid silky swell, all our eyes sweeping the horizon. The boy beside
me at the wheel is the first to spot a blow, to which we promptly swing
our whaler, and immediately after, on the horizon, we discover the
faintest possible suggestion of a blow, a minute cloud hardly enough to
swear by, as big as the tip of a child’s little finger. It fades away
and we are sure it is the blow of some kind of whale, and the boy rings
up the engine-room and, grinning, shouts down the tube: “Megat Stor Nord
Capper, full speed!” This to make the stokers lay on, for a Nord Capper
means £1 apiece bounty money to each of our crew of ten men.
At three-ten we begin the hunt; we go seven miles towards the first blow,
when there is a shout from the look-out in the crow’s nest, and we find
big spouts within a mile from our left. So the skipper goes forward to
his beloved rusted swivel gun or cannon, in his weathered green jacket, a
picturesque figure against the immense blue silky sunny swell.
Five minutes the whale stays down, then comes up to starboard. “How
many were there?” says Jensen to the look-out in the crow’s nest. “Two
big and a calf.” Eight minutes they stay down and appear half-a-mile to
starboard; there is the lovely silence of a sailing-ship as we wait with
the engines stopped, studying fleecy clouds and the silky blue stripe our
track has left on the swell. It is this rapid contrast that gives the
charm to whaling—this morning, in hail and black-eyed sea, a blurred sea
and landscape of beaten cliffs and capes; this afternoon a wide horizon,
and not a ship in sight, the colour and width of it! But here he is!
He came up half-a-mile to port—appeared two or three times, at a few
seconds’ interval, then “tailed up,” that slow, farewell turn over of the
after part of the body as it goes down for a deep dive; and we follow its
general direction. In ten minutes he appears a mile to N.W. It is four
o’clock, the air S.W. and cold, and bright enough to be N.E.
“Saghte!” (Norse for softly, slowly), he ought to be up soon.... 4.3 P.M.
There he is half-a-mile to east—we hear the blast. These North-Atlantic
whales don’t make half such a resonant loud blast as the Antarctic
whales ... another whale blowing to E. by S.... Four-twelve. Within two
hundred yards, a little to port—we follow, a stern chase—note blue sky
reflected on wet plum-coloured back ... within fifty yards when he made
his last dive, Jensen had the gun swung ... separate whale appears to the
right—very large ... nearly fired. Four-twenty. Behind, to port, we swing
round—we are lacing the rippling swell with blue silky bands—“Lord!”
there it is! at the second rise under our bow—BANG!
* * * * *
A splendid shot!—away goes the line at seventy miles the hour and we are
hauled quickly round, and are taken in tow eight miles an hour and the
engines going eight miles astern, if that is not exhilarating!
Jensen wipes his nose on red handkerchief—the cook and engineer are
at the winch brakes—there is a thin furrow of Union Jack colours, red
blood, white foam in the blue of ocean—and the line still whirling out
at intervals. We “fish fine,” the casting line is sixty fathoms, the
rope four and a half inches in circumference, the finest Italian hemp
procurable, with a backing of two thousand one hundred and sixty-six
feet, five-and-half inches rope to port, and the same to starboard, a
total of eight thousand six hundred and twenty feet. The line passes five
times round the two barrels of a sixty-five horse-power winch. It is
“fine tackle” compared to the seventy or eighty ton fighting finner that
we are playing.... 4.25—not much line out, only about one thousand five
hundred feet—now we go more slowly in tow.—It was a well-placed shot ...
a few Mother Carey chickens come and some fulmar petrels, later a solan
goose!—there is a little blood now in its feeble blast, it thrashes with
its tail—more line going out—we go astern to drown it. The nose appears,
exactly the colour of a salmon at a distance—it turns over. 4.33—White
ribbed underside up—now it is dead and it sinks. The line is rove over
large iron snatch block[7] up the mast and the steam winch begins to
turn slowly, raising the whale from the depths; a slow, steady, funereal
clank; a great chain is manœuvred round the tail and it is hauled up to
the side of the bow by the winch; getting the tail chained up to the bow
is a complicated, heavy bit of seaman’s work. A magnificent and beautiful
thing is the tail in colour and form; so wide and big and yet so delicate
in design and finish and plum-like colour and so immensely strong. The
body swings alongside, the head reaches our stern quarters, the line is
cut clear of the harpoons in its body. 4.55—Two hours after we first
sighted the whale, a quick hunt, play, and kill. 5.3—Blowing it up and
off for second whale.
Blowing up, as already described, is putting a hollow lance into whale
and blowing through it air and steam, which makes the body slightly more
buoyant and more easy to tow.
5.30—Sight another whale. Meantime Jensen has been cleaning out the
whale gun on the bows with tow and cleaning rod and the charge is put
in, and the india-rubber wad driven home on top of three hundred and
eighty-five grammes of black powder. The second line from the port
side of the hold is made ready, and a new harpoon, one and a half
hundredweights, slung from the hold. The line is spliced to the twisted
wire grummet or ring that travels in a slot in the shaft of the harpoon,
which is rammed into the gun so that line and ring hang from the shaft
at the muzzle of the gun. Getting this done and putting chains and ropes
in order takes time and a considerable amount of work for five men, and
meanwhile we on the bridge are conscious, as we roll, of occasional
whiffs from the galley of roast whale steak and onions. For merit I place
caribou meat first, whale and black bear about equal, in second place,
and beef third.
Five-forty-five. We have screwed on the explosive point to the harpoon
(over the time fuse), swung round the gun, and are off in pursuit of the
whale we sighted at five-thirty. By six-thirty he has appeared several
times, made two or three handsome blasts and gone down “tail up,” and we
followed, as we thought, in the direction he took, but he always appeared
right off our track. I use the term “tail up” not quite accurately here;
the expression really means the whole tail going into air as the whale
goes down for a long dive. In the case of these northern finners it is
generally only the part of the back next to the tail that is raised, not
the flukes, and this rising tells you the whale intends to go down deep
for twenty minutes or half-an-hour. “A wrong vone,” the engineer says—“he
be chased before.” You see the engineer, when his mate is below, joins in
the sport of watching, ahead, to port, to starboard and astern, and works
the winch when we are playing the fish; always there is work for all, and
little enough time for meals, if any.
Whilst we roll about in the swell waiting for the leviathan to make our
closer acquaintance, I may relate some of the thrilling dangers with
which the track of the modern whaler is beset. Novel, unfamiliar dangers
must always make interesting reading when people are tired of hearing of
the risks we all run at any crossing as pedestrians or motorists.
[Illustration: TWO WHALES BEING HAULED ON TO A SLIP
The nearest whale is a Bull finner. A man is seated on the farthest. The
men in the foreground are cutting meat from the spine of a third whale.]
Off Norway, several steam-whalers have had sea-water and daylight let
into them by careless whales, and a whale here, some years ago, when
the industry was new, took offence at being fired at, and flew at the
innocent little steamer (seventy tons solid life and energy against a
ninety-five-foot boat) with jaws wide open and generally chewed-up rails
and superstructures, so the owners hardly knew it when it came back to
the station. But whales are not in the habit of behaving like this. I did
myself, however, experience a mild charge last year; possibly the charge
was unintentional, but certainly the whale came straight at our starboard
bow, and had we not been quick enough to swing and depress the gun’s
muzzle and shoot at six yards, something might have happened; as it was
the whale came on and struck a dead whale we had alongside, and with its
impetus it gave our little ship a considerable dunt in the ribs. “If” it
had not been hit and “if” it had struck us a little harder, say twice,
we would have had to row home a hundred miles in the boats, which would
have been rather a come-down from steaming the wide seas o’er, on our
up-to-date little whaler, the Haldane of Colla Firth.
“If” another whale a few nights ago had pulled a little harder, when it
suddenly changed from towing us forward to towing us astern, we might
have been quite upset, whereas we were only half-seas over. But alas,
there was a really very sad and dreadful experience here, two years ago.
Captain Torp, a fine man and a good gunner, fired at a whale and the
harpoon ricochetted, and three hundred and eighty-five grammes driving
a one-and-a-half-hundredweight harpoon burst the five-inch cable, and
the inside end came back and wound round him and broke him unspeakably
from head to foot, and yet he lived two days, and fourteen ounces of
chloroform had little effect.
Then, too, one sometimes gets sunk whilst whaling. Casperg, a master
in Ronas Voe, our next-door station, had that experience—went down in
his cabin with pipe and tobacco pouch in hand, felt himself kicking the
rock with his sea-boots under the kelp before he had time to strike
a light. He came up all right, but four of his crew stayed down; that
was recently. And my friend Sorrensen, engineer of the Haldane, told me
comfortingly last year, as we chatted in the warm engine-room one dismal,
dark, rough night, when we were trying to find land, that on his last
whaling trip to Iceland, in making land in a gale of snow and wind, “on
a night like this,” he observed a large rock suddenly protrude itself
through his engine-room floor, which finished his trip for that year.
“Yes, yes, two tree skip do so,” he said.
The wonder really is that more accidents are not met with. The whale’s
head is such a weight of bone; the pointed mass on the upper jaw or beak
meeting the huge bent bones of the lower make a most formidable ram.
Another close shave there was the other day. A⸺ tried to lance a whale
in its death-struggle from the little steamer’s bows. We have tried this
ourselves with and without success. On this occasion the whale raised its
huge flipper, swung it across the gun at the bow, which was loaded with
the harpoon in it, and its muzzle was thrown round so heavily that the
harpoon was shot out on deck and the shell exploded. No one was hurt, but
A⸺’s oilskin coat had holes torn in it between his legs—and so on....
By eight P.M. we had eaten our whale steak (meals are at any hour or no
hour when you are whaling), discussed the latest type of whaler, Captain
Larsen’s three-gun boat, and had given up that wily old dodger of a
finner, and now we peg away over the blue sea to the N.E. The sun swings
round with us to dip quite near the north, whilst we wait and rest until
it comes up again in a few hours to form our gallery. True, we have
another companion beside the few petrels. The Busta, our sister ship, is
in the offing. She also has a whale alongside; we can make it out with
the glasses as she rises over a blue surge; and as I write, far to the
west I descry an almost invisible smoke, which I hope is a boat of our
Alexandra Company, the Queen, or the Haldane.
[Illustration]
At nine-thirty the sun slants below the horizon and the colour display
begins toning down to soft, warm light in the north and violet in the
south and west. It is very still, the only sound the surge of the water
over the white-ribbed flounces of our whale’s underside as it tows
alongside. We speak little; there is the skipper, and the man at the
wheel, on the bridge, and one above us in the crow’s nest; the rest are
sleeping below. It is the romantic, beautiful time at sea, formality
goes, we talk a little of home and families we have, or may have, and
the night, as it were, just droops her golden eyes, and in a very little
while raises them on another day, blue and fresh as ever, and we begin
another day’s hunting, to get, if we can, one more whale to tow to our
harbour in the south, there to provide work and pay for Shetlanders and
Norwegians, food for Danes and ourselves, and fertilisers for farmers’
crops and cattle, each of which subjects could not be treated of in less
than a page of these notes for itself. But one word I may be allowed here
for readers who are interested in fertilisers for vegetables, and cattle
foods. For both these purposes the cooked and ground-down whale meat and
bone is invaluable, and it costs about one-sixth the price of ordinary
fertilisers—but beware, don’t use it for the latter purpose without
digging it into the soil. The gardener of my friend, C. A. Hamilton of
Dunmore, Stirlingshire, did so—put it on the top of the soil in a vinery,
and was “maist astonished.” “Ma gosh, Maister Hamilton,” he said, “you’d
hae thocht I’d plaunted pussey cawts!” it was so mouldy. The same worthy
used it properly for turnips, dug it in, and exhibited the result at the
local show, and was disqualified! The judge said: “Mon, it’s turnips is
the exheebut—yon’s no turnips—wha ever saw neips like that—they’re faur
ower big.”
* * * * *
A cool, sunny morning, with rolling glassy grey swell and warmer. We are
in tow of a large finner; we began to hunt a herd (pod is the old name,
it means a family party) at five-thirty. It has taken five hundred yards
out with several rapid rushes of forty to fifty miles an hour, and there
is a smell of the burning wood of the breaks; it is very quiet, Jensen
has come up beside me at the wheel. I noticed after the shot he again
rubbed his nose with the red handkerchief, a little nervous, colourful
touch. The whale blows occasionally and turns the swell into white and
red; it looks as if we must lance it from the small boat, or get another
harpoon in. It was a most interesting chase; five monsters blowing
half-a-mile apart seemed quite a crowd. We got in between two, feeding,
and after an hour’s hunt altogether one rose a few yards to starboard.
Jensen refused it, coolly waiting for the bigger one behind to come up in
front, to the left, and mercifully it did, slowly; you could see down its
blow hole, then its great back came out, and into, I think, its last ribs
the harpoon went, and at the wheel we were all in smoke and tow. The
smoke cleared and the wads lay in the swelling vortex the monster left,
and then the line rushed!
[Illustration]
Who can describe the heart-stopping thrill as the monster breaks the
surface within shot, only perhaps the dry-fly man, he must experience
exactly the same in a minute degree.
But this whale will not die, we must lance it; an eighteen-foot spear
is the lance—half iron, half wood. The pram is swung out—we are dropped
half on top of our dead whale and slide off somehow. Jensen is handed the
lance and away we go, double sculls. Over the glassy rollers we go at
a good pace, the whale is six hundred yards away or more and wandering
from left to right, and ahead, in the deep swell, it seems as if it would
be a long business to get into reach. We back the stern in and Jensen
makes a great lunge and the spear goes in five feet and is twisted out
of his hand and the vast body rolls over, the tail rises up and up and
comes down in a sea of foam. We pull clear back in again at next rise and
draw the spear all bent, straighten it, and one more thrust finishes the
business and the whale spouts red and dies.
It is a quarter to eight when we finally get the tail up to our port bow
and go off easterly; we must be seventy miles N.E. off the Shetland Isles.
Whales seem to be such good beasts, and have such kind brown eyes—nothing
of the fish in them, and their colouring is that of all the sea; their
backs are grey-black to dove-colour, reflecting the blue of the sky, and
the white of their underside is like the white of a kid glove with the
faintest pink beneath, so white it makes the sea-foam look grey as it
washes across it to and fro, and the white changes to emerald-green in
the depths to the blue-green of an iceberg’s foot. It is strange that
this skin should be so extremely delicate in such a large animal; it is
too thin to be used as leather.
Our first whale was fifty-four feet, say fifty tons, equal to twenty-five
to thirty barrels of oil. Second whale, seventy feet, say forty barrels
of oil.
The second whale was a bull “fish,” according to S. Johnson of Fleet
Street, and the dark colouring came farther over the white corduroy
waistcoat than in the female. It is curious how the grey colour blends
into the white exactly as if it were drawn with a lead pencil on ivory
in perfect imitation of hair; from a few yards you think it is hair, for
its formation so resembles the lie of hair on other mammals. I have never
heard of this having been observed by naturalists. I am sure a Darwin
might make endless deductions from it, coupled with the belief of the old
neolithic Indians of Newfoundland that the caribou had gradually changed
into whales. The colour of the caribou is quite like the colour of these
Seihvale. But we must keep off speculations on the origin of species,
and these marks in particular, and the whale’s pedigree, opinions, and
domestic life. It is such a large subject, though fascinating. Many
authentic and startlingly new facts have been gathered since this modern
whaling began. For example, a whale was killed last year “wid six leetle
children in it.” This will rather astonish naturalists—it horrified a
Shetland lady in whose hearing a polite Norseman made the relation—but
that there were six embryos is a fact I vouch for. I hope some naturalist
of means will some day charter a vessel and suitable observers to make
a few years’ study of the subject round the world. H.S.H. the Prince of
Monaco has set the example, particularly in regard to the study of the
sperm whale.
It was grey all day, grey sky reflected in lavender-grey water, the
surface hardly indicated till an endless shoal of dolphins came out from
the shadow of a cloud in the east. They were pretty enough to watch, but
we had little time for two finners led us miles here and there over the
ocean, but eluded us ever; we had little chance of circumventing them by
reason of our two whales in tow. We gave them up and went after spouts
like cannon shots against the dark rain-cloud to the east; and this time
cleared ourselves of our bag; slipped the heavy chains, fastened a buoy
with a tall flag to the two bodies and left them in charge of the Molly
Mawks or Fulmar Petrels. But the family of finners we pursued were very
wide awake, and though we pursued them for weary hours we never got quite
within shot, though dozens of times we whispered to ourselves “A certain
shot!” So with more trouble we took our two whales in tow again, and
left the gulls lamenting, for already they had begun to pick away the
delicate white skin. Then we “up sticked” and steered away south-west to
this sunny part of the sea, and dozed comfortably as we went, our best
speed about six knots, for home.
A fisherman is not to be pitied coming home with seventy tons to port
and sixty to starboard, enjoying the sense of comfort and well-being
that comes after the first hardening days at sea, enjoying the pure air
and the scent of roasting coffee. We do ourselves well on our Norwegian
boats this year; at least the coffee is good. As we imbibe it and think
our sport is over, we come into warmer weather, a froth of soft white
and grey clouds reflected in the swell, two whalers on the horizon and
finners in sight. So it’s all alive-o! Off with the guns’ coverings—we
may have a third whale to show the girls on shore—(if there were any!).
And we chased these too in the silky silence of that space of sea and air
and reflections of fairy lands of softest, most pearly cumulus clouds
with only a spot of frosted blue overhead to give force to the faintest
yellow, the only sound, the soft thrum of our subdued screw beat and the
occasional surge as we crushed down on the glassy swell, and every now
and then the great deep, deep sigh of the seventy-ton finners rising in
front, alas always just out of reach. One of the whales bore a scar where
we think a harpoon had glanced off. The Fritjiof, a neighbour whaler,
also occupied this ocean chamber a few miles off and quietly went about
in tow of a whale; we saw her fire one shot and noted the colour of the
smoke, blue against her hull fading to rusty brown across the sky. She
had four lines into the beast when we called on her later, and chatted
across the swell to the harpooneer.
Now we have again picked up our prey of dead whales and are toddling
home five to six miles an hour at full steam, and ought to be in by
dinner-time to-morrow, Wednesday—that is, twelve o’clock.
Wednesday morning, it is, it must be! But it seems months since
Wednesday last week. Yesterday seemed a week, with its endless gallery
of magnificent sky and sea pictures. Now there is time for a shave and
a wash in the sun on the top of the engine-house. What intense luxury!
What joy to sit and shave and be unconscious of the roll, how superior
we feel compared to the townsmen who left Leith a week ago. There’s the
rush and sound of many waters over our whales on either side, the largest
a little less than our own length. All hands have an easy time. It takes
two watches (eight hours each) down the Shetland shore to our station,
and no whales about. Of course the land is clouded, and we regret that
sunny chamber to the N. and E. of Shetland. I speak to Jensen as we pass
the western cliffs and he verifies my experience; to the N.W. you come
against dark hangings of rain, N.E. you are in sun, back to land and you
are in clouds again. It is no wonder that sunny, crystalline stretch of
sea a hundred miles north of Flugga Light calls to one in town to go
a-whaling.
CHAPTER XII
Having put down these recent experiences of modern whaling, which, though
not exciting, may at least be instructive, let us return to follow the
fortunes of our patient whalers on the St Ebba.
It is September now, and a Wednesday, and early and clear and cold, with
no gale, with just a ripple down Lerwick Bay; one or two people are
lighting their peat fires and the scent comes off to us on the pure,
almost wintry air, and we hoist the Union Jack astern though no one may
see it, and let steam into the steam donkey-engine, and up comes the
port anchor, then the starboard and there is a pause and a bell rings
for stand-by, then half-speed and clash goes the air pressure; then full
speed, and the motor settles down to its steady musical beat and hum. We
are becoming more easy in our minds now about our air compressor starting
the engine, but have not quite forgotten that failure down south-west of
Norway, in the heavy weather, and the subsequent twenty-four hours of
hand-pumping for air pressure to start the engine.
Now we swing round and head south and east out of Lerwick Bay, past the
Bressay Light on our left, and then turn northwards towards Whalsey and
the Outer Skerries, making for Yell Sound and the west of Shetland for
whales, finners, rorquals or big cetaceans of any kind. I found on my
visit to the west coast of Shetland on Sunday, to our whaling station
there, that our steam-whalers had left for Norway a week previously.
Owing to the rough weather they said the season was over; but they left
word that there were still whales about the coast as close as five miles.
Now we have lovely weather to-day, though so cold it feels as if we
were at the start of the spring fishing rather than arriving at the end
of the season. It will be rather rich if we capture a few whales when
the others have fled. At any rate we have the joyous sense of freedom
from competitors that we trout and salmon fishers feel when we find our
favourite pool is unoccupied by another rod.
But, dear brother anglers, could I but tell you of the joy of preparation
for whaling! You know how your fingers almost tremble as you undo your
casts for the first day’s fishing of the year, and what pleasure there is
in all the preparations.
Now we are enjoying a similar pleasure, only our preparations are on a
larger scale, fifteen there are of us, all doing something to help. The
captain and the writer sit on the bridge and con the chart with thumb and
finger, picking up the points—rocks, skerries, beacons. “Steady she is
now, keep her heading for Muckle Skerry,” with Isbister, Moa, Nista and
Nacka skerries on our left. Another mile or two in this direction and we
will turn westwards right through Yell Sound that divides the main island
from the island of Yell.
A swell comes from the north and there is a fresh, pleasant ripple,
and sea and sky are blue as can be expected up north in September, and
everyone is busy, some on deck, some below, engineers at the engine—it
takes very little attention. Then there is a jolly hot fire amidship,
where the smith is busy at his forge. The mate gives him a hand with the
bellows and there is the cheery sound of the ring and beat of red iron on
the anvil. The bos’n, a mere lad, of fairest northern type but of much
seafaring knowledge, sits in a sunny spot sewing canvas. Hansen beside
him is peeling potatoes, and some of the crew bring up bolts of canvas
preparatory to the task we have before us of making awnings, awnings
against the hot sun of the equator. It is a little difficult up here in
the north to believe there is such a thing as hot weather, when we find
two ply of winter clothes none too warm in the sun.
We have our three guns in the bow still swaddled in canvas, but we will
take that off and get them ready farther up the Yell Sound, and perhaps
give my late host a salute as we pass Lochend.
We rather hug ourselves for having at last and at length escaped from
official red-tape entanglements and got to the comparative wilds of the
west of Shetland.
Last night before we left Lerwick we entertained the Custom House and
other officials very modestly, I must here say, and they entertained us
too in the way of songs and arguments and stories. A Swedish captain
joined the entertainment and our evening meal of cormorants and light
beer without making a very wry face at either, and later he gave us
songs. He was slightly grizzled, with close-cropped beard and hair, with
brilliant blue eyes, and he shook his head and beard and closed his eyes
whilst he sang, and hit off some of his notes most exquisitely truly—sang
Freuden’s “Der ganger tre Jenter i Solen” (Three maids towards the sun
went under the linden trees, and the flowers swept their skirts as they
sang tra-la, tra-la, tra-la-la-la), and he quite excelled himself and
shook his head twice as hard, in a dainty ditty about a maid who argued
she might do many things “For mama did so when she var a flikke” (I think
“flikke” stands for our “flapper”), and verses of this he hummed and
sang right into the middle of our most solemn debates on international
politics. Our friend of the “wyles” and the Bow Bells accent, junior
Customs officer, turned out to be Southern Irish, and for the evening at
least a strong Home Ruler and Socialist. His song was too blue to catch
on, but his Socialism raised Henriksen’s fighting spirit to such heat
that we had almost to hold the disputants. But through all the smoke and
heated discussion and small amount of beer, our worthy Swede either slept
or awakened and sang “So did mama, when she were a flikke,” smiling and
shaking his head in a most ingratiating manner.
Then we had a Gaelic song from MacDiarmid of the Isles, and Glen Lyon,
and with the Norwegian national song we dispersed, the Swede still
smiling, singing about the flikke, and the Cockney from Cork firing off
fluent platitudes. Henriksen would hardly believe me when I told him that
any Southern Irishman could be just as eloquent and excited on any side
of any subject under the sun. I hope they were not all drowned, for they
went ashore in a very small, leaky harbour boat, five souls, one pair of
oars, and it dark, late and windy.
But to continue our cast round the islands for whales—we motor steadily
through Yell Sound and past Haldane’s house at Lochend and its silvery
crescent shore, with the little green crofts and low, misty hills beyond.
We swing round his bay and blow our horn three times and by-and-by we
see two figures, Haldane and his gillie, against the white house with
its many little windows in the thick walls and they wave a greeting and
we dip our flag three times and proceed west and north till we feel the
ocean swell again, and pass Ramna Stacks, the battered sentinels at the
north entrance to Yell Sound, home of cormorants and shag. A lumpy sea
generally heaves about them, throwing white fountains up their dark
sides. Often I have seen them when passing up the coast in whalers, and
always they express a rough, rugged aspect of the sea. I have known them
change their colour in a most remarkable manner in the space of a few
moments, from livid yellow to green and back again, and at their feet lie
many shells of great value deposited there in H.M.S. by various cruisers.
This is how it happened. One day an admiral came from the outer seas
at thirty miles an hour and called on R. C. Haldane and said he’d like
to have a shot or two at the Stacks as they were exquisite targets. So
Haldane agreed, seeing the matter was one of national service. And one
morning, bright and early, my host climbed on board the admiral’s ship,
and in the time they had half done breakfast they had travelled from
Lochend at a fearful speed to the Stacks, and then their owner saw the
islands stagger and change colour; when the war vessels passed them, each
decorating the islands with four shells apiece of various explosives,
each patent explosive painting the rocks a different tint.
To-day as we pass they seem to be of their natural colour again, sombre
black and red with a suggestion of pale green grass on their sloping
tops, with streaks of white on the ledges where the sea-birds breed,
undisturbed by man.
N. by W. we steer, the wind ahead as usual, with a careful look-out for
whales, the wind rising meantime till the sea becomes too rough for
harpooning; then we turn tail to the rising sea and fine rain and do a
patrol southwards. As it still grows rougher and there is no sign of any
kind of life, whales or birds, or whales’ food[8] in the water, and as we
have a sheltered anchorage on our lee, we right about, and head for Colla
Firth and Lochend for the night.
For we argue that we can make a more certain “departure” from Colla
Firth if the weather improves to-morrow morning than we could make after
drifting a night in a strong wind in the open sea.
Now we have at last a fair wind almost aft, and up goes our foresail and
staysail and cheerily we hoist away at mainsail, all hands pleased to
turn back from a nasty sea to a cosy night in shelter. We tramp along in
great style, a sailing-ship once more, plus the engine going steadily.
We ought to drop anchor in shelter before dark. How big the sails seem
to-day, with all the reefs out. Dear me! that foresail must have looked
very small indeed in last week’s gale, with all the reefs in, a mere
pocket-handkerchief bit of mainsail.
St Ebba lies over with the squalls off shore as we get into the wind
again, but she doesn’t roll much and we feel increasing belief in her as
a sailing-ship.
CHAPTER XIII
For like the Duke of York
We have some stalwart men,
And we led them out to the High, High Sea,
And we led them back again.
NEW CHANTEY.
We began this day with a chantey—a cheerful, fine-weather chantey. There
are lugubrious songs too for bad weather or unhappy crews—“Stormalong,”
for instance, “Stormie,” who “heard the angels call.” I associate that
slow minor air with the dreary sough and rush of wind and seas south of
Cape Horn. But to-day it was the cheery
[Music]
“Then blow, ye winds, hi ho, to California,
For there’s plenty gold, so I’ve been told,
On the banks of Sacramento.”
It’s ages and ages since I’ve heard it, and to-day it came off by chance
with a go! We were below amongst the ropes and harpoons, Henriksen and
I and some men, and had rigged a hand-pump to shift fresh water from
midship tank into the steward’s, and we set to, coats off, four at a
time, to pump, and I think the captain began; the fine weather we have
struck must have given us spirits, for the chantey rang out all right;
and the fellows on deck were quite surprised and looked down, grinning.
Norsemen are not great at chanteys as a rule, but “California” is known
pretty well round the world by all nationalities.
[Illustration: FLENSING BLUBBER OFF POLAR BEAR SKINS]
[Illustration: WHALE UNDERSIDE UP IN TOW ALONGSIDE
The ribbed white of their undersides is like the white of a kid glove.]
The origin of the chapter heading is perhaps obscure. It was inspired by
the fact that we reached the outer ocean, returned to Colla Firth and
shelter in the evening, and dropped anchor in the twilight opposite the
Norwegian wooden-painted buildings of the Alexandra Whale Company, which
all the workers have left for the winter, the Norsemen to Norway, and the
Shetlanders to their crofts, like bees to enjoy their summer earnings
through the winter.
The morning was perfect so we weighed anchor about five A.M. As we passed
Haldane’s house at Lochend, the black blinds were still down and the
sun shining on its white wall, so we did not as much as blow our horn
to disturb its inmates but hied away for the open sea again, past these
Ramna Stacks and held a course N.W. For about ten miles we kept this
course till we got to the forty and sixty fathom soundings that mark the
change to deep water, then turned S.W., gradually leaving Shetland below
the horizon with Foula, the outlying craggy island showing grey against a
pale rib of salmon-coloured sky beneath the grey pigeon-coloured clouds.
And for once in a way we have what may be called a smooth sea, at least
there’s no white water, and alas and alas, no whales nor any sign of life
in the ocean. Evidently the season is over, the Gulf Stream has been
switched off.
There is still so much to do on board that there is barely time for
disappointment. The whales must be somewhere, so why not farther down our
Scottish coast; so we keep going south, one man only watching, all the
rest of us busy with a variety of work—the artist, the first mate and a
hand laying down a flooring on our main-deck or waist, made of planks
we brought from the wood behind Henriksen’s house on Nottero. This is
to save our permanent deck, for when the whales do come they will have
their dark, silky skin and firm, white fat hauled up on to this from
their bodies in the sea, and there will be so much cutting and chopping
and hauling wire ropes and iron flinching blocks across this waist or
main-deck that our permanent deck would suffer in appearance were it not
protected. And the smith is tackling a piece of ironwork, with the bos’n
as assistant, making clamps to hold chock blocks for the new scuttle
hatch or companion we have made through the big hatch over the main hold.
This being just small enough to admit a man, we can leave it open in bad
weather for access to the hold.
The captain attends to a thousand and one things without pretending to
do so, leaving as much as possible to the mate and crew, and has a two
hours’ sleep, preparatory to a night on the bridge, and works out the
course on his chart. We are aiming—failing whales—at Tobermory, and at
odd intervals we talk whales and prospects, about this kind of whale
and the other, and the sperm in particular, that we are now setting
our hopes on meeting; as the finner has not put in an appearance, the
valuable sperm compared to the less valuable but infinitely stronger
fighting finners. Also Henriksen looks on a little as I paint, for he
is just as interested in my painting as I am interested in his pricking
out our course on the face of one of those most suggestive pictures, the
Admiralty charts. There is nothing more fascinating, even thrilling, to
my mind than picking up this light or the other as we do to-night, and
verifying it on the chart in the cabin.
Noaphead Light on the Orkneys is the first we will pick up, we should
see that soon after (or before) picking up the “three flashes in quick
succession” from that lonely skerry, Sule Skerry, between Orkney and Cape
Wrath. Its guiding circle of radiance intersects the circle of the rays
from Cape Wrath. Cape Wrath is white and red alternately. Then we will
hie for the Butt of Lewis, weather permitting. St Ebba give us better
weather than we met there in the Balæna, a whaling barque of the old
style out from Dundee uncountable years ago—we were twenty days hove to
in a wicked gale with broken bulwarks, spars, and tattered sails—twenty
days between Cape Wrath and the south-west of Ireland—bad spaewives did
it! Now, holy St Ebba, hear our prayer. Dear saint, give us gentle winds
and fair, and for what we are about to receive in the way of whales or
fine weather we will be most truly thankful.
This is the first mate’s birthday—he is certificated as master and has
attained the ripe age of twenty-two, quite an advanced age for many
a Norwegian master, and we celebrate his birthday and incidentally
our first really fine day since we left Norway. Our skipper believes
in making small celebrations on shipboard. He likes to get good work
from the men and be friends at the same time, a perfectly possible
attainment. All hands get a small bottle of light beer, and the steward
(cook, he would be called with us) makes pastry for all hands. We begin
our festive meal with cormorant fricassee, you could not escape the
smell anywhere aft this afternoon. I can’t quite rise to cormorant;
penguins and several other sea-birds I like; but there’s no accounting
for taste, and our _mechanicien_ or engineer, a Swede, simply dotes on
cormorants, and regrets leaving the Shetlands and the endless supply of
these hard-featured birds. Then we have the pastry, and such pastry I
have never seen equalled; certainly our cook is more than steward, he is
a _chef_! And the bottle of brandy is brought forth (out of bond, one
shilling a bottle and not bad at that). Each of us has a little, and
it is sent to the fo’c’sle and comes back still half full—one bottle
for fifteen men and the bottle not empty! and a box of cigars goes from
mess-room to fo’c’sle likewise, and comes back half full, so our crew
cannot be said to be extravagant; then, to complete the celebration,
Nansen, the steward, sits on the main-hatch and plays the ship’s
melodeon, and Rolf, the youngest on board, dances a pas seul on our new
floor—a dance between a mazurka and hornpipe, with two or three clean
somersaults thrown in. He is a pretty dancer, and of good family, I am
told, too lively for home, just the sort you need on board ship. He and
the steward of the pale face and yellow hair danced together. I could
just distinguish them in the dark from the bridge against the light
planks of our newly laid working deck. For a moment, whilst the skipper
played, my heart stood still! for the steward nearly went over our low
bulwarks at a roll from the swell—his exquisite pastry flashed across my
mind.
We saw Sule skerry twinkling in the night a few miles to starboard. I
would like to make a visit there, it would be such a soothing place to
live on, the solitude must be so emphatic, for it is equidistant from
Orkney and Cape Wrath, and out of sight of either. In the morning the
light on Cape Wrath went out and we saw the beetling cliffs backed with
high, bare ridges of the Sutherland mountains against a yellow sunrise.
On a soft, rolling, rippling sea and far off, a mere speck beneath the
cliffs, we made out a fellow-whaler (only a steamer), with its long
trail of smoke beneath the cliff steaming east, and we thought she was
the Hebrides, one of the steamers of a small company, the Blacksod Bay
Company in Ireland, which I wish well. Evidently it was on its road
to Norway, so we gathered that whales must be scarce and the weather
probably bad on the Irish coast.
Our saint has answered our prayer, and instead of the wild weather we
associate with these parts we go comfortably along at eight knots, with
the engine singing a soft song to its gentle beat. What a difference
between the lot of the motor engineer at sea and the steamer’s engineer,
the motor man in a pleasantly warm, spacious room, the other in cramped
space with considerable heat, and the clanging of stokers’ shovels.
Past the E. of Lewis we motor steadily. One killer or grampus we saw, and
about a dozen dolphins in the three days’ run south, and very few birds.
So we felt confirmed in our belief that we should proceed to Southern
Seas now, instead of waiting for whales in northern latitudes. Evidently
the season here is over.
Now we have Neist Light and its double flash, to port, and we pass
Dunvegan and wish we could see the familiar mountains of Skye. But the
light is all we have, and welcome it is; past it a little and we will
have the light on Hyskeir Rock to guide us on our way till we pick up
Colonsay and our old friend Ardnamurchan, and the light on its point
where the white-tailed eagles used to breed.
Burns said: “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.”
If he had been picking up lights from Flugga on Ultima Thule down our
intricate west coast, with its tides and islands, on a dark night, he
would have held his breath with the thought of all the human effort and
forethought these lighthouses express of man’s humanity to man—to our
countrymen, to my Norse companions, to the Russian trader, whose light we
see to-night not far astern; nation to nation offering kindly guidance
and warning. So we have various colours in the night, the pale flashing
lighthouse we steer to, and two golden eyes from our galley casting
patches of light on deck, and on either side of us a phosphorescent Milky
Way with occasionally vivid flashes as we turn over a wave in the smooth
water.
But it is to bed, to bed, for to-morrow we must be astir early, to meet
relatives in Tobermory, and anchor in its circular bay, where we have so
often anchored when we were young and unspoiled, and Mull to Ardnamurchan
in a dinghy seemed a long way, and whaling was as a tale that is told.
At four o’clock in the morning we pass Hyskeir Rocks, pass them three
cables to starboard. It is dark and hazy but their light sweeps across
our deck: soon the lights on Ardnamurchan and Coll greet us; and as sea
and mountain and air faintly separate, we pass the light on the point and
pick up Kilchoan, and then the Tobermory Light.
Ardnamurchan shows a rugged, mountainous outline against the morning
sky, and to a stranger coming from the sea, picking up the lights as he
goes, it seems inhospitable. But to the writer it recalls some similar
mornings—after smoky town down south—coming up for winter shooting.
What glens there are of birches for black game, corries for deer, lochs
for little brown trout and burns for sea-trout! My thanks to relatives
for the free run we had when we were young—Ardnamurchan Point to Glen
Borrodale, what a playground! North beyond the point and the hills above
Kilchoan we see the hills above Loch Aylort and the coast of Morar,
“Blessed Morar,” perhaps the most beautiful spot of the most beautiful
country in the world. Where else do you find stone pines, in deep heather
growing right down to a white coral strand, and glass-green sea-water.
Then Drimnin and Glen Morven appear west and south of Ardnamurchan, full
of memories of relations, of piping, singing, hunting and sailing.
The relatives, we presume, are all asleep now, so we won’t awake them,
as we pass, with repeated blasts on our foghorn, as we half thought of
doing—no, we will later rouse them up with a Fiery Cross reply-paid
telegram from Tobermory to come across the sound to see this newest
whaler. Possibly we will, after considering mundane matters, such as
potatoes and marmalade for all hands, drop anchor at Drimnin or Glen
Morven and ask the relatives to step off and see our wonders on board
ship, but the anchorage at neither of the places is of the very best and
Tobermory is perfect.
* * * * *
My Norse friends fell in love with Drimnin and Tobermory and its round
sheltered bay at first sight: we had only too short a stay, for a wire
told us my cousin, Mr C. H. Urmston, a fellow-director in our Company,
would await me in Oban, so we up anchored, went over to Morven and dipped
our flag and blew the horn opposite Drimnin, and passed the Urmstons’
house, Glen Morven, in silence, for we hear it is let to a stranger from
the south, and down the familiar Sound of Mull we proceeded on this
lovely summer afternoon to the Great Oban.
By the way, I met two men interested in whaling in Tobermory! When your
mind runs on a subject, is it not odd how many people you meet who also
take an interest in same? This man is Yule by name; we met on the subject
of bagpipes; piping is the best bond and introduction to the best men! So
with two interests, whaling and piping, you at once get very intimate. He
came from the east coast—I never met a Highlandman whaler, and not often
a sailor (they are generally Captains or Chiefs, they have brains).
“Did you ever hear the name of Yule as a whaler?” he said; and I replied
I’d heard more stories about Yule and whales and white bears and Arctic
jokes and adventures from Dundee to north of the Pole than of any other
man alive or dead. “Well,” he said, “that was my grandfather,” and he
referred me to his father up the close, to verify the grandfather’s
exploits. So if anyone who reads this wishes yarns true and hair-curling
about Greenland’s icy mountains, etc., let him call at Tobermory, on Yule
senior. No. 51, the third close past the post office.
A fair lady at Tobermory graced our vessel with a fleeting visit. Miss
Sheila Allan, of the famous line of that name. She rowed from Aros
Castle in her dinghy and sprang on board, leaving her collie in charge,
overhauled our strange craft, fore and aft, sprang into the dinghy again,
a mere cockle-shell, and rowed off again half-a-mile to windward, against
a fresh breeze, as if it was the most ordinary everyday thing for one
of our ladies to do; many a fair Brunhilda could have done the same. I
did not tell my Norse friends that she was at all exceptional, so our
Norsemen have formed a lofty idea of Scotswomen as mariners. I wished
they could have seen her, as I have, out on the Sound of Mull in wind and
rain, fair hair flying, yellow oilskins dripping, racing her own cutter,
three reefs down, through the spray for the Tobermory Cup.
CHAPTER XIV
The British fleet lay at Oban; I don’t think any wars-man on any of the
vessels would not have changed places with one of us; for to any seaman
there is an air of romance and adventure about a whaler. I’d have felt
distinctly proud passing down their line in our little vessel whose
object and capabilities any bluejacket could guess at—a motor, plus sails
and a small but sea-going hull, a business-like gun at bow, a crow’s
nest; and going south—that would appeal to their imagination. But alas!
at our stern hung a Union Jack made in Norway, that a Boy Scout would
jeer at. I am to blame. I’d taken it for granted I could get a Union Jack
anywhere, but the Norse idea of a Union Jack I cannot recommend. But the
warships politely dipped to us, and the crews crowded round their bows
and we could only imagine the smiles at our Jack. We may perhaps still
manage to get one of the correct design in the north of Ireland if we
call there. In any case, our mistake was accidental and temporary; but
each of his Majesty’s ships flew the Cross of St George with the Union
Jack device relegated to a mere canton, a deliberate violation of the
Treaty of Union, the first article of Treaty which stipulated that the
united crosses of both Scotland and England shall be used in _all_ flags
both at sea and on land.
We spent the Sunday afternoon as John Knox and the reformer used to spend
it. I mean we enjoyed ourselves “out-by.” John Knox, you know, golfed on
Sunday afternoons, and ate oysters in a High Street cellar at night! So
we sailed, and then dined in the Station Hotel. My wife and my cousin,
Urmston, had come north to Oban to avail themselves of the chance of
seeing the St Ebba; and with a light, fresh breeze and smooth water we
sailed and motored over to Duart and South Morven, and Loch Linnhe, and
at night dined on shore as stated. The engine had worked perfectly;
Urmston, a born mechanic and sailor, was delighted with the whole
turn-out, so it was rather a jolly dinner and there were many yarns.
One of the subjects that came up was that of wives at sea. “Ach, vifes at
sea’s no good,” said Henriksen emphatically, and I was rather surprised,
as I know Norwegian captains often take their wives to sea, but Henriksen
has been, as a boy and mate, a looker-on, and has seen trouble come from
it.
“No, no,” he continued, “alvays bad veather and trouble ven veemen’s
on board. I tell you vonce a veeman come on board—I laff! We vas in a
barque and the captain’s vife she owned it—she vas very reech, and had
tree sheeps. She vas married tree times—the captain tell me dis, he vas
her tird husband.” Henriksen was serving his time on this barque as all
Norsemen do, on sailing-ships before the mast. At Boulogne they lay one
night alongside the slip, and all but he had gone on shore to the cafés.
He being youngest had to do watchman, and brewed himself coffee in the
galley and then dozed, possibly slept for “five minutes or maybe two
hours,” he said. “I do not know, and ven I vakes up I looks out and dere
is a light in cabin so I goes quiet and looks down the skylight and der
vas a great veemen! with luggage on de floor beside her.”
Down to the cabin went Henriksen and addressed her. “Who is you, vat you
come here for without leave?” To which she replied: “I am the captain’s
wife.” But the boy would not be bluffed. “That is not true,” he cried,
“go away at once, you’se bad veemen, you comes here to steal, be off wid
you before I gets the crew or the captain comes.”
And she looked round her and rose and reached to a young woman’s photo
on the wall and held it to Henriksen and he gazed and saw the truth;
this elderly spacious person still preserved some faint resemblance to
the buxom girl in the faded photograph. So Henriksen made his bow—you
know how the Norse bow, straight from the hips, and apologised and asked
forgiveness, which she very graciously extended to him, saying: “You very
good boy, you look after ship well.” So he chatted away pleasantly, and
got her coffee and food and retired again to the galley, and when he was
sound asleep again, the captain came from the town, jumped down on deck
and came growling to the galley: “Hillo, you’re a nice watchman! asleep
in the galley, when you should be on deck.” “Well, captain,” said the
boy, “I work all day hard, and all night I vatch and den comes your vife
and I cooks for her long times, what you expect?”
“My wife,” whispered the captain anxiously. “Evan, here’s something for
you, put that in your pocket and keep it, and promise not to say a word
about my coming aboard.”
Henriksen promised, and the captain turned and stole away along the dark
quay.
In the morning a wire came to the first mate—I think it was supposed to
be from Antwerp—saying the captain was on his way home to meet his wife
in Norway, on which the fond creature said she would at once return home
to meet her good man, and she went. An hour later the captain appeared on
board, and they made sail for Valparaiso.
My wife said: “That’s a most excellent story, Captain Henriksen,” at
which he protested solemnly: “No, no, dat is no _story_, dat is quite
true, I tells you.” And we had to explain the differences in our language
between the “story,” an incident, and the “story,” an untruth; if you
try, you will find it is rather difficult to do this. The language
question again!—how often it crops up. I wish I could speak Norsk
properly; I have to worry along with English. I was told to-day I can
speak that difficult language very well. We had all been speaking to the
lighthouse service captain for quite a long time when he complimented
Henriksen on his English and flatteringly told me I spoke it even better,
and I explained I’d made a study of it for about half-a-century, and in
fact had the honour of lisping my first words in his own part of the
country.
[Illustration: THE “ST. EBBA,” MOTOR WHALER, IN OBAN
Note the whale gun and harpoon at the bow and the oil boilers amidships.]
That incident was slightly amusing: but halting English nearly got
our Swedish motor inspector, whom we met at Tobermory, into serious
trouble. He is such a nice-looking fellow, too, I felt quite sorry. He
waited there for our arrival peacefully for three days at the Mishnish
Hotel, putting in the time sketching. One day he made a drawing of Aros
Castle, the Allans’ mansion, and as he lay in the grass and ferns under
the birches his thoughts went back to his professional work and he drew
plans and symbols, and a native came dandering along, full of the kindly
interest the west highlander takes in the stranger (I like it myself, but
some people call it mere curiosity), and he ventured: “You will shust pe
arrived, maybe by the Lochinvar? Aye, aye, shust so, she’s a wonderful
boat. Aye, you will be from Glasgie? That’s a fine toon Glasgie. I wass
there for the Exheebition. Och, no, you will not be from Glasgie. From
Sweden! Do you tell me so? ma Cot! that’s a long way. I see, I see, so
you will be a foreigner. Weel, weel, I will wish you a coot day,” and he
went. But he had seen the symbols, and he knew the Fleet was at Oban,
and he had been reading the papers about invasions, so when he met the
policeman, who pays a visit to Tobermory once a year to sign his name,
he said to him that “there wass a lad at Aros, in the ‘furrns,’ drawin’
plans and things—_would he be a spy_?” After due consideration the
policeman decided to walk round the bay. It is not very far round the
bay, not far for anyone but Tobermory natives, who are restful people.
I once saw them watching Aros Castle on fire with their hands in their
pockets, and it never occurred to them to trot round the half-mile to
help.
Well, the policeman did not go quite round the bay, for he met the
young man coming back and he said: “It’s a fine day, Mister, for the
time of year, and you will haff been drawing?”—and asked very politely
if he might see the sketches; in the West we are very polite, for the
climate is so mild. And as the young Swede modestly refused to exhibit,
MacFarlane accompanied the visitor rather silently till they came to the
famous Mishnish (famous for drams since the Flood), and then the young
Swede began to see the humour of the situation, and allowed MacFarlane
to examine his baggage, and got him at last to understand, with great
difficulty, for he only spoke very little English, that he was waiting
for a Diesel engine motor-whaler called the St Ebba, and mentioned
this writer’s name, which made it all right with MacFarlane. And the
hotelkeeper, and one or two friends of the policeman and the hotel
proprietor came, and they had quite a pleasant afternoon and evening: for
as the sun shines there are soft drinks to be drunk and tales to be told
in the Mishnish Hotel in Tobermory’s sheltered bay any day of the year
round.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XV
[Music]
“It was a’ for our richtfu’ King
We left fair Scotland’s strand,
It was a’ for our richtfu’ King,
We first saw Irish land, my dear,
We first saw Irish land.
“Then right he turned and round about
Upon the Irish shore
He gave his bridle rein a shake
With ‘Adieu for ever more, my dear,’
With ‘Adieu for ever more.’”
No one knows who wrote these words—some mournful Jacobite, perhaps,
who felt as the author does; for though the night is perfect, with the
golden harvest moon reflected in a sea like glass, we cannot but feel a
little sentimental on turning our backs on relatives and on our dear West
Highland strand (especially during the shooting season).
The tune fits the words, does it not? I think it is a recollection of
an old sea-chantey I once heard—coming back to mind to suit the words,
and what might seem to be the mournful cadence of our Diesel engine and
the sighing of the glassy water as we surge gently across the swell. I
wrote before of the musical notes of our engine. I do not think my cousin
Urmston or Henriksen notice it much to-night, for they are too absorbed
in whale talk. My cousin left desk, and shoots, and engagements, to come
with us to the Irish shore to see us as far as Belfast, and to go over
our business papers, but pipes and whale talk and more pipes and more
whale talk, and minute examination of the engines, seem more to their
taste at the moment than business papers by lamplight. Belfast docks
will be more the place for business than the Sound of Islay, with Jura
and the day fading and a night full of the yellow light of the harvest
moon. A joyous change for the family lawyer, is it not—from the city to
the coast he dreams of in town—from the busy office to the quiet of the
Highlands and islands—from affairs of companies to the picking up of the
lights on Islay and the Mull of Cantire? We hoped for his sake to see a
killer at least, or something to fire one of the guns at—several finners
have been seen lately on the Scottish coast. But as the morning dawned it
grew rough with thick haze, and it was all we could do to pick up Black
Ness and then the entrance to Belfast Lough. We are not proud, so we took
a pilot and felt our minds at rest as we steered up the three miles of
buoys which mark the channel almost as close as lamp-posts in a street.
If you have not seen Belfast I give you my word that the first impression
is astonishing. You can hardly believe you are not dreaming. The iron
network of building leviathans in course of construction is overpowering,
enormous, so vast is the perspective of not merely one or two great
iron ghosts, but streets of them, high as buildings in New York, one
beyond the other on either side of the river, fading into smoke and
distance, and the noise of iron hammering and banging is universal, so
all-pervading that you hear yourself speak quite easily. We felt like a
mere speck crawling up the grey river. By-and-by we noticed little mites
moving about in these gigantic structures of iron filigree-work, high up
on stagings, or higher still on vast cranes, up in the sky; these were
men, twenty-six thousand of them in one yard alone! We met them later,
in marching order, hefty fellows, blue-eyed, drilled Ulster Irishmen,
stronger looking than Scotsmen. Later on we saw them sign their National
Covenant.
These are descendants of the people who gave Scotland its name. Few
there are who know this. Men learn about the Kings of England and of
Israel, with their dates, at public schools, but never a word are they
taught of the far longer, far more dramatic and interesting succession of
Scottish kings, previous to their succession to the English crown. Not
one in a hundred knows that the old name for Ireland was “Scotia,” that
it was not till the seventh century that the Scots of Ireland gave their
name to Alba, to the United Scots and Picts of Britain north of Tweed,
our Scotland of to-day. But we are verging toward dangerous ground—let us
get to sea again and continue to chronicle on the rolling deep, and let
_Erin go bragh_.
* * * * *
Erin goes fast away on our right—a violet line between white-capped
greenish waves and a grey, windy sky. We came down Belfast Lough
against dead head-wind and proudly passed much larger sailing craft
than ourselves waiting in shelter for fair wind, and having hunted for
a boat in which to deposit our pilot! We got out to sea, set sail, and
have again become a sailing-ship with a strong breeze on our quarter. We
knocked off eleven knots an hour, leaving tramps and such-like behind us.
But what an awful appearance we have! Four days alongside the quays in
Belfast, with coal-dust flying everywhere, have made us like a collier,
rather hard lines, considering we make no mess coaling ourselves as
others do. What a change there will be in the amenity of seaports and all
towns when oil takes the place of coals. Imagine a clean town—Edinburgh,
for example, and the beauty of such a dream!
It was the air pump and the connections between our oil tanks that
brought us into the thick of great events—into “Ulster Day” and the
signing of the National Covenant, and a small matter (hunting for some
flexible iron tubing) brought us into the great and beautiful City Hall.
I am sure few people have heard what an exquisitely designed building
this is—indeed, what a very handsome town Belfast is, taking it all
round. And the people! how I wish my northern countrymen knew what they
were like in the mass. How very like themselves, both men and women,
but perhaps rather bigger and stronger than the average Scot, and as
reliable-looking, and yet perhaps a little happier than we are, even in
their anxious times.
I don’t think our Norse crew found Belfast altogether a bed of roses.
Some had shore leave, with five shillings each to spend up town. Our
cook, or steward, told me of their adventures. He heard of them from the
watchman, who was made their confidant. Now they are ship’s property.
Seven of them, all young fellows, “very greenhorns,” said the cook,
washed, put on celluloid collars, brushed up, and sallied forth at night,
and they had barely got to the bridge along Queen’s Quay when three of
them had given their five shillings to maids of Erin, fair, frail things
in shawls, and the coy creatures fled and the three came home to the
ship lamenting—so the watchman said. The others, to a certain extent,
enjoyed all the _tumasha_, and, to be sociable, bought a penny Union Jack
buttonhole, badges that almost everyone was wearing; what they signified
they don’t quite know yet. It was jolly lucky they weren’t killed.
They went up Bally Macarack Street, in the heart of the Roman Catholic
district, and were mobbed by Nationalists, fifteen girls and a dozen men.
Happily the police arrived in time. The tallest of our crew got a severe
kick on the part he sits on, and the smallest got a “shock,” as he said,
on his eye, and they say: “If we lies here in Belfast one years we no go
shore again! No fears; dem’s folk’s mad, dem’s crazy! What’s all that
for-dumna ‘Ulster’ dems shouts all de time?”
* * * * *
We are picking out our course to-night (Monday) on the chart rather
comfortably in the cabin. It is smooth and we are in mid-Channel, in
the north-west we have Holyhead Light. We forecast a run of luck for
ourselves. We’ve had our share of head-winds and little difficulties
since we left the south of Norway, so with the compasses we mark out six
days’ run as long as to-day’s run, which will bring us to Azores in six
days, or seven days sure, if we have a little strong fair wind—we won’t
think of nasty rough weather.
But “Just about here,” the compasses pause, “I was three weeks,” said
Henriksen. “That Christmas was the roughest time of my life,” he
continued, puffing at his new calabash.
“We was on the Kron Prince three weeks out from Cardiff, seven feet water
in the hold and the pumps won’t work.” They had reached the Azores and
drifted back to the Bay, then to the Irish Channel, and got shelter, I
think, in Bridgewater.
“Captain and mate they’s on deck, with revolvers, but we get ashore and
run away. We was not going in that for-dumna sink ship, I’se sure. No!
tree hours at wheel was my last watch, one hour pumping, cold, wet, then
I finds in corner of fo’c’sle three biscuits, one half-cup tea cold, dat
decides me!” “How did you get off?” I said.
“With a runner—runner come alongside: we cuts square hole under fo’c’sle
head, captain and mate, they looks all round deck, but not below bows,
and we slips out, eight of us and our bags.”
Perhaps these eight were justified for the Crown Prince got a new crew
and sailed, and was never heard of again.
Henriksen had three guineas sewn in the waistband of his trousers, and a
lot of sense besides for eighteen, also his mate’s certificate, although
he was only a sailor on board, and he reflected, as he went ashore, on
what he knew of runners and their ways: how the sailor is kept by the
same on the credit of his next two or three months’ advance wage, and
then goes to sea with precious few clothes and say five shillings to land
with at the next port, and has therefore to go to another runner until he
gets another ship, and so may be at sea two or three years with hardly
the sight of pay. So on getting ashore Henriksen made a clean bolt to
the nearest railway station, jumped into first train, taking ticket to
first station, leaving his bag with the runner, of course, but keeping
his mate’s ticket. Where did he say he got to? I forget, somewhere near
Liverpool, but five or ten miles he did free of charge as the guard was
interested in his recital.
From Liverpool he booked third class to Belfast. It was a wild crossing
and he met, strangely enough, another runaway, an Englishman, and isn’t
this the making of a story? They befriended a would-be second-class
passenger and his wife, who were obliged, by overcrowding, to go
steerage, and both these people were helplessly sea-sick, and their poor
children just rolled about the floor till the two young seamen took care
of them, and held them in their arms all night. The father pressed a
whole £1 note on Henriksen, which he refused, as he had plenty of his £3
remaining, but the Englishman was stony, and he was persuaded to take ten
shillings, and the parents gave each of them their address.
Afterwards Henriksen called on them—and such a fine house it was!
Henriksen reflects now he might have called on these old friends in
Belfast this journey. “They must be old people now. Next time I come to
Belfast,” he says, “I calls—maybe they’s in life.”
At Belfast he went on a local tramp, then got berth as second mate, and
had twelve months at sea without a day ashore. For it was to Bahia that
he went, where you anchor almost out of sight of land. For I forget how
many weeks he lay at anchor, then sailed to another port, twelve men
in the fo’c’sle, seven with monkeys, the rest with parrots, fancy the
racket! then to Mobile Bay and then back to Troon, “two houses and a
wall,” as he describes our charming little Scottish seaport, then home
to Norway. That is all you sometimes see of foreign parts if you go down
to the sea in ships. Nine months at sea with one night ashore is the
writer’s longest spell of salt water, but Henriksen tells me he knows
of a man being twenty-seven months at sea without getting on shore. I
think I must make a special book of Henriksen’s adventures. As told to me
they are interesting, but our surroundings count for a good deal: over a
chart in the little lamplit cabin or on our quarter-deck (three steps and
overboard), the moon overhead, and our sails looking dark and large, and
our Æolian engine singing its steadfast song.
Though only a little south of Ireland, we have the real swell of deep
sea; rolling low hills that leave no level horizon to us, for we are so
close to the sea-surface, long, gentle undulations that suggest a perfect
golf-course for elderly people.
We have a steady air from the north-east like the Trades. Possibly we
may never have to shift a sail till we reach the Azores, and certainly
to-day there was that in the light at midday, the sharp shadows on
faces as we took the sun’s altitude, that, even with a pigeon-grey sky,
reminded me of southern light that I have not seen or felt for several
years, and we did things with our coats off, and brought our rifles on
deck for an overhaul.
Our Norwegian heavy bores for sea-elephants cost £3, and as far as I
can see are extremely accurate at the short range. I have tried them at
one hundred and one hundred and thirty yards and they do not burst. It
will be interesting to compare the effect of my higher velocity sporting
mauser, a 375, with their work. Possibly the larger bullet of the Norse
rifle, about 500, may be more useful for this huge animal at close range.
The Norsemen are sure of this, but I back the bullet with the higher
velocity every time.
There is a gale this evening and we are running with reefed foresail.
CHAPTER XVI
It is a strong N.E. gale, but “Muckle word pass ower,” as the children
were taught by a certain dominie in the north to repeat when they came to
a word beyond his knowledge, so “Muckle gale and pass ower,” we say, and
try not to think of it. Why dwell on the unpleasing side of the sea. It
is beastly all the same, and trying to one’s nerve.
We have no canvas on her now, just tumble along before the wind, with
bare poles, through the grey seas, the wind passing through to our bones,
wet with spray, weary with the motion. Henriksen says: “To-morrow ve vill
be into the feene vedder.” I don’t know which is best, to be alongside an
optimist or a pessimist in a gale at sea. An old skipper used to murmur
to me in evil, dangerous times: “Hoot-toots, we’ll be oot o’ this intil a
waur” and I begin to think this grim pessimism was really more comforting
than Henriksen’s sanguine forecast of fine weather and blue seas which, I
think, are far off.
All the same I notice to-day that as we bury our stem and the water roars
over our deck, the little light which comes through the seas into our
round bowley aft has a watery tint of blue instead of the green it had
yesterday. That is, I take it, because we are out into the deep sounding
beyond eighty and two hundred fathoms that encircle our shores past
the great Sole bank, on the S.W. of England and Ireland, and now have
somewhere about two thousand fathoms beneath us. We thought of heaving to
last night and had a trysail ready for the aftermast. It was very black
and awesome, but we managed to hold on our course. It is rather risky
heaving round head to wind after you have run till the sea is dangerous.
If you do not put down the wheel at the right moment you have a chance of
getting one of these black seas and their huge white crests full on your
beam or bridge and perhaps becoming a wreck in a second. It was as if
the lights of cities at night showed every instant round the low horizon
every now and then, to be blotted out by black hills, the light of the
phosphorescent white ridges of foam.
Seizing what we think is a lull between big waves we scramble across
the wet deck forward to our small mess-room, pause as we hang on and
swing, till the iron door is almost upright and dive in. The door shuts
with a clang.... How the wind whistles as the new-comer opens the little
round-topped iron door! But once inside there is peace and warmth and
lamplight and steamy air from the cooking stove, and we have sardines
and bread and margarine for dinner, for it’s too rough for cooking more
than tea. Then out into the black, wet, slippery deck again. Phew! How
it blows, and how difficult it is to see now! Then to the bridge again
and the St Ebba beneath us, a patch of black with two lights like eyes
shining aft from the galley, a mass of dark against the wicked white of
the surf which we tear in the dark sea—a black cat on a white bearskin,
in a half-lit room. I suggest to the styrman (Norse for first mate) and
captain as we shiver (I do at least) on the bridge that a Rolls Royce
motor-car on a hard, dry road isn’t so bad, and they shout with derision.
“No! No!” the St Ebba for them, driving before a gale. I wonder if they
really mean it! Anyway I must pretend that I like it too.
A chunk of green sea came over our poop and bridge last night, banged
on our iron cabin door which faces astern with a thunderous shock and
swept over the bows. Some went over the bridge, and a lot came down to
the cabin, enough to be unpleasant. Out came styrman like a rabbit from
his bunk, and I’m pretty sure both the writer and captain’s colour was
not suggestive of pure joy. In a brace of shakes, after this big wave
broke over us last night, Henriksen was at the wheel and the engine going
again—the engineer had stopped it for some reason, perhaps to let our
decks clear off the sea. Then sacks with waste and oil were rigged out
on either bow, and we continued, the seas breaking angrily but out of
reach of us. So we drove through the night and are satisfied, and won’t
do it again. We did ninety miles in the night with practically only two
seas aboard, and we do not believe there’s a boat floating of our size
or bigger that would do the same, and we forecast our style of stern and
lines under water becoming the fashion.
This morning we have a bit of foresail up again and an experimental jib
as storm trysail on our mainmast, and it seems just to be right.[9]
[Illustration]
I thought I had missed sport by writing these notes and not turning out
early, for when I did put up my head into the wind and spray, the mate
was silhouetted on the bow, harpoon in hand, with figures grouped round
him, holding lines, in attitudes of intense expectancy, and there were
dolphins springing alongside. But it was too rough. Several lunges were
made by various members of the crew with our little hand harpoon and its
long spruce shaft, but they were misses all. The sun shone about midday,
a small incident, but after three days’ storm and heavy seas it was a
cheering sight, and the sea became blue, but always too rough to get a
harpoon into the dolphins. They appeared again at night. The sea was full
of phosphorus, so we could see their brilliant tracks shooting round
backwards and forwards like the trail of rockets. Though I have been
amongst hundreds of whales at different times and seasons I have never
had the luck to see one going through a phosphorescent sea; but Henriksen
tells me a year or two ago, off Korea, he tried to harpoon one in the
dark, aiming at the glare as it passed alongside. He could scarcely see
the gun and fired a bit too far back, I think at the light, instead of
ahead of it, and missed and saw the yellow blaze of light under water as
the shell on the point of the harpoon exploded. “Ask me if that whale
went fast,” he said.
It is Sunday, the 8th October, an idyllic Sunday; there’s a grand,
blue, rippling swell, and enough air to keep our sails spread, so we
roll gently along, a block creaking occasionally and our little engine
throbbing beautifully. But there is a slight feeling of annoyance aft,
and it’s easily understood. Our skipper has his idea of what Sunday at
sea should be when there’s no whaling or hard sailing to attend to, and
I agree with him. He thinks all clothes-washing and drying blankets and
mattresses should be done on Saturday, Sunday should show clear decks,
shaved chins and, if possible, a change of clothes and mind. But most of
our crew apparently have been brought up to the common idea of Sunday as
washing-day and have hung up shirts and clothes of all kinds everywhere.
Henriksen endures the un-Sundaylike display but vows “never again.” Next
Sunday we will be neat and clear, or all hands will be working double
tide at flensing or hunting whales—we shall see!
Meantime we have had days of quiet ship work, the sea getting more
blue each day, and winter clothes shedding. On this account we held a
_shoppie_ on Friday—got out the captain’s slop chest from the hold. This
is an old sailing-ship custom. Six of us carried it aft to quarter-deck,
unlocked it and took all the contents into the little cabin, and wasn’t
it a well-stocked shop—jerseys, trousers, boots in cardboard boxes, caps,
shirts, woollen gloves for the cold northern seas, and white and blue
dungaree suits for tropics, and scented soap! It was new for me to see
scented soap on such a business. Henriksen and the first mate have a busy
afternoon with their coats off and pipes going, looking up prices and
calculating the ten per cent. profit—a small profit to cover risks—and
good articles. I’ve seen fifty per cent. made off very inferior goods.
And the crew come down one by one and buy what they need or can afford,
and “ask me” if the atmosphere doesn’t get thick towards lamplight time.
There was not much sale in the way of winter kit. The heaps of mits and
thick woollen socks will not be appreciated till St Ebba gets far south
towards the ice edge.
With our present crew of Norsemen it is not so easy to get interested in
them, individually, as with sailors of our own race; still the few words
we have of each other’s language, eked out with signs and drawings, go
far—drawings especially; indeed, from the captain downwards, painting
excites far more intelligent interest among our crowd than they would
with my own countrymen. Our old Dundonian whalers were neither very
musical nor artistic. Here the skipper plays Grieg, and has a lively
interest in every æsthetic aspect and every change of form and colour in
waves and sky, and has actually taken up water-colours and playing on my
bagpipe practice chanter, but I fear that for neither of these will he be
able to spare time, for a skipper is, or should be, practically on duty
all the time. But his first attempt at water-colours—a blue sea and white
breakers under a blue sky—was not half bad. The blue sea was there all
right, but the rhythm of the waves and the half tints, who can do them
justice?—Wyllie, to a certain extent, but I cannot remember anyone else,
unless Colin Hunter, and he is dead.
It is a real day of rest, contemplation and dreaming. Our greatest effort
has been to rig a line for dolphins. Both the trolling tackles we had out
were carried away last night, so I unearthed a tunny hook I had fastened
to a wire rope with a strip of aluminium to act as spoon bait. Now that
is trolling astern for the benefit of any wandering albicore, tunny,
bonita dolphin or such-like. I expect the crack of the breaking fir stem
boom, from which the line trails, will wake us from our dreams.
You may dream on board a whaler! dream at the wheel on such a day as
this, or in the crow’s nest, or sitting on one of the boats, for you are
so cut off from the world of people who stop dreams—nurses, mothers,
policemen and preachers. Alas, when you think of it, what genius has
perhaps been nipped in the bud by the reprehensible habit of such
well-meaning people. Where would art, science and literature be to-day,
we reflect, had dreaming not been discouraged by those who took charge
of our tender days. Mercifully, with the advance of years, some of us
learn to dodge these interruptions by going to sea, perhaps—where one
may dream or follow out a train of thought, as it were, on the sly. For
dreaming is following out a train of thought. Newton dreamed when he saw
the apple fall. Mercifully he had got beyond the nursery governess stage,
or his line of thought would have been nipped with: “Johnny, do wake up
and come along now, don’t dawdle there, what are you dreaming about?”
Watt managed, on one occasion, to dream on the sly and watched a boiling
kettle, and was it not either an Angle or a Saxon chief who dreamed and
let cakes burn and so united the tribes of Southern Britain? Moral, when
a small boy dreams over dessert you may morally rap him over the knuckles
and he will eat his dessert, but you may have spoiled the greatest
mathematical genius of our age.
So we muse or dream on ocean’s bosom, and read a little of monastic
times, since we are on the St Ebba, and disagree languidly with Froude’s
conclusions on Erasmus and Luther, and occasionally we cast an eye
round the empty horizon. When suddenly, from starboard, come leaping
dolphins, breaking the smooth monotony of the blue water. They sweep to
our bows, we dive from bridge to bow, seize the hand harpoon, and all
our little community wakens up and collects on our bows. Here they come
to starboard! and we get all clear for a lunge at one—no easy matter
as our sails are down, and we are doing eight knots by motor and roll
heavily. Swish, swish—two leap near our bows and the writer nearly goes
overboard in an effort to drive the young pine-tree and harpoon home, but
it misses by an inch and the frightened dolphins dash astern and come up
to port bow as if we were stationary, and so we pass the harpoon over to
Henriksen. He waits his chance and drives home a very clever thrust and
away goes the line and Henriksen very nearly after it, and all hands get
on to the rope, spring at it like ferrets at a rabbit, active as cats, a
heap of them tumbling aft along bulwarks till amidships somehow or other
the kicking dolphin is lugged over the side amongst the struggling young
sailors, and one with an axe chops its tail quiet, and in a second or two
our first cetacean, the destroyer of lovely flying-fish, breathes no more.
I should think it must weigh about two hundred pounds. Henriksen takes
the opportunity to demonstrate on a small scale the process of flensing
the blubber according to precedent, and his own plan, so that some of
our hands, new to whaling, may know what is wanted when we get hold of
sperm or the large finner whales. It is rather like a demonstration by a
surgeon to students, so rapid, but more of this method anon.
Yes, we find remains of exquisite flying-fish inside the mammal, and yet
none of us have seen flying-fish about here; are there then flying-fish
here, but deep in the sea, or has the dolphin brought these from farther
south?
Alas! that the deck of the St Ebba should be stained with gore. The
best of the meat we have cut off, two long strips down the back,
perhaps thirty pounds each, and into vinegar and water they go, enough
fresh meat for all hands for several days, and the oil of the spec or
blubber will probably amount to a gallon—one gallon clear profit for
our shareholder—one little drop of the vast ocean of whale oil we hope
to collect some day for the furtherance of British industries, and the
manufacture of margarine and olive oil in Paris, and the hundred and one
other purposes for which whale oil is used.
We have not exactly broken the Sabbath, for though we are a British ship
the crew is Norse and the Norwegian Sunday begins on Saturday afternoon
and ends at two on Sunday.
Henriksen is rather pleased that we have a young crew for our new kind of
ship and methods, as older men would be more difficult to train to our
special needs.
We see a large steamer, French, Italian or Spanish, in tow of a Liverpool
tug, grey-black funnel—white ship. We have seen only four craft since we
left Belfast.
_P.S._—All hands have dolphin steak with fried onions for supper. It is
not nearly so good as whale meat, but better than cormorant by miles—in
fact, is quite palatable.
Who said that the romance of the sea has gone, that steam has driven it
away? But that is not true; it is just as blue and full of fresh life and
romance for all of us as it ever was. The new land or new port is just as
new to me as it was to Romans or Carthaginians.
With every new type of vessel there comes a fresh aspect of the romance
of the sea.
Our new type will revive or open a new chapter of sea life. No more black
coal and smoke, but a clean, silent engine, petroleum plus sails; sails
must come back; look at our run down here, half sails, half motor; the
modern steam-whaler could not have done it, even the old sailing flyers
could not either.
I think we could have converted any disbeliever in the romance of the
sea if they’d have come aboard last night, when Henriksen and I had our
southern charts out, studying the lonely islands away down there.
Visiting the islands of the world alone would fill books of sea romance;
think of them, the thousands there are, some of them never visited.
Those in the south of the Antarctic edge are described in the Admiralty
books we have in such terse, dry words as these: “Of no interest
geographically”; “Dangerous”; “Only of interest to sealers”! “Provisions
for ship-wrecked crews were deposited by H.M. (? ship) in the year ⸺”
before the Flood! And they say: “There are only kergulen cabbages—a red
root like a carrot” on one, and wild pigs on another; and on another the
beach is covered with innumerable sea-elephants and penguins. Ghost of
Robinson Crusoe, what else can a man want? Why, even these islands, the
Azores, so close to home, how the prospect of seeing them fills us with
eagerness! What will the hills be like, and the people, and the fruit,
and the wine, and birds, and flowers, and fish! We long to see them with
the utmost impatience now that only a narrow strip of rough blue sea lies
between us and them, to-night we may fetch its lights—to-morrow we will
see the land in full sun for a certainty.
CHAPTER XVII
A new land, new to us, only a faint tint above the horizon, but land it
is, we know; merely an outline of faint soft blue-grey mountains over the
sparkling morning sea.
All night we waited and watched for its lights, but not till daylight
did we have the pleasure of seeing “land”! Land rising out of the waters
after even a week at sea is very gratifying, like food after hunger, like
health after illness.
We have made a good land fall—we find ourselves heading straight to the
centre of San Miguel, the largest island of the Azores group, within a
few yards of the point we aimed at from Belfast; thanks to three skilled
navigators, for we would have passed the islands miles to W. if we had
not corrected compass by sun bearings, a procedure which demands very
scientific knowledge of navigation.
So it is a case of a shave to-day, and getting out thin land clothing,
with an occasional turn on deck between the operations to gloat on the
blue hazy mountains.
We must bring a harpoon or two on deck to show our real character, for
our queer craft, with its three guns forward, might make the Portuguese
wonder what our intentions might be, especially as our full papers are
being mailed out to Cape Town, and we must try to avoid any more red tape
entanglements.
Gradually the hazy land is lit by the rising sun; some rays penetrate
the veil of clouds that hangs over the mountains. We see greenish tints
and white specks, and with the glasses make out that these are houses,
apparently farms with a light and dark green tartan of fields and hedges
round them.
Above the little fields are peaks with scrub or trees up to the clouds,
below the cultivated land there is a steep coast like North Devon,
covered with shrubs and cliffs, on which the sea sends up white shoots of
foam.
As the sun rises the horizon becomes quickly blue—southern blue, but
towards the land the clouds still keep the light subdued over sea, hills,
glens, and peaks. The sea has awakened but the land seems still to sleep.
Dolphins come from seaward and welcome us, and alas, one poor fellow goes
away blazed with a harpoon mark; he was very nearly becoming food for the
poor human creatures on board St Ebba, but the harpoon drew!
This island, St Michael or San Miguel, is undoubtedly like Madeira,
without quite such extremely rugged peaks.
We plan staying one day in port to overhaul the engine, and there to get
a large-sized chart and local information about whales, then to patrol
round the islands for a week, and, if whales are here, perhaps longer. If
not, we go to Madeira, thence southwards with the advancing season.
How exquisite is the colouring of the white and pink houses against
the green and violet of the hills. Now the sun is in full blaze and
the sea intensely blue. We drop sail and fly a little white flag, with
blue square in centre for a pilot, and swing in from the south to Ponta
Delgada, and with the glass make out a pilot’s flag and a six-oared grey
pilot boat coming towards us over the little blue waves. The light grey
long-boat swings alongside; the crew are in pale blue uniforms, with dark
blue berries, their faces brown or sallow, eyes, hair, and moustaches
black as coal.
We got a slight shake after the pilot came aboard, we had stopped our
engine for him to come alongside, and in trying to start again found it
would not work. However, fifteen minutes of the little steam-engine we
rigged up in Belfast brought up enough air pressure to start them. In the
seven days’ run from Belfast some fouling must have collected somewhere,
possibly in the cylinders. The interval I put in usefully, talking to
the pilot by means of some half-a-dozen words of Spanish and Portuguese
and a good many English, plus sketch-book and pencil. With the last I
find, after years of practice, a great deal can be expressed—half-a-dozen
strokes gave an idea of the lie of the islands, and a dot or two from
the pilot showed where he knew whales are occasionally being killed by
local shores’ boats, so we feel that at last we are actually on fishing
ground. His pilotage was very simple—he merely guided us to buoys, to
which we made fast inside the breakwater.
PONTA DEL GADA SAN MIGUEL AZORES
I have read about and seen many places generally recognised as being of a
singular beauty and interest, but never of this jewel of a sea town. For
an artist it is a dream of delight of the most delicate colours reflected
in a sunny sea. The houses are such as one may see in Spain or Italy,
white, or of all the lighter variations of shades of pinks, white, pale
greens and cinnamons, and they are built up to the water’s edge with
only a margin of black volcanic rock showing between them and the sea.
Most of them have their backs to the sea and have picturesque balconies
and landing slips, but in the centre facing the harbour there is an open
plaza with a church and tall square tower, and at its foot bosky round
trees, dark green against the white walls, all reflected at the water’s
edge.
After being visited by port officials, doctors and Customs officer we
went to the plaza in our boat, and a Captain Pickford, of a neighbouring
vessel, who kindly had come on board to leave his card, as it were,
said, as we swung into a gap in the white sea wall into a small inner
harbour: “This is rather a pretty bit we are coming to”—and I looked, and
my breath almost went with the unexpected beauty. The dock or basin we
swung into in our boat is built of black stone whitewashed to the water’s
edge, with two flights of steps for people to land by. It is only about
ninety yards square—houses of a slightly Venetian style on the land side
rise from a double arcade, one arcade rising from the water with another
inside it at a higher level, windows look out from the shaded inner
arcade, white pillars of the arcades and arches support a house faced
with blue tiles, with pointed windows and adjoining houses of pale pink
and yellow tints. In the deep shadows of the alcoves and in the sun on
the steps there were figures, men, women, and boys, mostly resting, some
in brilliant colours, some in sombre tints; and these and white boats at
their moorings were reflected in the waving dark ripples of the basin.
For an artist I would say this hundred yards of light and shade and
colour is worth all Venice.
Perhaps the colour of the light is the charm of the Azores; it is
that Gulf Stream rich, colourful light that to me seems to increase
south-westerly as you follow it, say from the west of Kirkcudbright to
Spain, and westwards, till you come to the Saragossa Sea—a quality in the
atmosphere that makes the night here redundant with colour and the day
superlative.
Why do you not see quite such soft richness of colour in the air farther
east? There is greater velvetyness of colour here in the Azores than in
Madeira, or the west of Spain, or anywhere in the Mediterranean, or the
Far East.
I could sit here for weeks, day and night, watching the changing effects,
the queer parrot-coloured weathered boats, with their furled-up white
cotton sails coming alongside the steps; the steps are greenish black
volcanic stone, whitewashed, and the stone shows here and there, and the
white is of infinite variety of tints and the sunlight is so soft and
mellow that patches of colour, say a man’s pink shirt, or a patch of
emerald-green cloth, catch the eye with their soft intensity and your eye
goes back and forwards revelling in the pleasure of the soft clash of
battling colour, and tints.
The boats that come in from the blue are vivid in colouring, brilliant
emerald, yellow, and scarlet, with thick white cotton sails. The largest
are three-masted feluccas, long and narrow, with sails like swallows’
wings. Each has a crew of at least eleven men and boys, with brown faces
and black hair and beards. They go bare-footed, and wear a peaked pointed
knitted cap exactly the same as we have in the Fair Isle off Shetland;
and each figure is a joy for ever of sun-bitten, faded-coloured garments
of many colours. Then think of these figures in the blue night moving
noiselessly with bare feet, unloading short yellow planks for pineapple
boxes in half electric, half moonlight, the velvety shadows of the
tropics and all the vivid colours of the day still distinct, but softened
down to a mothlike texture, and the blue tiles on the house above the
arches glittering in the moon’s rays.
If you add to these sensations of colour, and the perfect stillness, the
scent of pinewood planks and the perfume of pineapples you have an air to
linger over, a delicious intoxication.
Both the people of Ponta Delgada and the town itself are very clean.
Living in the Portuguese Hotel costs five shillings per day, with
extremely good feeding—beef from oxen on the hills fed on wild geraniums,
heath, and hydrangeas, and fish of many kinds.
[Illustration]
I tried my trammel net for fish alongside in the bay. I set it with the
second mate’s help; it is forty fathoms in length, and by midday there
was quite a good catch of many-coloured bream, and those exquisite
silvery fish, about the size and shape of a saucer, that are such
excellent eating. The trammel net is quite new here, and is new to my
Norwegian companions and to the natives. I find it of much use on our
Berwickshire coast for supplying the house with fish. It consists of a
wall, as it were, of fine net hung between two nets of very large mesh;
with corks on top and leads below. It can be set either standing on the
bottom or hanging from the surface—the fish swim against it, make a bag
of the fine net through a mesh of either of the big nets, and in this
pocket they stay till you overhaul your net, possibly once a day.
Here we found a worm like one leg of a star-fish made such havoc with
our captive fish in the net that we had to overhaul it every four
hours or so. On the second evening I got three splendid fish, like
salmon, of about six pounds each, with large silvery scales and small
heads—cavallas, I hear them called.
Whatever their name may be, of one thing I am certain, they make splendid
eating, and taste like small mahseer—of course everyone knows their taste!
[Illustration]
I rigged up a bamboo rod, using cast of Loch Leven flies, with the wings
cut off, with small pieces of sardine for bait. We made quite good
baskets of young bonita, and tunny, and sardines: tunny fry, of course;
a two-year-old tunny would snap strong salmon gut and a full-grown tunny
takes a rope as thick as a stylo pen to pull it in; and lots of time. You
can even take them on a tarpon line if you think life is too long.
A thing I could not understand about this small-game hunting was the way
certain silvery fish eluded our efforts to catch them. Whilst other fish
ate the finely chopped sardine meat we threw over, and young mackerel
and herring, etc., calmly took our hooks baited with pieces of sardine,
these flat silvery fish like saucers on edge almost at once grasped our
idea—they eyed the bait and hook, sailed along the gut of the dropper,
examining it closely, sailed up the gut of the cast and said: “No, no,
we will take bait without a hook, but not this.” I wonder why their
perception should be so much keener than those of the other fish;
probably none of them had ever seen a hook in their lives.
But this writing about small fry is “wandering from the point,” as
the cook said to the eel; let us get back to whaling or at least to
whale-hunting.
* * * * *
We are off to the west end of San Miguel to go round it and beat about
the north side in search of the whales which everyone tells us are to
be found there, and the view of glens and woods and fields bathed in
sunshine under the cloud-capped hills is very sweetly refreshing. But
luxurious rolling on the blue seas and all the sweet scenery hardly
take away the unpleasing taste of last night. The engine overhaul was
only finished last night, so we intended to up anchor this morning at
daylight. Henriksen and I went ashore and waited for the Consul about
some affairs at Robert’s Café, a large, quiet café, with wide-open doors
facing the sea. As we sat there rather silently, away in the velvety
blue night, out to sea beyond the breakwater, several rockets rose and
burst in a golden shower and we heard the continuous blast of a ship’s
horn making signals of distress. We jumped! so did the other two or three
cigarette-smoking habitués of the café, and all got on to the sea-front,
and the horn continued.
“That’s a wreck,” said Henriksen.
“Yes,” said I.
“Wat we do?” said Henriksen.
I paused for half-a-second—I couldn’t advise—Henriksen is in command.
So I waited for this fraction of a second—it felt like a whole minute.
He thought and must have thought hard; for there are many things to put
together in such a moment—owners’ risks, personal risk, honour, risk of
fines or imprisonment for leaving a Portuguese port without clearance,
the chance of saving lives; and last and least—salvage.
“Yes,” said Henriksen, “we goes help—_we’s British ship!_” and we turned
and ran; he blew on his whistle as we ran, and our engineer and some of
the crew, who had just come on shore and were entering a café along the
promenade, recognised the whistle, and before we were up to them they
were back into our boat and we jumped in and pulled off. We got on board,
slipped our anchor and chain, marked with line and lifebelt for a buoy,
got out side lights and started the engine, and were round the outer end
of the breakwater within thirty minutes from the moment we left the café!
and I say we felt proud of St Ebba. The big town clock on the church was
striking eleven P.M.
No other vessel in harbour was under steam so we congratulated ourselves
on having a motor-engine and so being able to get under way so rapidly.
[Illustration: THE ARCADES AT THE INNER HARBOUR, PONTA DELGADA, AZORES]
[Illustration: TUNNY ON THE BEACH AT MADEIRA]
Till we came to the end of the breakwater, the distress foghorn signals
continued. As we swung round it they ceased!
Out to sea for a mile or so we steered, looking vainly for lights to the
horizon and the S.W. and saw nothing. Then looked behind us, and there,
on the most unlikely place in the world, were the lights of a ship, on
the breakwater rocks, close to the fixed shore light!
Round we turned, going our best speed, and stopped when we had got as
close as we thought advisable in the darkness, shoved over our flat dory
and rowed off with a lantern in the bow.
The steamer was rolling gently on the rocks; we rowed close and the
writer in the bow hailed them on board and offered a tow off into the
harbour. The crew we could see, and they preserved silence for some time.
“Hullo!” we shouted. “On board there, were you sending up distress
signals?” A reluctant “Yes” and “Who are you?” from the gloom on deck,
where there was a little light that showed some Dutch courage going
around. And we answered, and asked in turn: “Where’s your skipper?”
“Below with owners.”
“Well, tell him to speak”—pause—then came the skipper’s “Hullo! what do
you want?”
“What do we want!” we repeat very angrily. “Weren’t you firing rockets
and blowing yourself inside out with distress signals?”
No answer.
“Were those distress signals?” we ask again, and there’s a reluctant
“Yes” and still another “What do you want and who are you?”
“We’re St Ebba, whaler, motor ship, two hundred horse-power, and tons of
cable, come to tow you off into harbour—half-an-hour will do it—there’s
an hour of flood yet and you can float that distance.”
A long silence.... Then: “We don’t want help—you’ve come along for
salvage.” I was dumbfounded.
I need not prolong the interview; the crew said they’d like to be taken
off, they’d got their bags ready, but their skipper wouldn’t let them.
The lamp showed her name on the stern in fresh gold letters—the B—enido,
London—we knew a little about her, for a neighbouring steamer’s engineer
had been asked on board for engine trouble; and only a few hours before
the rockets went up he’d been speaking to us about her. He said she was a
new ship (two thousand tons?), Spanish-owned with British captain, on her
first voyage, engines made on Continent, hull in England, and she was all
wrong.
She had left the harbour only a few hours before she was wrecked. The
skipper set the course S.W., and a one-eyed nigger at the wheel steered
N.E.
So we pulled back to the ship and told Henriksen of our abortive
interview and he went off again with me and two men.
It would be pretty hard to put into words our very natural keenness and
the wrath at the unaccountable apathy of the British captain of the
Spanish-owned ship. But the result of the second interview was the same
as first. They were going to cling to the rocks—we were to mind our own
business.
We thought we ought to stand by all night for the sake of the crew on
board her, for I’ve seen a vessel go on to rocks in a similar position
and lie comfortably till the tide turned, and when the water receded heel
right over and go straight down in a second.
When daylight came her stern had sunk till the deck was level with the
water and lighters were coming off to take some of her cargo. We could
have towed her off at first without much trouble and long before her
plates were seriously damaged by the continuous rolling that followed and
the falling of the tide.
CHAPTER XVIII
So we left our wreck, meditating on the ways of a wicked world, and went
on our own business to hunt round the south coast of San Miguel or St
Michael (we call the island) to the eastwards.
Parts of the coast we pass are very like Madeira, which is said to be
like a crumpled piece of paper lying on the sea. You calculate how many
hours it would take to ride a mile as the crow flies, round the bays,
over the tops and down the sides of the glens or ribieras.
[Illustration]
What lovely places there are to ride or drive to on the island, between
pine-trees, heath and hedges of hydrangea. There is one road where you
can drive continuously for twenty-one miles, with hedges of hydrangeas in
full bloom on either side.
Whilst we go whaling, keeping a bright look-out for sperm, I must try to
remember some of the inland charms and the show places of the island,
such as the Seven Cities, an inexplicable name for two lakes and woods in
a crater’s valley, and the Hot Volcanic Springs in another valley which
cure all ills. I would like to remember the low two-storeyed houses and
narrow sheets of Delgada pink and white or pale blue, and the green
balconies and red-tiled eaves showing against a narrow belt of blue
sky. The rooms or cellars of the ground floor are arched and the narrow
footway is made of a mosaic of round pebbles and quartz. There is a quiet
mystery in these narrow lanes in the hot midday, when the green shutters
are closed, and more mystery again at night when all the blinds are open
and there is lamplight and faint music from mandoline and guitar.
[Illustration]
The shops of Ponta Delgada are in these arched caves which support the
dwelling-houses and balconies, and they have no signboards! If you wish
to find a shoemaker you must walk looking into these caves. Ah yes!
I’ve seen one signboard, a scarlet swinging hand representing a lady’s
glove—now that’s worth remembering. Find that and keep it to starboard,
till right abeam, then swing to port and you will find on your left a
cave-topped restaurant, the Atlantico, clean and cool it is, with walls
painted delicate green. There are six little tables in the front part, a
desk and an arched hatch behind, at which lolls the cook, a jovial sort
of unshaved burly pirate, with, of course, a cigarette, but veritably a
_chef_. And behind the desk, sometimes for a moment or two, is your host,
a highly polished Sancho Panza; here is a jotting of him. He speaks a
little French and gives you provender fit for the gods. I mention this
place as cafés are rare things here, for the people as a rule feed at
home.
[Illustration]
Into this haven I came one night after the spell at sea of salt beef and
margarine, and who can tell the contrasting charm of the crisp rolls and
real butter and vino tinto! And as I rested and made furtive notes of the
patron there came music from above or some room near—a piano of early
nineteenth century—or was it a spinet or guitar playing the air of one of
Moore’s melodies.
“All that’s bright must fade, the brightest still the fleetest,
All that’s sweet was made but to be lost when sweetest.”
It is used in Indian as a bearer’s tune, and these are what I can recall
of the words from the long ago. It’s a sweet air and surely the words
are distressful enough to make a young man sad, and an old man smile.
I wonder what Portuguese words the fair (I mean dark) beauty next the
Atlantico put to the air—I must call again. Some of these native women
are very pretty, but they are much more guarded in the use of their
eyes than are their Spanish cousins. There’s a queer dress some of
them, mostly the seniors, wear out-of-doors; when they come out, which
is very seldom. Here is a jotting of it on the next page—it is of dark
blue cloth. The younger generation wear rather neat up-to-date French
dresses, but you see very few townswomen, they stay indoors, but many
countrywomen come into the town in the daytime and a group of them
sitting with baskets and fruit, with their vivid kerchiefs and shawls,
make a colour, light, and shade, enough to make a painter’s heart leap
with joy.
[Illustration]
We hunted round the east end of San Miguel and saw dolphins and some very
small whales.
Then we went north and chased some small whales, one, the biggest, almost
white. It was getting late, the sun setting behind the cloud-capped
island, still we stood by the guns—skipper, first mate and the writer
each at his gun, ready for a chance shot. These little whales move too
quickly out and into the water to give a fair shot.
The little excitement helped to raise our spirits from the damping
disappointment of the wreck. We now drift, and expect the light wind
to take us down to some shallower soundings which we see on the chart
several miles south and east of San Miguel, where we hope to find whales;
for they are in the habit of frequenting the edges of “banks,” when say
two or three hundred fathoms change into a thousand fathoms.
The way of a man with a maid is perhaps a simple problem compared to the
ways of whales. Who can tell how they guide their course, year after
year, past the same points, travelling, for instance, off the Shetlands
always N.E. along, you may say, a definite line.
Our plan for next week or so is to beat up the seas north of San Miguel,
going about twelve miles, spying six miles on either side, then taking a
right-angle course for other twelve or twenty-four miles, and so spying
a large tract of sea, and by this simple means we can keep our position
easily; and we keep the ordinary four hours’ watch; later, when we get
whales, “if” I should say, we will have all hands on deck all day, and
only a watchman on deck at night to attend to the steam cookers—but when
will that be? There is a new moon to-night and I turned some silver
leiras and a sixpence in my pocket, and will play the pipes—they may
bring us whales—bagpipes make both salmon and pike take vigorously; I can
bring witnesses to this! and they have, beyond doubt, an effect on the
wind.
... An exquisite morning; at eight o’clock comfortably hot—wind westerly
and we paddle away east from San Miguel. The island is getting low now
on the horizon, but we still see a glimpse of sun on its highest land
beneath the shadow of the great cloud cap—a glimpse of fields and faint
white specks for cottages. Yes, my first impression seems still to hold—a
land you could live and love in, with such exquisite sunny soothing fresh
air; from the little glimpse we had of its people such ideas seem tenable.
We drifted all night, with riding light, taking things easy. Our busy
time is still to come, perhaps that bank we are drifting towards, out
of reach of shore whaling-boats, may show us some plunder or profit
per cent., and if it doesn’t, well, we have other islands to discover
and circumnavigate. “Discover” is the word I want. Once, long ago,
the writer, with others, discovered new vistas of land and mountain,
uninhabited grand mountains and glaciers in seas of table-topped bergs of
huge proportions, and undoubtedly the sensation was not to be forgotten;
but praise be, a new land to the writer, with new people to him, and new
habits and customs, is still of the greatest fascination, even though it
has been known, like these Azores, for six centuries.
I question if Columbus enjoyed the first sight of the Norse Vinland any
more than we shall enjoy the sight of the next island we come to of this
archipelago of nine islands.
Fayal, for instance, and Pico—we have seen post cards of both, and each
looks perfectly charmingly fascinating. Pico must be like Fusian, the
Japanese peak.
* * * * *
Truly this sea, between the Azores and Africa, is well called, by old
shell-backs and South Spainers, the Ladies’ Gulf—most days fine, and
blue, and then a tempest. The rocks Formigas we aim at lie between San
Miguel and Santa Maria to the south-east. But the wind now blows hard and
the sea runs too high, so we turn and pound back to patrol the north side
of San Miguel, where we will get a little slant of shelter from the land.
As the wind is westerly we cannot help recalling what we call “our wreck”
the B—enido, on the rocks of the breakwater, for a south-westerly wind is
just what is needed to pound her into scrap iron; whereas she might have
been floating to-day in port if she had accepted our polite offer of a
tow.
A turtle is all we have seen this morning, and we have been looking out
hard—one man in the crow’s nest on the foremast, and two on the bridge,
and the writer in main rigging. The turtle was a browny yellow patch near
the surface of the deep blue sea. We turned back to try and harpoon it,
but it had gone down.
Though there is little life to see in ocean to-day it is pleasant enough
sitting up in the shrouds watching the horizon, or sometimes casting an
eye down to see St Ebba dip her bows under, and the burst of white spray
that have made us again put covers over our three guns. The movement,
sitting on the shrouds as we buck into the short sea, is rather like a
side-saddle canter on a beamy carriage horse.
Before sundown, the wind keeping hard, we close in with the land, getting
into smoother water. As we go some small whales appear, about fifteen or
twenty feet long, and keep under our bows, and nearly give us a chance of
putting in a small harpoon. They were whitish on back, with under side
dark, marked along the sides with criss-cross pattern, as if slashes of a
knife had been made through the dark skin.
There is a South Atlantic whale with its back marked in somewhat similar
manner. I have seen a few in the Weddell Sea, amongst the Antarctic ice.
_Ziphius novæ Zealandicæ_,—possibly this is the same, which would give a
wide distribution.
I think this is as elaborate an impression as I dare to make without
drawing on what I think it _might_ be like, or _faking_, to use the
artist’s term. But they kept so much under water, and only came to the
top for such a rapid breathing-space, and it was so rough that we did
not blow any powder—better luck next time.
Two and a half miles off shore we heave to, lash the wheel, and drift
slowly out to sea and close our eyes for a little, they are sore with
gazing across the blue in salt spray, wind and glare of sun.
Three little white and pink towns above a coast of cliff are to windward,
and a little more to the south-west there is the volcanic mountain of
the Seven Cities, with the lakes in its crater, a place of great beauty
but suggestive of Martinique, especially so to-night, as there is an
off-shore wind blowing from the south and an immense pall of cloud
flowing over it and us, shadowing the little towns at its base, Ribiera
Grande, Calhetas Morro des Capellas, and our little selves out at sea.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIX
I see I have gushed a little about the blue sea in the last chapter. This
begins with storm, and gale, and courage running into water in the grip
of the elements.
Just now we are rolling in a loppy swell, high and irregular, but there’s
no wind to speak of. We are right round to W. and S. of St Michael and we
see the island faintly to north to windward, distant some eight miles;
it gives us shelter from the remains of a north-east gale that sprang up
last night, and is only now dying away this afternoon.
Between the time it rose and fell we had too much time to think and
little enough to act.
As I said over the page, we were last night drifting north, with a
land wind from the island south of us; and at about ten, I and Captain
Henriksen had turned in, planning and hoping for fine weather and whales
in the morning; at one-fifteen I heard the whistle in his cabin blown
from the bridge and guessed a change had come—the wind had gone round—he
was on deck at once, I waited a little and followed. And sure enough,
without the least warning, the wind had gone right round to north-east
and was rapidly rising, driving us towards these beautiful villages and
cliffs and bay and volcanic mountain dead to leeward in pitch dark. Only
the village lights and a small shore light could we see, bidding us
anything but a welcome.
The half-hour we spent drifting towards the cliffs, speculating whether
our so far rather tricky motor would start, was memorable. The waves
rapidly grew large and fierce in their sweep, the phosphorescent crests
in the blackness repeated the lines of lights of the villages.
... Fortunately the engine started all right, or these notes would have
to have been continued about mermaids under the surf; I suppose all
hands knew that if the engine didn’t start we would be drowned under
the steep cliffs. They have failed us once or twice lately, but this
time Hansen did his possible, and poked about, heating the cylinders
with the hand furnace, whilst we grew a little cold drifting to the surf
and rocks. In half-an-hour he turned on the air and they went off with a
welcome clash. All hands must have felt as I did, a great sense of relief
when they started, but there wasn’t time to speak. The writer took the
wheel, whilst Henriksen and his brother made a rapid note in the cabin
of the course and position, and we swung round into the rapidly rising
sea, heading north to get weathering to round the mountainous west end
of the island, and plugged into wind and sea, completely smothering
ourselves in foam. The writer, struggling at the wheel on the bridge, had
an unconscious impression of the crew below busied in making fast the
main-hatch, and stowing away movable objects as best they could in the
darkness, and seas that broke over us in wide white bursts, sometimes
hiding everything from the bridge except the upper part of our foremast,
its shrouds standing out black above the foam, through which we saw
faintly the gleam of the galley ports.
What wild waves broke over us, leaving our deck full of seething foam,
with balls of light running about in the form of lumps of phosphorus. The
north-east wind and rain tearing past was a little cold, and got down
one’s back, but every slop of sea on our faces was almost alarmingly hot
in contrast to the wind.
It seems to me that a higher, quicker sea rises in these warm latitudes
than in the colder northern or southern high latitudes, in the same time
and with same force of wind. Possibly the greater density of the cold
water may account for this.
Not till four-thirty did we make our weathering, and got clear of
the island, and safe from what seemed at first to be quite probable
destruction.
By six-thirty A.M. we were past the light on the west end of San Miguel,
at least we believed we were—it was not visible; being at an elevation of
three hundred feet, it was, of course, obscured by the low clouds; it is
no use putting lighthouses very high, as witness Sumburgh Head, south of
Shetland; I have been within two miles of it in clear water, and it was
invisible in the clouds above, and we only heard its bray!
Then our guiding angel, to play with us, stopped our engine. But in spite
of her, we got it to go again, and crept into the lee of San Miguel, on
one or two groggy cylinders, and rolled about in the downpour of rain,
and the poor engineers are now sweating again to get even one cylinder to
take us back to Delgada, where we will have an overhaul; and Henriksen
and I, poring over our sodden chart and the well-washed cabin amongst
sea-boots and oilskins cast aside this morning, decide that the weather
of the Azores is not suited for whaling at this time of the year. If
there were harbours or bays or lochs such as we have in Shetland we would
stick here, but long, black nights to windward of islands, with strong
gales starting from anywhere, and only one day in five smooth enough for
even our St Ebba to whale in, “is not good enough.”
Now the engine is going; bravo, stick to it! Very, very slowly and
gingerly—with three cylinders—we crawl away with a fearful roll to
Delgada again.
But the day fades before we get opposite Ponta Delgada, a yellow sunset
and rain clouds and cumuli to west, the pin-point of light on W. of
the island beginning to show, and another pin-point on Delgada about
ten miles to windward, so we stop engines, hoist foresail, and drift,
rolling very gently and quietly, waiting for dawn, and the local pilot’s
awakening; we could go into the breakwater ourselves, but his services
are compulsory.
All is very quiet and peaceful to-night, and no references are made to
last night. Sailors have nerves as well as other folk, and I daresay
all on board will take a day or two to recover from the excitement and
drenching, and the bitter, nauseating feeling of being up against one’s
end on a storm-beaten coast in black night. I have a curious feeling
that even writing about such a recent and painful situation is almost
indelicate. To put in time Henriksen draws on his recollection of killers
or grampuses attacking a whale, and I help it with what I have seen of a
similar incident. He saw this particular incident off Korea; I have seen
several whales being attacked both in northern and southern latitudes
amongst the Antarctic ice; in fact, I once could have jumped on to the
back of one as it rose right under our stern and gave a huge blast or
sigh, with a pack of these black-and-white marauders surrounding it!
[Illustration]
That was a night in the Antarctic worth recalling. It was a still day,
far inside the pack ice. I remember being lost in admiration of the quiet
blue lanes of water, blue and violet, and the many pearl-like tints of
the ice, and as I looked northerly I was astonished to see penguins
jumping on to the floe ice in a great hurry, down the sides of one of
these long lanes. Penguins do not show themselves in the water, they
suddenly leap out like trout and disappear. In this case they remained
on the ice-floes, skedaddling to their centres in an agitated manner.
Then the cause of the emeute appeared—there were hurried blasts from two
whales coming down the lane towards us, and behind them the splashing of
a pack of black-and-white killers. On they came, the penguins popping
on to the ice edges, jumping two or three feet clear of water, and I
had time to get into our mizen rigging and get a fine view of the first
whale, a hundred feet long, as he sailed under our keel. The next one
rose to blow immediately under our counter, and anyone standing at our
wheel could have jumped on its back.
I did not see the end of the chase. I expect the whales were making a
flight into tightly packed ice, under which they could possibly go to
greater distance than the killers without breathing—at least that is our
explanation of their manœuvre.
These, of course, were finner whales, we were hunting for Right whales,
the difference between the two in shape, etc., I have referred to at the
beginning of this book.
* * * * *
Delgada again. Here are some oddments in this chapter. I notice I put
down in my log that I suffer from sore feet—sunburned insteps—and
see Portuguese doctor, you go bare-footed on such boats as ours in
sub-tropics, and this was the result.
[Illustration]
I met the captain of our wreck, the B—enido, a Welshman, in a tight
place, and almost as silent on shore as on his ship, but I felt sorry for
him.
The engines were thoroughly overhauled, and favourable was the verdict
of the engineers on them—which was satisfactory for all hands; the first
engineer, a Swede, would like to take three hundred shares in our Company
if he could get them. He is so confident about our engine, possibly he
may more correctly be described as sanguine.
We entertained British Consul Rumble to dinner, a return compliment for
several courtesies from him, to-night at eight P.M., and he is just
departing; my feet are very sore. We caught about fifteen good fish in
the trammel-net, and a lot of sardines in a fine bag-net which I bought
here for the ship; it is spread from an iron ring and catches a few of
the more foolish fish; we also caught a ray, or skate, yesterday, about
eight feet in width, in the trammel-net. Some people would venture to eat
it, we did not, it was so black and ugly.
Our engineers and officers have worked very hard all week, overhauling
the engine, taking it all to pieces, reassembling it, and working till
one o’clock each night. So we promised them a jaunt on shore to the Seven
Cities, the wonder of the island.
So this Sunday morning I saw six of our crew off for a drive over the
island, the captain on the box, a burly figure compared to the little
Portuguese driver beside him, two engineers, two mates, and the steward,
all in neat Sunday dress, inside an open antediluvian barouche held
together with string, the springs down on the axles, and a huge heap of
ragged maize tied behind to feed the scarecrow horses. I was to have
gone with them but there was not room, and I found it impossible to get
more than the one machine on this Sabbath morn. All the rest were laid
up or had gone off with Sunday parties. To get the one, I’d to run from
pillar to post, and use soft, persuasive language, and listen to infinite
reasons for there being no possibility of getting a trap at all.
But it was worth the trouble of hunting for the carriage to see my six
good shipmates drive off in great form with a crack of the whip, rumbling
over the cobbles, and waving hats to the writer, who suddenly felt
somewhat lonely.
But to-day, Monday, there’s nothing to keep me on board, I have done my
painful duty; I have drawn in best style our registered number on our
sails above reef points, according to act, and on tin plates for stencils
to paint the same on St Ebba’s side to port and starboard.
On our fore quarter, there is now L H, which signifies Leith, and
256, each letter the thickness—number of inches and fraction of an
inch—ordered by the Board of Trade, with the distance between letters and
figures all according to the law of the Medes and Persians.
It went decidedly against the grain to stamp our yacht-like craft with
such vulgar herring-fisher’s symbols. And putting black paint by mistake
on a white sail is enough to make a yachtsman weep. What benefit can be
derived by anyone by the above procedure I have yet to learn.
So to-day I also must go and see these Seven Cities. No one knows the
reason for the name; my messmates tell me it is a volcanic valley almost
circular, with a double lake at the bottom, and round the lakes are
smaller extinct volcanoes covered with foliage.
[Illustration]
Arming ourselves, therefore, with a sandwich of goodly proportions, and
a bottle of vino tinto from our friend Sancho at the Atlantico café, we
sallied forth in solitary state in an old brougham, one artist whaler,
three horses and a Portuguese driver, and a bundle of maize straws
astern, and drove and drove, always uphill, through little whitewashed
villages and narrow lanes, between low stone walls, and crops of Indian
corn, rather dry-looking, with pumpkins and gourds on the stubbles; past
many farm carts, loaded with golden maize or pumpkins, and with groaning,
squeaking wooden discs for wheels, till high up we came to little grass
fields and hedges of bramble, and loose stone dykes with bracken and
canes on them, and where the air was fresh as in Perthshire, and there
were very wide views of the blue Atlantic. The drive felt long, but a
sketch-book going, helped to make the road feel tolerable, but it was
quite an hour and a half before we came to our change place, Lomba da
Cruze, and mounted a stirrupless pack-saddle on a donkey, and began an
hour’s uphill climb through cuttings of lava deposit, overhung with
brambles, many laurels, heath and ferns.
[Illustration: KILLERS ATTACKING A FINNER WHALE]
Possibly this stylo sketch in sketch-book may be a sufficient description
of the Seven Cities. Imagine two green absinth-coloured lakes, green
foliage, and a few white houses at the bottom of a crater; with this
sketch you have the scene, and you can fancy the charm of the fresh, keen
air up the mountains combined with Sancho’s great ham sandwich and tinto,
but heaven fend the reader from the pain of a wooden saddle on a donkey
riding down such a hill again.
The road home was wearisome to a degree, hundreds of local squires or
farmers, and everyone lifting hats, but why? Who knows? The effort
to respond was quite ridiculous. Someone should invent an automatic
hat-lifter for royalties, Norwegians, and natives of the Azores. Groups
of women were on either side of the road shelling yellow maize, sitting
like Indians; and at last and at length we got into Delgada, having had
more than enough of cultivated maize lanes and lava dykes.
Then to Portuguese shipping agents and to business accounts, not a
pleasing part of whaling. It is difficult to settle our affairs, on
leaving port. For instance, the harbour trustees, or whatever they are
called here, wanted to charge for the morning’s incoming pilotage after
we had gone out to save a wreck, but we barred that. “You old mens sleeps
here ashore,” said Henriksen. “We’s go out, slips anchor—dark night—risks
our ship, you charges us! might have been Titanic and we save thousands’
lives. You say you haves many tow-boats! why nones go out? What about
insurance, heh?” They quietly dropped the subject.
But now it’s time to go and put aside the above reflections and
disappointments so far; we have hope, and months, possibly years, and
certainly long seas in front of us, to gain or to lose in.
So we up anchor at night with a light air from the east, and several
weeks’ sailing in front of us to Madeira and Cape Town, and whales on the
road, we hope.
CHAPTER XX
Farewell, Ponta Delgada, with your pretty streets perfumed with fir
planks and pineapples; farewell, San Miguel. How sweetly the delicate
tints of your capital—pale pink and blue—show in this early sunlight.
Your great clock on the white campanile marks six A.M. and the sunlight
glitters already on the blue tiles above the arches of the inner harbour.
That is the place for an artist who would paint in highest toned
water-colours—flowers, fruit, wine skins, white walls, and blue sea. I
will grant you all this, San Miguel, but there’s a grim side to your
island—cliffs and a lee-shore on a black night, and I seem to recall a
wreck and rockets, distress signals all a fraud, and then there are those
moonlike craters, your beauty spots. You and the Inferno, Saint Michael,
seem to be somewhat neighbourly. And your people we recall, how kind to
the stranger, a few of them, dark-haired girls in white dresses on green
balconies seemed pretty enough, but in the country how close they seem
to the soil, worn and aged, one good-looking among a thousand sad women,
one pretty child in thread-bare rags healthy, amongst so many who looked
pinched and hungry.
No, we do not drop tears at leaving you; but think hopefully of Madeira
and Funchal to the S.E., where we may meet white people of our own race,
and where I have seen whales; and perhaps we may have a day or two in the
boats, off shore twenty miles, in the heat and blue rollers, fishing for
tunny. A two-hundred-pounder, with the hard line cutting grooves in the
gunwale as it whizzes into the depths, is good hunting.
I pen this farewell to the island in my bunk, looking out at the port,
determined not to go on deck and see any more departures—that hurried one
in the night watches to save a wreck was quite satisfying, so “we” doze
and let the town and the island go by, and think of Madeira and the Cape
Verde, and hope that some day soon our little expedition will begin to
pay, and try to forget that so far we have only incurred expenses—five
shillings here and five pounds there—pilotage and telegrams, and a
thousand trifles that mount up alarmingly without one penny of return.
Thus musing somewhat sadly, and all the time listening to the beat of
our engines, I notice they suddenly go a little slow, and a tide of
depression that even the joy of leaving port will not quite raise, floods
my spirits. Yes, they are dead slow now—something wrong again!—and I
harden my heart and turn out and find we are heading back for the distant
island—more weeks of detention, I can see. But—what is this—everyone is
intently looking forward with craned necks!
Great Scott! There are whales—SPERM—as you live! At last—whales! One
little blast on the calm grey ocean a mile away, then another, eight or
nine. Nine times several hundred pounds sterling rolling round, each
about a mile apart. Are we really in our senses—are we really to strike
oil? Heaven be praised—it is not the engine—it is all right.
We’re after one.
Henriksen made a bee-line down to his cabin, got out powder and had the
harpoon-gun loaded and ready in two shakes.
* * * * *
It is difficult to write about the day now, we are tired, the work has
been great and our first whale worth, say, some hundred pounds, enough to
cover our outward-bound expenses; it seems hardly believable.
It is true we have only one of these sperm. We could, I believe, have
killed several, but for a completely new crew[10] at whaling; we thought
one would be enough for us. It is a bit awkward with one fish running a
line, to tackle a second that perhaps goes in the opposite direction,
and the flensing at sea for such a small crew is such a big work that we
simply stuck to the one.
We chased it for hours; there is no good in chasing one and then rushing
off to the next that appears; by a fluke you might strike across the
stranger’s course and get him on the rise, but the best plan is to study
the movements of the whale of your choice, and by judiciously following
it learn its movements so as to cut across its course and get in your
harpoon at the right time.
It is difficult to describe the intense excitement of chasing whales, and
the more so when your interest in it is even more than the hunting—when
you have shares to make profit on, for friends interested in the bag.
At about seven-thirty we saw the whales, and by nine we had been three
times almost within harpooning distance, say within forty yards, when
always the whale “tailed up,” and took his final dive. A whale comes to
the surface, blows and takes in breath, several times, just going below
surface between each blast. After it feels refreshed it goes below on
its business for a dive of, say, twenty minutes or half-an-hour, and may
appear any distance from the spot it went down at. In this last dive it
raises the after part of its body with a slow elevation, a sort of sad
farewell to the hunter. Certain whales, such as the sperm and narwhal,
and Right whales, lift the whole tail out, but others, such as the
finners we hunt off Shetland, only show the ridge in front of the tail;
and seldom show their tails or flukes until they are harpooned.
One thing that comforted us greatly was that we knew from this whale’s
movements that though he avoided our treading on his heels, as it were,
he was never scared or gallied by our engine or propeller’s beat.
It would take volumes to describe the different ways of each kind of
whale. The sperm whale usually feeds in something of a circle, so you
keep cruising round the inside of the circle.
For hours we chased, very seldom speaking, eating brown bread, and
drinking coffee, standing on deck, sticking to the neighbourhood of our
first acquaintance, balancing the prospects of our expedition’s failure
or success on the way this one whale took our approach. Sceptics had told
us the beat of our motor would frighten a whale more than the slower
revolving screw of the steam-whaler; we play our one card that it will
not, so to-day our anxiety can be understood.
[Illustration: CUTTING WITH A SPADE INTO THE CASE OR HEAD OF A CACHALOT
WHALE]
[Illustration: THE TAIL OF A SPERM OR CACHALOT WHALE SOUNDING]
There was too much at stake on this occasion for the writer to do the
harpooning, so Henriksen took the gun and harpoon. The actual firing and
hitting a whale any good pistol-shot can do. But manœuvring the vessel,
stalking the whale, as it were, needs a good deal of experience, and
it goes without saying one must have perfect sea-legs, indeed, that is
perhaps the greatest difficulty. It takes a great deal of experience
to be unconscious, when there is a roll on, of any effort to balance
oneself, which is, of course, absolutely essential for a successful shot.
[Illustration]
At last the grey, blunt-headed whale rose almost in front of us a little
to starboard, blew his blast and went under for a few yards and rose
again dead in front of our bow; higher and higher his back rose, then
_Bang!_—and we were fast and the line rattling out.
That was a grand boom! and a straight shot. A great surge followed as
the whale went down, and out went the five-inch rope—for but a short
distance, though it was a heavy rope, spun for far more powerful prey
than the sperm or cachalot, and we soon began to reel in, and the writer
with a long lance ended the valuable animal’s troubles.
I noticed, as the point of the lance went into the whale, that its
silky grey skin was marked here and there with series of circles,
something like Burmese writing magnified. I take these to be the marks
from the suckers on the tentacles of the great cuttle-fish on which
the sperm feeds, and here and there, over its great sides, were deeper
scrawls—light-brown-coloured lines on the greyish skin which may have
been made by the cuttle-fishes’ parrot-like beaks. Two of its companions
came alongside it while it was still alive, and tried to help it by
shouldering it away from us.
Had we only had a bay to tow these whales into we would have easily taken
more, but we did not quite know how the Portuguese would have welcomed us
had we towed their bodies back to Ponta Delgada after killing them, if
not exactly at their own doors, still within sight of their town.
The big grey backs with their blunt noses looked intensely interesting
when we first came amongst them—cruising about and puffing little forward
jets of spray almost without the least regard to our presence....
We have waited several months for the sight, and I am inclined to think
we feel repaid—that is, looking at the matter merely as hunting.
... Somehow I feel at a loss here how to describe the accumulation of
feelings at the end of the long waiting and planning. We feel we are
right on the high road to success, our engine worked perfectly, our
vessel was apparently calculated to a nicety to approach and kill whales,
and to keep the sea almost indefinitely.
Big finner whaling, such as I have described in a previous chapter, is
much more exciting than killing these sperm or cachalot, for which our
tackle is unnecessarily powerful. But after all, in the pursuit of any
kind of game, it is the hunting that counts as sport. The killing with
any modern weapon of precision is nothing, it is the getting there that
counts, and we have had many months both planning and hunting before we
got this, our first bull sperm; also it is of greater value than the
largest finner; and that must be our first consideration.
We found no ambergris[11] in this one. It disgorged several cuttle-fish
but they were not lost, for the sharks soon came round, and nothing comes
amiss to them.
[Illustration: “STARBOARD” TRYING TO GET OUT OF THE LASSO]
[Illustration: CUTTING UP SPERM BLUBBER
In the waist of the “St. Ebba.” The boilers are in the background.]
Ambergris is found sometimes in sperm’s intestine, sometimes thrown from
the whale into sea. It is used as the basis of scents. At present its
selling price is 100 shillings per ounce. A whaler a year ago secured
some from one whale, sold it for £20,000.
All afternoon we worked, cutting up the whale—first of all we made a cut
round its shoulder and fin, or hand—a whale has bones like those of a
hand inside the fibrous fin. In fact, the whale’s anatomy is similar to
that of a land animal, not like that of fish. The hip bone and thigh are
only floating rudimentary bones.
We cut a round hole through the blubber, round the fin or arm, shoved
a strop or loop of rope through from the under side of the blubber and
pulled that taut on to a sort of button of oak called a toggle on the
outside surface of skin. Then, with the winch’s hook and chain hooked on
to the strop, we pulled away, by steam power gradually raising a strip of
blubber about two feet in width and of about eight inches in depth off
the whale, as the body slowly revolved in the water, cutting it clear of
the flesh with the flensing blades from the dory or flat-bottomed boat.
From the illustration you may form an idea of how the blubber is “made
off.” The head and tail parts were treated separately. Finner whales on
a landing-stage on shore are stripped or flensed from end to end with
an instrument like a sabre on a long shaft, but if we have to strip or
flense one at sea, we shall have to do so in the same way as this sperm
whale.
We worked late and turned in, all very tired. The sharks that came round
us to feed on our whale were a new experience to most of our northern
sailors; they grew quite excited about them; some of them, instead of
sleeping, stayed on deck to kill sharks. To kill one single-handed seemed
to be the great ambition.
The first mate at breakfast to-day related how he harpooned his shark,
fifteen feet long, in the morning watch, dropped a running bowline round
its tail, and with a tackle got it on board by himself, and Henriksen,
his elder brother, quietly described a cross with his knife’s point on
our galley roof!
But it was quite true; and other men did so—a seaman-like piece of work.
The harpooning is easy as shelling peas, but to make fast the line to a
belaying pin and get a running bowline round the tail, and then hitch on
a tackle and purchase to that and heave the shark outward single-handed
needs sailorlike neatness and quickness rather than great strength.
We let the youngsters have their fill of shark-killing; when each has
killed or helped to kill one, the novelty will wear off, and they will
get accustomed to their company, and will not stop work to pay them more
than a passing attention with the flensing blades.
At early dawn we recommence at the whale; our crew have not yet quite
mastered the process, but they will do it. We have strong winches if few
men, fifteen is our complement, about sixty used to tackle the job in the
old style.
With practice and our captain’s ingenuity and determination we will get
_Case_, _Junk_, and all on board before midday meal. It is a thorough bit
of sailor’s work, every dodge of purchase block and pulley needed.
We have the junk now on board; it was a big hoist, and at the next port
of call we will get some extra thick wire back-stays to strengthen our
masts, and so heave the next head on board with greater ease.
It is a marvel this case or long forehead of spongelike spermaceti oil,
only covered with thin soft blubber skin.
The mass of fibrous tissue is even fuller of liquid oil than a bath
sponge could be full of water. Whilst it was still warm we pumped it out
with flexible steel pipes, but it condensed and choked the pipe. But when
it grew colder we could just handle it. I should think it produced about
two tons of liquid oil.
Now we have the long under jaw of white leather-like quality, with its
double row of ivory-white teeth, on board.
This is where our plan of campaign differs from the most recent whalers;
they either tow their prey ashore or into harbour alongside great
floating ship factories of several thousand tons, to be cut up and boiled
down. We cut it up at sea and take the blubber on board, melt or cook
it, and sail away.
[Illustration: HAULING SPERM WHALE’S FLIPPER AND BLUBBER ON BOARD THE
“ST. EBBA”]
Our deck is now like a marble quarry, with great white chunks of fat in
the moonlight, and dusky figures cutting these into blocks of about a
foot square to go into our two pots.
To-day steam was let into them at one hundred and sixty pounds’ pressure,
and the cooker has to watch two taps running from these, each now pouring
out beautifully fine sperm oil.
Our whale cooker is little more than a boy, but he is a bit of a chef
already, having studied whale-boiling in these very remote frost-bound
islands, the South Shetlands previously referred to.
He stands by the two pots on either side of our small ship amidships, one
to port, one to starboard; now and then he dips a bright tin ladle into
the oil that keeps running out into an open tank, and sniffs at it, and
pours it back lovingly, examining its colour, which is like pale sherry.
There is no smell actually about our cooking process, till the water
that is formed in the pots by the condensing steam has to be blown out
of the bottoms of the pots. Then the blue sea gets a yellow scum and the
atmosphere is pervaded far and near with the smell of beef-tea—the smell
alone would make an invalid get up and walk for miles to windward.
At night it comes into my port under the blanket and permeates my being;
we wish all whales at the bottom of the sea, but _toute passe_ and in a
minute or two the air is fresh again, and there is nothing left but a
greasy feeling.
Each pot holds about fifteen barrels. I think this whale’s blubber will
fill them several times and produce, say, seventy barrels, at five
barrels to the ton, and the ton at £30. This whale ought to be worth
moneys, so we see a fortune increasing by leaps and bounds, and we put
aside all thoughts of more delays and difficulties and losses.
It is sweltering hot on our lee side, the side on which we are flensing
the whale. Our men take to drink!—a pale pink tipple brewed in a large
margarine tin and ladled round; I think it must be one part red-currant
wine to five of water; I have tried it once or twice and always just
miss the taste.
Blue sharks have pretty colours, especially when they are freshly
caught, steel-grey and violet on their back, changing to green and
white underneath. The long emerald-green eye in the grey skin is most
effective—wicked-looking to a degree! Who has described the exquisite
colour of the shark’s pilot fish, with its upright stripes blue and
white, like the wings of a jay, and who can tell why they swim in front
of his nose—is it to give the shark a squint? And why do they sometimes
change (there are generally two of them) and take up positions on either
side of his dorsal fin, and move as the shark moves exactly, never
getting an inch from the position, and then, without rhyme or reason,
they will both swim away somewhere, and come back again?
I think the grimmest aspect of sharks is in a quiet moonlight night, when
above the calm water you see their dark fins quietly circling round you,
and sometimes there is a whitish gleam as one quietly puts its head up
above the moonlit water and quietly takes hold of a lump of whale fat,
and breaks the stillness by shaking it like a tiger!
Still another half-night at our whale—the deck full of moonlight and dark
shadows, great cubes of sperm white as marble, gleaming knife blades, the
light glinting on oily hands, arms and faces, greasy thumps as chunks of
blubber are heaved across the deck towards the cooking pots. Two dusky
figures stand on top of these, silhouetted against the blue sky and
stars. We work by moonlight, for dark nights we shall have an acetylene
flare. The spermaceti of the head we handle in buckets and bailers. It
seems a question whether to bail the clean, slippery oil with buckets or
grasp it with both hands. All hands work very hard, for every handful,
every chunk represents profit to them, and they joke all the time, with
never a swear word, as far as I can hear. The captain smokes and looks
on and smiles at some of their remarks. He keeps his eye on everything
without interfering unnecessarily. The mate, his young brother, and his
men want to show what they can do, though this line of business is new to
most of them.
The cooking pots worked all night, and in my watch below, half awake, I
dreamed of a hundred kitchens cooking beef-tea, then turned over with
a sense of great satisfaction at having seen our show well started—the
motor is going all right and we have proved we can approach whales as
well as with a steam-whaler—a great satisfaction—and have proved we can
flense a sperm at sea with such tackle as we have: and both the approach
and the flensing before we left home were said to be impossible.
It is true that our flensing took a long time. But in the case of Right
whales, Australis, if we are lucky enough to fall in with them, it will
pay at least to take their whalebone at sea if nothing else.
On the old sailing-ship whaler, with large decks and powerful masts to
use tackles from, and a crew of fifty men, more rapid flensing could be
made than we can manage with only fifteen all told, including engineers,
and a very small ship.
Our plan now is to try round about the Azores, if the weather is good,
for another whale or two, then to proceed to Madeira, about two days’
sail—I have seen several kinds of whales off its north coast—and then
hunt south and west of Africa, down to the Cape, and then to the Crozet
Islands for seals, or to the Seychelles, north of Madagascar, for sperm
and blue whales, and possibly thereafter to New Zealand. Some islands we
have information about south of New Zealand for Bone whales or Australis.
St Ebba got a few more whales in the latitudes of the Azores and Madeira,
but the weather got too rough, so she continued southwards.
Possibly the end of the last chapter was rather oily and whaley, and
smelt perhaps a little of filthy lucre. Perhaps I may be allowed,
therefore, a chapter on flowers and Madeira—a day or two on shore and
some tunny-fishing for a change from whale-hunting; though I must
say that no two whale-hunts are quite alike; each has its particular
thrilling interest, more especially the big finner hunting, for they are
ten times more powerful than sperm. But repeated description, without
depicting boats flying in the air and whales standing on their heads,
and so on, must become tiresome reading, so as I cannot, from a casual
habit of accuracy, invent thrilling incidents, let us to tunny. Tunny
are not half bad fun when you have one on, but the waiting out on the
blue rollers in a blaze of sun twenty miles from shore is trying, but
when one comes on and your coils of line are whizzing out into the blue
at a fearful rate, there is quite a lively time, almost anxious—for you
have to be careful not to get caught by hands or feet in the coils of
the line, which is pretty thick, just the thickness of this rather thick
fountain pen with which we continue these notes.
CHAPTER XXI
The St Ebba killed a few more whales in the seas between the Azores and
Madeira, but they were of no great value—seihvale and small sperm—and
the weather became tempestuous, so she proceeded southwards. The island
of Madeira is thirty-five miles long and six thousand feet high. It was
very hot on the south side amongst the sugar-cane crops and vineyards.
But on the north side, with wind off the sea, high up in the mountains
and riding through oak woods, bracken and heath and roaring burns, it was
delightful, and probably more healthy than the slack air and life you
have down at Funchal.
Funchal, the capital, is much the same as Ponta Delgada in the Azores, a
white town with red-tiled houses and green blinds round a blue bay. But
it is merely an open road-stead and has not nearly such a picturesque
inner harbour as Ponta Delgada. It is a very quiet town; the only sound
is the twittering canaries, and the occasional _Hush_ of the Atlantic
surge on the boulders.
There is quite a large contingent of British residents who have gone in
for gardening strongly at their quintas. So that Funchal, in almost every
month of the year, presents some astonishing flowery spectacular effect.
Geraniums are the least sensational. They pour over the walls of the
lanes everywhere. I noticed one evening a high white wall in shade lit
up with pink from the reflected scarlet of geraniums that hung over the
opposite wall.
The jackaranda is the most amusingly pretty flowering tree. One morning
you notice its bare indiarubber-like leafless branches, a few days
after the bare branches are covered all over with bunches of Neapolitan
violets—at least, they look exactly like them, and a day or two later the
street is carpeted with the fallen blossoms and the golden brown oxen
of the carros[12] go wading through them, leaving dark tracks where the
little polished pebbles of the cobbled road show through the violet.
I tried tunny-fishing off Madeira on several occasions. Perhaps this is a
subject more suitable to introduce in a whaler’s log than descriptions of
flowers and canaries.
On one occasion I persuaded a hotel visitor to accompany me, with a crew
of Portuguese.
The tunny, or tuna, is a mackerel; there are several kinds. Those I saw
ran from about twenty pounds to three hundred pounds.
You have to start before daybreak for the fishing from Madeira, which
is apt to put off intending tunny-fishers, but “41,” as I shall call my
friend at Reid’s Hotel, after the number of his room, agreed to risk the
briny and an early rise—I doubt if he will do it again—blue Atlantic
rollers and a sub-tropical sun are somewhat trying.
Here are notes from my sketch-book of our day’s proceedings, begun, I may
inform the sympathetic reader, in the Palace Hotel before daylight.
... All is still—it is only three hours past midnight, the people
in this caravanserai are all asleep—we alone are awake in the great
empty dining-room—the night waiter and the writer—the writer cross and
thirsting for an early cup of tea—the night porter does not understand
this, but—he comes from Las Palmas, that is all I can learn from him.
He is limp of figure and has black eyes and hair and his sallow face
only expresses dull resignation and an unfulfilled desire for sleep in a
corner: he is young, but I think no smile has ever passed over his chilly
countenance in this life. He does not even move a feature or express
the least remorse when I tell him it was No. 41, not 49, he should have
awakened—fancy “49’s” feelings! so, to make sure, we go together and
pull out No. 41—“41,” in pyjamas, and red-eyed, seems to have forgotten
altogether that he was to go fishing with me. Fishing at ten P.M., with a
pipe and a grog, and fishing at three in the morning are so different!
So the writer and the mirthless waiter sit down again in the vast empty
dining-room and wait whilst “41” gets into his clothes.... Now we are
ready—an hour later than the end of above paragraph, but still tea-less.
My fishermen and interpreter have been waiting under the palms in front
of the hotel, smoking cigarettes and talking quietly and with interest,
even at this dark hour of morning. We give them our thermos flasks, with
only cold coffee in them, and our provisions for two days, in baskets,
and with them we steal into the night round the hotel gardens and
terraces, trimmed with tenantless wicker-work chairs, under the palms,
pale in the faint moonlight, down the steps, over the cliffs with care,
through an iron gate, we must look like conspirators, but we only feel
sleepless; down and down, till we come to the bathing steps and dimly
discern our boat and men rising and falling in the grey foam. We embark
with difficulty, with our provisions, and row off. The moon in the
west breaks a little through the clouds and cheers us with its broken
reflections on the long swell. “41” is in the stern, the writer in the
bow, four rowers and the interpreter between us.
[Illustration]
We pass under the cliffs to the west of Funchal Bay, rowing steadily with
two long sweeps, two men to a sweep, close to the surf on the rocks, and
pass a blow-hole in the rocks, where the rising surge makes a fountain
of fine spray through a hole in the rocks, very like a whale’s blast. It
is blowing intermittently, dimly seen in the moonlight. As we pass the
outstanding rocky island opposite it we catch a faint land breeze and
step our mast and set the mainsail and slip along in absolute silence.
It is a long sail, we have nearly twenty miles before we get to the place
the tunny frequent.
We pass the fishing village of Camara da Lobos (place of the seals),
several miles to starboard. It nestles round the head of a bay—the deep
glen behind it in shadow, the white houses in moonlight—a few yellow
lights move about, our crew live there.
Under the cliff of Cabo Girao we closed our eyes for, it seemed, a
minute, and opened them to find a change. The sadness of night was gone
and it was all hilarious blue day.
How quickly the night goes, even in the sub-tropics; as fast as it falls,
almost in a minute, the moon’s sheen on the swell is gone, and the
glorious sun shines again, from behind us over the east end of Madeira.
Due west there is a lapis lazuli blue sky over a bank of pink cumuli, the
full, golden moon seems to stay one moment in the blue before it sets
behind the bank of cloud; then all the sea and sky is the blue of the
tropics again, as it was yesterday and the day before—great swells of a
rippling blue sea, and a blue sky, and that is all, excepting our little
selves and our green, red and yellow boat in the immensity.
The features of our crew are now clear to us, and they unwind the cloths
they wore round their heads for protection against the moonlight and
night air. Alas, “41” still tries to sleep, and so does the interpreter;
I fear the motion is the cause—the rise and send of a small boat in
the Atlantic is very trying. Ahead of us there is one sail like our
own; we see it now and then as it rises on a blue swell; now the top of
the white sail catches the golden light of the sunrise, then far away
beyond it something, a mere speck, appears for an instant, then another,
there are boats out there fishing; it comes quite as a surprise to find
fellow-creatures out so far from shore in small craft. We cannot count
them, for we only see three or four at a time, as they appear in turn on
the top of the swell. Now the sail in front drops, and the boat is like
the others, with the mast down, and oars out, and little figures standing
out silhouetted against the sky for a second, then lost to sight. In
another ten minutes we have joined the fleet, and dip our sail and stow
our mast away.
[Illustration: A SLEEPING BEAR AND CUBS]
And the colour of these mariners! We can hardly begin to fish, so great
is our desire to gloat on the appearance of each boat—its weathered
brilliant colours and its crew as it appears in its turn over the back
of a blue glittering swell. Camara da Lobos men all wear wide straw
hats, with a broad black ribbon round them, so their brown faces are in
shadow; their shirts, originally white, are tinted like old ivory by
many washings and voyages, so were their cotton trousers, and tattered
and patched most wonderfully. The boats are striped yellow and blue,
with perhaps magenta, and blue oars; coarse enough colours they would
look under a northern sun, but here, with the complementary tints from
the strong light, and all repeated by reflections in the blue sea, they
become a sight to rejoice anyone with half an eye. The fishing, however,
soon engrossed our attention.
As a preliminary to tunny-fishing you have to catch large mackerel as
bait and smaller mackerel to throw out into the sea when the tunny comes
along in order to keep them in your neighbourhood. For the small fry we
fished with a yard of cane and a yard of line and a small hook baited
with little cubes of mackerel. The captain chopped up some of these into
a fine paste on a board with a machete and put the paste into the water
to draw more fish; as it faded away down into the clear green depths,
swarms of these little fish, about four to the pound, dashed to and fro,
eating it, and every now and then one would take our bait, when there was
a flash of silver in the water, and out he came to join his neighbours in
a bucket.
Another of our crew, “Bow,” we will call him, rigged a longer hand-line
and fished deep, and soon pulled up some magnificent spotted mackerel.
This bait-catching was apparently the object of the early morning
start—large mackerel for bait for the tunny, and small fish to catch
the mackerel. The small fish, when they are let loose, are supposed to
hug the shadow of the boat and so keep the tunny in the neighbourhood:
besides this purpose, they form our principal food at midday.
These large mackerel were kept alive alongside on tethers, hooked by the
nose—with a rather clever rustic swivel on the line—kept alive to be
used for the tunny. But usually a big basket is kept floating alongside,
into which are put the live bait, large and small. There was so much
going on; so many little fishing dodges new to me that I must have missed
much; what held my attention were the great coils of strong hand-line,
thirty fathoms in each, thick as the average man’s little finger, with
brass-twisted wire trace, fifteen plies, each with thick iron hook at its
end.
After we had caught enough mackerel we went several miles farther out
to sea, and the two men in the stern each made fast a large mackerel to
his line—put the big iron hook through its nose and a fine wire twisted
lightly, from the shank to the neck of the barb to prevent the fish
working off.
Finally we had four of these live baits and strong lines at different
depths, drifting astern; and two men at the oar gently paddled to keep
the boat in position and the lines up and down. For hours we sat so, and
thought tunny-fishing uncommonly dull.
If one could speak Portuguese it would help to pass the time. What fun
it would have been to get the local “clash” from these pleasant-looking
men, all in tatters, miraculously stitched together. How curious would
have been their views of life and their experiences and traditions, but
my interpreter was sick as could be, and made neither moan nor attempt at
translation, so the crew chatted and better chatted between themselves,
and laughed occasionally, and so passed the time, whilst the writer
patiently and silently held a line for hours, waiting for the huge tug
that seemed never going to come.
But the next boat to us soon got one—a whacking big fellow; he fought
them for an hour and a half and they gave him twenty strokes of a
bludgeon on the head in a smother of foam alongside the boat, and
pulled him over the side with two huge gaffs and ropes, and then sat
down exhausted. He was about two-thirds of the length of the boat and
must have weighed well over three hundred pounds, and was worth £3 at
the market, to the two men and two boys who got it. Lucky fellows! They
lifted the boat seats to show it to us, and there it lay, a silver and
blue torpedo-shaped fish with huge deep shoulders. The natives call the
tunny albicore. We congratulated them and gazed at it, and listened to
their gasping description of the fight, how it had sounded seven times
and taken out a desperate number of lines. Then other two boats lost one
each—that is, they got into fish that were too big for them, and made
their lines fast, and the fish broke away. Time was their consideration;
they prefer several smaller fish of, say, one or two hundred pounds to a
bigger one that may weigh five hundred pounds but will take the whole day
to play it.
[Illustration]
It got tiresome as the hours went by with never a soul to speak to, for
“41” and the interpreter were both still ill, and the sun got very hot,
so we decided that after midday meal we would up stick and make sail.
A flat hearth of charred wood was laid amidships. Three small boulders
were laid on it and sticks between, and these were lit and a great tin
can of sea-water was set on the stones to boil, with the fish, and sweet
potatoes, in it, and a right hearty meal we made, with fingers for
knives, and the blue Atlantic for a finger-bowl, and the appetising
meal was washed down with water from a barrel and some ruby red vino
pasto wine fit for the gods.... Ah, well, better luck next time, we were
saying, as we were about to haul in our line, when the tug came, a most
tremendous tug!
We are fast in a tunny at last! and a pulley-haul fight begins—what
a weight it is! You feel as if you were pulling up the bottom of the
ocean for a second, and then that it is pulling you, willy-nilly, into
its depths, therefore you let go line, and jam it down on the gunwale
to check it, and it runs, squeaking, out, cutting a groove in the wood.
I cannot tell you how much stout line went out—there were many lines
the thickness of flag halyards of thirty fathoms each, attached to each
other—but the whole stern of the boat seemed filled with wet coiled-down
line when we had been pulling in for a few minutes, and then, in a
minute, it was almost gone, and then wearisomely two of us pulled it
in again, hand over hand, with much gasping and tugging, more and more
line is coiled up in our stern sheet, but still no sign of the fish.
As the fight—pull devil, pull baker—proceeded another man managed to
pull in the other lines all in a heap, and we were able to devote our
united attention to the fish. It seemed strong as a horse and took us
practically all in charge, and we had to be nimble to let the whizzing
loops of hard line get away clear of our feet and wrists. We were pretty
well blown, cut and sore, by the time its efforts lessened. Then we got
in coil after coil, six coils in hand then lost two, then eight and lost
one, then set teeth and pulled steadily with both hands between times,
and at last and at length, the silver glitter we expected showed deep
down in the blue. Even then there were many more coils to bring in; the
water being so intensely clear, the enormous mackerel showed many fathoms
down, swinging round and round.... The latter part of the fray needed
instantaneous photography to depict it—what with the tunny pulling and
our weight all leaning to one side to get the line in, and then to gaff
the fish, and the roll of the sea combined, too many things happened at
one time to be very clearly remembered afterwards. We had two gaffs—huge
affairs—and as the tunny dashed here and there we managed to get one
into it, then the second, and we lurched half-seas over; the tunny was
kicking up a smother of foam all the colours of the rainbow! Then with
the gaffs we pulled its head out of the water up to the gunwale, and
banged it twenty times with a wooden thing like an Indian club till it
was still, or only quivered, then a lurch from a blue sea seemed to help
to get half of it on board, and a big heave and it all came in, and we
lifted a seat and put it along the bottom and raised ourselves and waved
our hats. It was quite as good fun as any salmon-fishing I have ever had,
and nearly as exciting as whaling; that is, during the actual playing,
but the previous waiting was trying beyond words, you get roasted by the
sun and bitten by salt spray and stiff and cramped—you “chuck and chance
it,” and chuck but once in half-a-day and may have to wait days and days
before you catch your first tunny.
Getting all the lines clear again took a long time and neat and patient
handling; we did not help at that, we were rather tired. But we watched
the iridescent colours of the tunny fade; in half-an-hour its brightest
blues and shimmering pinks and silver were almost gone, and changed to
dark green on the back and dull silver below. Fifty-four kilos we made it
out to be—five feet three inches long, with enormous girth. Unfortunately
I lost its chest measurement, but think it was four feet three inches.
The three-hundred-pound tunny we saw caught close to us was worth £3 at
the present market value.
At four we gave up. The everlasting rolling in hot sun on tossing sea,
however beautifully blue, as you lie drifting, becomes very trying in
a small boat; besides, the native fishermen themselves all knock off
between three and four. But we must try again, and some day, when we
thoroughly know the ropes, we will get a small sailing craft and try the
business single-handed, for there is a lot of fun, in my opinion, to be
had fishing so, for trout or salmon—to play your own salmon and gaff it,
or manage your boat and trout and land it, say a five-pounder on fine
tackle, is excellent, but to land a tunny single-handed, doing your own
sailing and gaffing, would be—just sublime!
It was pleasant sailing back to land close-hauled with the fresh breeze,
which had risen with the sun and turned the smooth swell into crisp
waves with blue breaking tops, that soft and white breaking sea of the
Trades that is more caressing than threatening. Most of the other boats
gave up fishing at the same time, about three P.M. The skipper gave me
the tiller; neither of us could speak the other’s tongue, but there is
a quick understanding between all of us who sail small boats, and both
skipper and boat seemed to become old friends to me. They are better
sailing craft than I had fancied, though they do not draw much, for they
have to be beached; but they have two bilge keels, which make them sail
pretty close—they all sail closer and are “lighter in the mouth” than I
had expected. You notice in the drawing they have a high stem and stern
post, and the rudder ships just as it does in the boats of the north of
Norway. The sail is simple, a large square dipping lug—the canvas from
Dundee—the tack is made fast at the stem, or a little to either side, and
the sheet is simply rove through a hole in the gunwale of the sharp stern.
We got ashore at last and “41” and the Juan Fernado, the interpreter,
revived and spoke again as we got into smoother water.
We climbed up the cliffs in the late afternoon and “41” had to explain to
José, the major-domo of the hotel, why we did not stay out all night, as
we at first intended to do—“No room in boat,” etc., etc., he said, and
José smiled his genial smile and said: “Told you so, told you so, eet ees
dee same ding always, gentlemen do come back so; dey not like de smell of
de feesh, dey say.”
Now there is the moon again, I declare! I began this chapter by its
silvery light before dawn, and now it appears again as I wind up my notes
at night; it surely has done its round at an unusual pace; it seems to
me only a minute or two since it went down in the west, ruddy as a new
penny—it had only a small gallery then—mostly fisher folk; this evening
the hotel people are all watching it from a verandah; they will be late
for dinner, so beautiful is its yellow glory and its track across the sea
from the Disertas to the foot of our cliffs. I must make a study of it
to-morrow and will need a ruler to draw the black shadows of our masts,
so straight are they along the path of gold.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXII
After killing our first bull sperm off the Azores we killed a few more
whales, north of the Line, rorquals and small sperms of no great value.
Then, owing to the warm water of the tropics not cooling our engine
sufficiently, we had more engine trouble on the voyage from the Line to
Cape Town. One day under sail and engine, the next drifting and tinkering
at the engine. At the Cape, however, relief came; a Norwegian expert
at Diesel motors was sent out and he diagnosed the trouble at once,
increased the flow of cooling water, altered the screw slightly and got
the St Ebba into splendid trim, and the old engineer, a Swede, went home.
Under sail and motor our little vessel did a record passage up the
Mozambique Channel, in heavy weather, past Madagascar to the region of
calm seas round the Seychelle Islands, five degrees south of the Line.
We would rather have gone south instead of north, to the Crozet Islands,
for the sea-elephants which we know are there, but, owing to the last two
vessels that called there having been wrecked, insurance rates became
prohibitive; so we acted on the alternative plan we had formed in Norway,
and went to the Seychelles to find if my old whaling chart said sooth
about the sperm there. I had also heard from old whalers that there were
many blue whales, and these we knew had never been hunted, and the sperm
we counted on having increased in numbers; since the sperm-whaling was
almost given up forty years ago. Our forecast was correct; we found both
sperm and rorquals in great numbers.
We set to killing and flinching (or flensing) the sperm whales at sea.
But we soon realised that for one we killed and flinched at sea we could
take and utilise a dozen with a shore station; for the labour, French
Creole, on the Seychelles is plentiful and cheap. Besides, we were losing
not only much oil, owing to the warmth of the water, but also the use of
the bodies of the whales. One of these drifted ashore beneath Government
House. It was very high, and we were politely informed that—that was the
limit!
So we applied to the Seychelle Government for licences for a large land
station in order to utilise both the blubber and the entire bodies of our
whales. Licences were granted to us and we purchased the land site for a
station; and now we are running our little Company into a large affair,
with both British and Norwegian Directors and capital, and the station
is being prepared—a complete land station, to work with several whaling
steamers; capable of turning out, by the latest processes and modern
machinery, several hundred barrels of oil and bags of guano per day, the
guano being produced from the whale’s bones and meat after all oil has
been extracted.
[Illustration]
Now I have come to a point in this relation of the history of the St
Ebba when I find myself in the position of a historical painter who was
decorating a building in New York with a historical frieze of American
history, and he stopped. “Why,” said his patrons, “do you stop?” “Why,”
he replied, “because—you haven’t got any more history!” So our St Ebba’s
history must also stop in the meantime. Possibly we may join her again
and go on with our narration, and paint blue seas and coral strands
fringed with waving palms, and hunt whales where there are never gales,
and turn turtle and catch bonita and tunny and so on. Meantime we leave
her at anchor in the Seychelles in charge of the mate, engineers and two
men. The mate writes that his crew strike at turtle soup more than three
times a week, and Henriksen has gone to Norway about the outfit for the
new station and steamers for our developed Company.
Here it was the writer’s intention to bring in some notes about whaling
in the Antarctic regions, 1892-1893, partly because they might contrast
interestingly with the following recent notes on the Arctic seas, but
this promised to make too large a volume, so we miss the Antarctic and go
direct to notes about hunting and drawing in the Arctic.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXIII
Now we come to notes about the Arctic regions, whales and bears, promised
in the preface to this collection of spun yarn, as a sailor-man might
call it. Long ago the writer, as a very small boy, vowed to go North and
bring back bearskins. His instructress failed to excite his interest in
short sentences, such as “THE CAT ATE THE RAT,” so she gave him a little
square green book by Ballantyne, called “Fast in the Ice,” and he at once
made rapid progress, and he promised his instructress that he would go to
Greenland some day and bring her white bearskins—now he has got them; but
it is too late!
With this brief introduction we come to the subject of a little North
Polar expedition we arranged this year (1913), six of us, to hunt for
whales, musk oxen, walrus, seals and bears, or anything else of value in
the way of heads or furs, which we could find.
I need not go into the financial aspect of the concern, but I may say my
principal object was to study the Arctic regions as compared with the
Antarctic and to make pictures of the northern ice, and animal life.
Dr W. S. Bruce, my companion of long ago in the Antarctic, came to see us
off at the Waverley Station, and gave me a volume by that very remarkable
Englishman, the whaler Scoresby, a scientist and whaler of the Arctic.
That and Dr Bruce’s own splendid book of reference on the Antarctic and
Arctic (“Polar Research”), and my friend Captain Trolle’s work on the
Danish expedition to East Greenland, formed our Arctic library. Trolle’s
description of the Danish expedition came in particularly well, as our
intention was to visit the part of North-East Greenland, north and east
of Shannon Island, which they charted in 1906-1908, and where, alas! they
left their first leader, Captain Mylius Erichsen.
“We,” I had better say here, will often stand in these notes for my
friend C. A. Hamilton of Cochno, and Dunmore, Stirlingshire, and myself;
we have done a little whaling together, and he gave me his good company
a few years ago through the rough and smooth of hunting black bear and
caribou in the barrens of Newfoundland. The rest of our party were
four Spaniards, one of whom, F. J. de Gisbert, made the bundabust for
this voyage, chartered our diminutive whaler, at Trömso, provisioned
her and arranged about captain and a Norwegian crew. De Gisbert is to
lead the proposed Spanish National Polar Expedition, and is at present
building his vessel, which ought to be second to none, as a floating
oceanographical laboratory and ice-ship. It is to be a four or five
years’ drift across the Polar basin east to west, somewhat after the
manner of the Nansen expedition, benefiting from their work, and carrying
out still further observations with a staff of Spanish naval scientists
specially trained in the various branches of natural science in the high
northern latitudes.
It is a long road to North-East Greenland by Trömso and the north of
Norway, and so many people are familiar with the Norwegian coast that the
reader may care to make one jump right north and join us on the Fonix, a
few hours out from Trömso—to join our rather curious little party in the
cabin of a very small whaler; so we will avoid wearisome detail in the
latter part of this book about fitting out our vessel, such as those with
which I have perhaps burdened the first part about our St Ebba.
So we raise the curtain in the cabin of the Fonix; De Gisbert and Archie
Hamilton are at chess, whilst the writer and our young Spanish comarados,
two brothers Herrero and their cousin, Don Herrero Velasquez, are playing
cards, drawing, and speaking in French, English, and Spanish, separately
or all at the same time.
To add to the vocabulary, Svendsen, our skipper, comes in with his collar
up, from the cold outside, and taking Gisbert’s guitar trolls out Norse
sea-songs. Three of us “touch” the guitar, and we also have bagpipes and
a mouth-organ. It promises to be quite a homely and musical party.
The engine goes beautifully quietly—but we know from the wind and the
low glass there must be a heavy sea outside the fiord, and we are heavily
laden with coal on deck!
The evening passes with snatches of Spanish songs, and bits of sailors’
chanteys, and we have one bottle of rum between us all as a libation for
a successful voyage and a “full ship.”
Then, alas, we strike the rough sea outside the fiord, and roll and pitch
as only small whalers can. But still the three cousins trill away at
songs, bravely, bravely, though they grow more pale. Then they retire
one by one to their minute cabins; turn their keys and shut themselves
in their bunks and hide discomfort. How they live without any air is a
wonder—and after two days they turn up again, smiling.
A word here about our little whaler, the Fonix, and her build. She is
just a handy size for dodging in and out amongst the ice, and she is said
to be strong. She was built in 1884 for bottle-nose whaling, and for use
in the ice—ninety-two tons register, two pole masts and a funnel, one
hundred and forty horse-power, eight and a half knots in calm water, over
all one hundred and ten feet, with broad beam, her sides are sheathed
with greenheart and oak two feet thick; her ribs are eleven inches by
twenty inches broad, with only five and a half inches to six inches
between them at bows. The forefoot has a five-foot thickness of timber
and the usual belts of iron round the stem or cut-water, to protect it
when ramming ice.
Between 3rd and 6th July we are all seedy, there is no gainsaying it,
the writer perhaps makes the best pretence not to be so, and is rather
envied; and several of the crew are down, it is not nearly so bad though
as last year on the St Ebba, where, out of a crew of fifteen seasoned
hands, the skipper, first mate, and writer, were all that could stand
a watch for three days after sailing. That was, however, in a pucca
gale. Still, on the Fonix, we managed a game of chess or two between
the appearance and disappearance of our señors, and worked a little at
Spanish and strummed mandoline and guitar—Gisbert playing the mandoline,
the writer accompanying him on the guitar, whilst all well enough joined
in the words.
I was never with such a musical party. The steward also plays the guitar,
and, with a wire arrangement attached to its neck, holds a melodeon or
mouth-organ to his mouth and makes a very clever but horrible orchestral
effect.
To-day, the 7th of July, Monday, we are into calmer water, grey sky and
cold—we passed a little ice at night and met our first ivory gull, it is
the harbinger of the North Polar regions, as the white petrel down South
tells of the ice edge. Last night we drew lots for watches, Hamilton and
I take ours together—we take the second six hours watch—Don José and his
brother Don Luis[13] take the first six hours, and their cousin, Don
Luis[14] and De Gisbert take the third; this arrangement allows us a
change of six hours each day. The idea is that the two on watch are to
risk their lives against any whale, bear or ferocious animal that may
turn up on their watch. To cheer us up on this somewhat quiet evening,
Gisbert yarned to us about his previous trips to the Arctic; and told
us about some of the ice-protected vessels that lay round us in Trömso.
One of them, the smallest, a mere twenty-tonner, with a crow’s nest at
its short foremast, he told us, came back from the ice _single-handed_ a
year ago! Another, a yacht-like auxiliary schooner, with fiddle bows, but
heavily protected, a year or two ago was up at the west ice—that is, east
of Greenland—with a party of Germans. They became overdue and a search
party in another small vessel set out, which called at Jan Mayen Island
on the way north, but found no signs of the lost party; so they pursued
their way north into the floes—hunted about till they burst their ship
up, and only one man returned. On comparing dates the first party was
found to have actually called on their return journey at Jan Mayen and
left only twelve hours before the relief party called. A letter left at
the hut on the island to this effect would have saved fifteen lives of
the rescue party.
As we are going to the “West Ice,” north-east of Greenland, such stories
give a sense of anticipated troubles to our little trip—if, however, one
only thought of the dangers of life, who would go motoring or eat a fish
or go to bed?
De Gisbert has picked up several stranded sealers, on his previous
expeditions north; a lot of these set out in poor vessels with no
equipment; for fur-hunting, for blue fox, bear and seal skins; and they
often came to grief. A party of four wintered in Spitzbergen, badly
provisioned, and when he fell in with them, one lay dead, a second was
in the last stage of scurvy, and the other two were barely able to come
on board and tell their tale. De Gisbert took the sick man and isolated
him—and a distinguished doctor on board said he had not a chance of life,
half his face was gone. He asked for beer, and the doctor said: “Give him
as much as he likes to drink. He is a dead man.” So he got that light
Norwegian _ol_, more and more of it; he drank one hundred and fifty-six
bottles in five days, and recovered!
Another troublesome sealer he took home had gone crazy on board a small
boat on its outward voyage. De Gisbert hails all sealers and gives them
tobacco and their longitude and latitude, and possibly a bottle of
whisky, all of which things they are generally quite without—as often
as not they carry neither sextant nor chronometer. He was asked to take
this man who had gone crazy back to Norway, and as Gisbert was on his
way south, to save them their season’s sealing, he humanely did so. The
man partially recovered and was let loose, and messed forward, in the
fo’c’sle. But suddenly one day, at meal-time, he went mad again and
cleared everyone out of the fo’c’sle with a knife in his hand; and they
had to lasso him through the fo’c’sle skylight! Naturally they put into
the first Norwegian village they came to up north and asked the police to
take over the lunatic; but the police besought Gisbert to take him on to
Hammerfest and they would telegraph and have him met there. He did so,
much to his own loss of time, and at Hammerfest one small boy came off
in a boat to take, single-handed, the raving lunatic, who required two
strong men and a strait jacket: he died two days after.
De Gisbert talks of his plans for this coming Spanish Polar expedition
and finds the writer a sympathetic listener, for have we not worried
ourselves over similar troubles, the raising capital and planning of an
expedition to the Far South?
We sight ice in the afternoon, and grey and cold it is—alas, that the
thrill of the first sight of ice should not repeat itself. My young
friends do not seem to be greatly impressed, not so much so as we were
years ago, when, after a three months’ voyage, the mist rose and we had
our first vision of the marvellous architecture of Antarctic ice.
Here it is not so impressive as in the South, but beyond doubt it
can show its teeth quite effectively. Curiously it is often the old,
experienced deep-sea sailor who feels the greatest sensation on going
into the ice for the first time. All his life he has religiously avoided
knocking up against anything in the way of ice or rocks, so when he is
called to go straight in amongst ice-blocks it affects him more than
it would a landsman. I know of such a captain and his first experience
up here. When he had brought his ship into the ice, the crashing and
thumping got on his nerves so that he retreated to his cabin, and bolted
himself in, and had to be fed through the skylight for three days. This
is a true bill.
[Illustration]
We have got some sail set to a westerly breeze and go so steadily that
we can vary our amusements of lasso-throwing, etc., etc., with fencing.
The señors are interested in fencing but are not very good, but they
are good shots at clay pigeons; that is another side-show we have, De
Gisbert is quite a showman at it. With a five-shooter shot-gun he throws
three clay pigeons up with the left hand and shoots them all before they
reach the water. But at fencing the writer has rather a pull, the last
three years’ practice in Edinburgh with our most perfect teacher, M. Leon
Crosnier, ought to have some effect.
[Illustration: A DEAD BEAR BEING LIFTED ON BOARD BY STEAM WINCH AND
CHAIN]
In Gisbert’s Spanish Polar expedition next year, or the year after, all
men will fence for health’s sake. But who will instruct? that is the
art—fencing without an instructor is hopeless.
A seal or two appear to-day and some little auks.
We get the lines and harpoons ready for our two bow whale-guns, and other
harpoons and lines for walrus boats. “Chips,” the carpenter, is busy
overhauling old oars, and making new oars.
So if all goes well we should soon be fast in a whale, or walrus, or up
against a bear.
But we strike the ice rather far east, over two hundred miles from
Greenland coast! Gisbert has tried before to get into Greenland to south
and west of Jan Mayen; this time we hope to get in from farther north,
about seventy-five degrees, and hope to strike Shannon Island or that
neighbourhood. We have some slight hope of meeting Eskimos, and possibly
musk oxen. Captain Trolle of the Danish navy was up here in 1906-1908,
and charted the coast of North-East Greenland. He took command when the
leader, Mylius Erichsen, lost his life in the interior. He says there
is a hut on the island, one of these lonely dwellings visited by human
beings once a century, generally under pressure of circumstance.
At afternoon café we overhaul cameras—like the rest of their outfit, the
cameras of the Dons are of the best, as neat as can be: and we pull out
all the books on recent polar work, which we and De Gisbert have between
us, and discuss the writers we know.
Small floes are now on all sides, and mist. We run through one small
stream of ice, shoving the pieces aside, leaving our green paint behind
and some splinters on the jagged ice feet, and it is rather a sensation
for my friends, their first experience of ice—then we heave to and
drift. By-and-by we spot a hooded-seal and our first watch goes to the
bows in the faint hope of getting a shot from board-ship, as we think
the movement in the small boat would spoil their aim, and the seal
understands and pops off the ice when we are eight hundred yards off; so
we retire to the cabin and the stove; for it is beastly cold and damp,
and write up journals and almost wonder if we are not rather fools to
come so far for such disagreeable circumstances. Still in the back of our
minds we remember what a difference a little sunlight makes in a polar
scene.
CHAPTER XXIV
My first impressions of the Arctic ice compared to Antarctic ice are
distinctly disappointing, which reminds me of my friend Dr Bruce’s first
impressions of the same. He had been in the Antarctic, then came up here
to join the Jackson Harmsworth expedition. For several days they had been
going through ice when he remarked: “I would rather like to see one of
your polar icebergs.” “What!” they said, “you have passed a dozen of them
in the last two days. Why, there is one now,” and they pointed to a piece
of ice about seventy feet high, and about two hundred feet in length.
Bruce was silent. I remember one of the first considerable bergs we saw
in the South was over two hundred feet in height and more than nine miles
long—we only saw one end of it! He had not quite realised that an Arctic
berg was so small a thing compared to the majestic Antarctic bergs he
had been familiar with off Graham’s Land, and in the Weddell Sea. When
grounded and shoved up, the Antarctic bergs are sometimes several hundred
feet in height, and have, we know from soundings, a total thickness of
about one thousand feet.
As we sat looking at the rather gloomy view—grey sea and bits of bluish
ice—one of us spotted a black speck away down to leeward and the first
watch bolted for their rifles and we steamed down. Pop—pop—went the
rifles, the mausers at about fifty yards. A lucky shot drew “first
blood”—a small one-year-old hooded-seal. Great was the rejoicing in our
little community, and we forgot the cold and dreary aspect, and dropped a
boat and the seal was aboard and flinched in no time.
Then the writer turned in for one, also Archie, and the señors made merry
with a tiny drop of whisky and soda, and were very well pleased. In my
dreams I heard another shot and the engine stopped, and we crunched
up against ice, so I knew another seal had gone to the happy hunting
grounds; I showed a leg for half-a-minute, not more, it was shivering
cold on deck.
Young Don Luis Velasquez had got the seal through the head, first blood
for his split new rifle, telescope sight, etc.
On this almost mild morning of pigeon-grey sky, light and fine rain (8th
July), we are passing through a wilderness of ice pans and small floes
and the soft grey sky is reflected on the rippling lavender-coloured sea.
The ice pans are mostly blue and white, like blue muslin overlaid with
white, which shows almost emerald-green under the water. On the pans are
fresh-water pools reflecting soft grey of sky, each pool surrounded by
a rim of pale cobalt. So I wonder if there is any blue paper on board
to paint on, with white body colour; that might secure the effect most
rapidly. And on some of the floes are seals lying at rest, whilst others
disport themselves as dolphins do in the sea, but we stop not for these,
for the lavender sky is deep in colour away ahead, so we know there is
more or less open water free of ice, possibly leaving a road for us to
Greenland’s ice-bound strand. That is our object, slightly uncertain of
attainment, as it depends on the drift of the polar ice from the North.
In some years you can make the land easily—other years it is unattainable.
We keep a sharp look-out from the crow’s nest and bridge and deck for the
blow of a whale; possibly we may spot a Nord Capper, or even the scarce
Greenland Right Whale Balæna Mysticetus, and lift £1000 or so. We have
tackle for them, but the finner whale on this trip we must leave alone,
he is too monstrous strong. I have written about their capture in the
first part of this book.
Here we may meet a large male polar bear, for they venture far afield.
Nearer land we are likely to fall in with family parties, females and
cubs. Where the seals are, there are the bears. It is a very curious
thing about seals of the Antarctic sea as compared with these Arctic
seals, that you very seldom see them in the South showing their heads
above water; either they are under water or entirely out and up on the
ice. I have seen many thousands there, and only remember seeing about
a dozen heads above water in several months. And here again, or round
our coasts, seals constantly show their heads above water. Another odd
difference is that in the Southern Polar ice-seals make for the middle
of the ice-sheet if they feel any alarm. They expect no harm to come to
them on the ice. In fact, you can go up to them and touch them. Here they
waddle off as fast as their flippers and caterpillar-like movements will
take them, and get into the water for security, the reason being, that in
the North they have bears and men and land animals to contend with, and
neither man, bear, nor any other land animal exists down South. There the
enemy is in the sea, the _orca gladiator_, the grampus killer, which has
most awful jaws and teeth, to judge by the huge wounds one finds on the
bodies of these very great seals.
All day we go under steam through the ice-floes, on each quarter a
different effect—north-east there is dark cloud, with an ice-blink, a
light streak on the clouds telling of a field of pack ice—ahead there is
darker lilac sky, telling of open water, to our left and the south-west
there is white ice and white sky, blending in a blur of soft light, so
we know there is endless ice there. All of us, from the cabin boy on
his first trip, enjoy the colouring, these exquisite blues and greens
of the ice-tongues under water, and of the blues of the under-cut ice,
reflected on lavender-tinted ripples. I eagerly make notes in colour, for
my recollection of Antarctic ice tints is fading. Yes, blue paper would
be the thing to paint on. Is it increase of years that makes me fail to
see quite such great beauty here as in the South? I incline to think
the colouring here is not quite so varied, possibly owing to the lesser
variety of ice-forms. One might compare the simpler, flatter forms of
the ice here and the fantastic shapes of the Antarctic, as the lowlands
appear in contrast to the rocks and hills of the Highlands.
My first impression of Antarctic ice in the Weddell Sea was of bergs
bigger than St Peter’s, miles in length, a hundred and fifty feet high,
with lofty blue caves into which you could sail a ship, the sea bursting
up their green depths from a huge glassy swell, around them small ice
like ruined Greek temples, floating lightly as feathers, such marvellous
forms! Here the ice is pretty, very pretty indeed, but there is nothing
awesome or staggeringly wonderful in its design.
We steamed north-westerly all forenoon; a thin haze came down in the
afternoon and the sun through the haze on the ice-floes gives quite
a fairylike appearance, even to our somewhat rugged figures, when we
scatter over the ice-floe, which we did, and enjoyed the feeling of
land, as it were.—Bump! That would have upset an ink-bottle; now we lie
still, up against a floe with the Fonix’s nose against the dazzling
blue under-cut edge, and we throw the ice-anchor and wire-cable over
the bows and hammer it into the ice. Later we towed her stern round and
lay broadside to the floe and put out planks for a gangway, and filled
up our water-tanks from a pale cobalt pond of fresh water. We broke a
bottle of champagne at this point of our proceedings—and we all agreed
it tasted rather better in the snow than down South, and we shot at the
empty bottle, and practised lasso-throwing, getting our eye in against
a rencontre with seal or bear. Our little white ship that seemed so
insignificant down in Trömso now seems to rather dominate the ice and
seascape—twenty people inside the little vessel, engines, harpoons,
rifles, coals, heat and food, quite a concentrated little cosmos of life
and human contrivances—our all, in this wide, empty Arctic world.
Later we pushed on and the mist obscured our path again, so we tied up
against another floe, with shallow lakes of pale Reckitt’s blue on it.
Far in towards its centre two seals lay on the snow, mere black dots,
which I was about to go after, when, observing a smile on the face of
Larsen, a typical blue-eyed hirsute Viking, I consulted with him and
gathered it was “no use.” “Hole in de ice,” he said, “dey go intil!”
Stupid beasts! I thought, there are points in favour of the great tame
creatures of the Antarctic which one could approach and pat on the head
before turning them into produce for patent leather, margarine, and
olive oil.[15]
We had a pull of about a mile in the evening in our whale-boat—three
double sculls—and attempted to approach four seals on the floe edge, but
they dived into the water. A young member of the party came up and had a
look at us, and Archie put a very pretty shot from the moving boat into
its head at about ninety yards and we pulled it aboard before it had time
to sink.
On the 9th July the air and mist were still southerly, and there was
nothing doing except painting ice studies, firing at marks with our
various rifles and pistols, shifting from one floe to another and
drifting southerly at about twenty miles per day on the cold current,
that brings the polar ice and water down past East Greenland to keep the
people in the British Isles from becoming too slack. Our Spanish friends
are brisk as can be in the cold and damp, busy all day stripping rifles,
and pistols, and cameras, and putting them up again with great deftness
and neatness of hand and clever nests of tools.
At _aften-mad_ a tiny seal (Vitulina) put its innocent little face up
astern, and Don Luis boldly seized Gisbert’s mannlicher and snapped a
bullet into it; the telescope was sighted for a thousand yards at the
time, but he got it all right.
Gisbert and the skipper in the afternoon overhauled plans for the Spanish
Polar Expedition. I read some of the endless literature on the subject,
and pray inwardly that I may not have to endure any more of either Arctic
or Antarctic winter weather, it is the summer and the long daylight of
either end of the world that I like. Heaven knows why the night was
invented. The comfort of awakening at midnight to find the sun shining
and no need for candles or matches is to me beyond words.
This day, the 10th July, has been more exciting—as I write we are
circling round a great polar bear that has taken to the sea—we keep
closing in between it and the ice-floes and it goes snorting along,
horribly disgusted at being out-manœuvred. It is our third to-day!
The mist lifted a little in the afternoon—it was charming colour as
it lifted and faint blue appeared overhead, and the pools in the ice
were most delicate yellow set in snow of faintest pink, each pool edged
with emerald. Why the snow takes the delicate tints in northern high
latitudes, may someone else explain. My devoir was to attempt its colour
in paints, a much more difficult thing than circumventing this poor old
yellow bear that I hear snuffing and puffing over the side. My companion,
Don Luis V., writes his notes beside me, and runs out occasionally to
see the bear that is waiting till the gun of the watch (Don José) comes
off the floe; it is his turn to shoot. Don Luis got his first bear this
afternoon. We were plodding along beside a fairly big and rugged floe,
say a mile in length, with a seal or two on it, when someone spotted the
pale yellow object far away on the violet-tinted snow, and as it was his
watch, he and Gisbert and their men set out over the floe to stalk it.
The pale yellow coat of a beast on a white floe is less easily
distinguished than, say, a man in a black coat, and top hat and umbrella.
But unless one is colour-blind one cannot accept its colouring as
protective. I must argue this out with my friend Dr Bruce when I return
to town, for I see that in his charming and instructive book, “Polar
Research” (which everyone should read who is the least interested in
either Arctic or Antarctic regions), he thinks the tint of some piece of
ice, coloured yellow by algæ, is so like the colour of a bear that seals
may be misguided enough to mistake him for yellow ice. No, no. Bruin’s
black nose and eyes you can see for miles, and so too you can distinguish
his lemon-yellow coat, almost green in the shadow with the snow’s
reflection.
As proof of even the bear’s belief to the contrary of this protective
colouring theory, he will hold his yellow paws over his black nose,
so I am told, when stalking a seal; and I can vouch myself that one
endeavoured to hide both his black nose and yellow body when he stalked
me.
[Illustration: RELOADING GUN WITH HARPOON
Note the explosive point of the harpoon is not yet screwed on.]
[Illustration: TOWING ARCHIE HAMILTON’S BIG BEAR’S SKIN
Hamilton and Gisbert are in the rear.]
The most prominent thing on a floe, bar a bear, is a piece of brown ice,
or yellow ice patch, the first coloured by land streams, the second
coloured by sea algæ. You swing your glass round and round the horizon,
with nothing to mark your direction on some days, when the sun is behind
clouds, and keep time, and mark your place, by a yellow or brown patch.
Therefore for a bear to resemble either is to court observation.
The next most interesting thing to stalking a bear, or being stalked by
one, is to watch and criticise a stalk from the superior position of
looker-on. It was the greatest fun imaginable to watch with the glass the
little dots of figures, mere black specks, wandering over the distant
floe. Of course, from your position on the bridge you can watch both
the movements of the bear and the hunters, and sometimes their cross
purposes make you laugh at the poor human mistakes. In this case the
hunters came off best, but without the vessel the bear would have had
the best of the competition. He got down wind of the group of hunters,
Don Luis Velasquez, De Gisbert, and two men—sniffed the air and came
hurtling along in the opposite direction and took to sea, half-a-mile
from the Fonix, which we had anchored to the floe, and off it swam to a
neighbouring island of ice, about half-a-mile away, so we up-sticked and
headed it round till the hunters came off the floe in the boat, and the
poor yellow fellow got first a bullet in the neck, which enraged it and
changed the colour of the sea, then, after several more shots, a lucky
one in the brain ended its charmed life. He may have left no friends, but
he died without enemies to be afraid of, bar man—and we did not even find
a flea on it; which was disappointing, but what was to be expected.
We think the Eskimos have met the bears here, owing to the bears’
retiring manners, which are not characteristics of these polar bears in
less populous parts of the polar basin. It is not a fortunate ending to
a stalk to have to shoot your game in the water. Still our friend fired
several shots before he got the deadly one into the brain, but there is
some excuse—a heavy tramp over snow-fields after a beast that, say what
you will, takes a little nerve to approach for the first time, and then
the bobbing boat might upset even a very experienced shot.
It was a great lift getting his body on board, we hooked the chain of the
winch round its neck, let on steam, and up it came to the boom on the
foremast, and hung dripping over the deck.
* * * * *
I will here quote a line or two from Scoresby’s book on Greenland. He
was the wonderful combination of almost a self-made man, a recognised
authority as a scientist and splendid whaler.
I make this quotation to give some weight to the serious side of polar
bear hunting. Nowadays it is rather the fashion to minimise dangers on
land or sea. And in the time of Scoresby it was also more or less the
fashion, but he frankly says: “I do not try to minimise the risks of
sea life and whaling,” and he gives due thanks to his Maker for many
hair-breadth escapes which we to-day might put down too much to our own
efforts and straight powder.
“When the bear is found in the water,” he continues, “crossing from one
sheet of ice to another, it may generally be attacked with advantage;
but when on the shore, or more especially when it is upon a large sheet
of ice, covered with snow—on which the bear, supporting itself on the
surface, with its extended paws, can travel with twice the speed of
a man, who perhaps sinks to the knee at every step—it can seldom be
assailed with either safety or success. Most of the fatal accidents that
have occurred with bears have been the result of rencounters on the ice,
or injudicious attacks made at such disadvantage.”
I am inclined to think that each person feels differently about
approaching a bear on the ice; depending on temperament and age.
Personally I feel a faint chill—such as you have before diving off a rock
into the sea, and after success something of the glow you have after you
come out. But I rather think that younger people have a similar sensation
before and after, only stronger. In fact, so strong as at first to make
them a little pale, to upset their aim, and afterwards to make them
gloriously jubilant.
The naked feeling, I am sure, is there, clothes and ordinary surroundings
are of no account, there is the snow, the sky, and the big bear hundreds
of times more powerful than yourself—and there is your rifle. Before you
dive into the sea, you know you can swim a stroke or two; before you
wander over the floe to Bruin, you know all you have to trust to is your
aim, and your rifle.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXV
I continue these bear-shooting notes this evening, Friday, 11th July. I
know it is evening from a faint blush of pink on the snow that is just
perceptible; without this I would have lost all idea of time, for since
yesterday it has been all bear-hunting and no sleep. Now we have a bear
alongside, all alive-o! He is tied with a rope and is swimming just like
a man, hard astern, trying to tow our little whaler from the floe-edge;
and he roars every now and then in angry disgust, and then turns up his
hind quarters and dives and swims a few strokes under water, only to be
pulled up again on the rope or lasso. He can swim apparently without
fatigue for many hours, occasionally taking a dive as deep as the lasso
will allow him. We hope to get him to our Edinburgh Zoological Park,
where he will be much appreciated, especially by myself and other artists
and children and seniors.
He is the last of six bears in twenty-four busy hours. Don Luis Velasquez
and Don José Herrero each got their first bears, one after the other, but
unfortunately both were in the water. Don José’s, the last, led us a very
far chase over miles of floe and ice-covered sea.
The most fascinating part of the day was watching the bear’s abandon of
movement and joy as it did its evening saunter over the floes, utterly
oblivious of our presence and probably full of young seal fat and joy;
when it came across the stem of a drifted pine—it was as good as a
circus. How it joked with the pine log, on its back on the snow, played
the guitar with it, caressed it, then spumed it in disdain with its
great soft hind foot, only to take it up in its teeth again to wave it
slowly about. In the middle of this solitary play, however, the bear’s
seventh sense told it there was something impending and he left his
cherished stick and paddled off leisurely down wind and floe—then he
got the wind of the guns and went off pretty fast for a mile or so,
occasionally stopping to sniff the breeze. At his easy rate of motion
he quickly left Don José and his contingent behind—little black spots
in the world of white plains and hummocks. Did the reader ever see a
bear fairly out for a walk, and notice the extraordinary resemblance
there is between the movements of a bear in the open and those of a
ferret—shorten the ferret’s body and its tail and you have something very
like a microscopic bear, the long back, the way they each wave their
snouts and stand up on their hind-quarters to sniff the breeze—beyond
doubt, it is funny. I do not think it is really undignified, but when
someone says that its movements suggest its having received a violent
kick on its hind-quarters, you cannot get the idea out of your mind; and
whatever its sex, or however big and powerful he may be, you must smile
at the way he carries his tail down. Is their strength not marvellous?
A large fellow here was waiting for a seal at a hole in the ice, and a
blue seal (Phoca Barbata) just showed itself, and apparently to take the
chance, with one swoop of his forearm and claws, the bear threw the great
six-hundred-pound seal well on to the ice, and with a forefoot on its
back, broke the head off at one bite and drank the blood and wolfed up
every bit of skin and blubber; for the meat or cran, and bones, the bear,
like the human, has no use, unless he is hard pressed.
Of course it is a big old bear which can do such a feat, possibly twenty
years old and much bigger and broader in the quarter and shoulder than
you can expect to find in Europe in confinement. Archie Hamilton got
such a veteran this morning, quite comfortably, after twelve-o’clock
breakfast. With De Gisbert and some men they sallied forth over the
floe we were up against to deprive two bears thereon of their skins and
lives—that is, if the bears did not in the first instance deprive them of
theirs.
It was fascinating watching the little figures growing smaller and
smaller in the distance, and to watch the soft, pale yellow heap that
represented the ice-bear. I have a splendid glass, and at half-a-mile
can distinguish the gloriously luxurious rolls and movements of the
great fellow and note the black nose and black soles of his feet as he
stretches himself, and scrapes a bed in the snow for his midday siesta.
With the glass I see Archie get into soft snow and stoop and point the
rifle and get up, and I wonder why, when he does this again, and I swing
my glass on to the bear and notice a flush come over its yellow back, and
there is a spout of red from its side; though I see so clearly I hear no
sound of the shot. Five times Archie hit his Majesty, all in more or less
deadly places, but he came on and girned at them and wanted to chaw them
up, a fighting bear. Five 350 magnum bullets shattering bone and muscle
actually knocking over the big beast, yet not destroying its fight, gives
an idea of the muscle of such a full-grown snowy chief. He measured, as
he lay, eight feet two inches—that is, from nose to tail; standing up on
his bare feet, he would have stood ten and a half feet and his estimated
weight was one thousand and twenty pounds. As our estimate was founded on
steelyard weights of many other bears and their measurements, this may be
accepted as correct.
Personally, a foot or a point or two about a beast, or a ton or two’s
weight in a whale does not matter to me very much, it is the fun of the
stalk that counts—be it for a rabbit, bear, or fingerling trout, the dew
on the clover or the icicles on the berg—and how you get your beast,
and what you see on the way to it, for things get impressed on memory
by the excitement of a stalk, in a way they would never be at other
times. If you have to crawl, for example, through a shallow blue pool on
a snow-field in the early morning, as was my experience to-day, to get
within shot of a bear that suspects you, you note the queer blue tint of
the pool that soaks through your waistcoat—that it is sometimes blue,
and sometimes purple, depending on the angle at which the light strikes
the ice crystals under or on its surface. And there is plenty of time to
speculate why you do not see such pools on the floes in the Antarctic.
From the ship when we spotted the bear alluded to above, and until it was
killed, in fact, we thought it was very large, but it turned out to be
not half the size of the big fellow C. A. H. has secured.
He and De Gisbert and I set out after it together. But the only way, I
thought at the time, to get within shot without scaring it was to do a
regular deer-stalk crawl of a hundred yards to get behind an isolated
piece of rounded snow, just big enough to cover one person. So I left
Gisbert and Hamilton behind a bigger hummock as covering party and
proceeded at great leisure, ventre à terre, to approach the said piece of
snow, I do not think that ursus got my wind, but possibly the noise of my
elbow crunching through a hard crust of the snow drew his attention, and
I saw a black eye and the dark ear of the right side of his face peering
round the little lump of snow, then his black left eye looked round the
other side of the hummock, and then both eyes and black nose were gently
raised over the top—we were stalking each other!
[Illustration]
From subsequent experience I have learned that my stalking was rather
wasted, as a bear will always come to the attack if you are alone. I
liked his expression, what I saw of it, but either he did not like mine
or he got an inkling that there was a covering party in the rear, for he
suddenly seemed to think of something and turned and very sedately walked
away to the left, with his head down. So I, also sedately, I hope, sat
up on the soft snow and pulled at his shoulder at about fifty yards, and
he collapsed, and then got up and pelted away to the right, the writer
following, both of us tumbling and pulling ourselves up again in the soft
snow and hummock. It took other two shots (375 cordite), both fairly well
placed, to end its troubles.
The stalk and trying to sit up on the snow crust to draw a bead on the
light primrose fur of the soft-looking beast, how vividly that will make
all the delicate mother-of-pearl tints of the ice scene remain in my
memory!
It is a wonder that animal painters, some of them quite distinguished,
do not as a rule take the trouble to go and study their animals in their
proper surroundings. What numbers of pictures we see of snow-leopards,
bears, and such-like, done excellently up to a point, but with none of
their natural atmosphere. The white bear with its pale primrose colour
needs the shimmer and pearl-like tints of its natural surroundings, the
blues and greens of the floe, veiled a little by fine snow or mist,
and the hard ice, to set off its rounded soft furry form that hides
such terrible strength. How could anyone, for example, hope to paint a
caribou, with its glory of russet horns, unless he has seen its grey face
and white neck amongst silver birch stems and the red glow of maples?
To do the ice-bear justice, you should first splash on to
canvas the shimmer of mother-of-pearl, then inset the comic
kicked-on-the-hind-quarter figure in yellow, give the humour and preserve
his strength and majesty at the same time, so you’d have a masterpiece.
At a school or zoological garden or museum you can learn anatomy and
painting, but outside work is essential for the true animal painter.
There he must forget bones and muscles and get the envelope of air and
colour of the animal and its surroundings.
But to come back to our bear-hunting. As our party returned from the
hunt, the men spread out left and right, covering about a mile, and so
roped in a younger bear, which had been hanging about to leeward of the
old male bear which Hamilton shot. Why it did so we cannot say. It was
cheery work for the men, running about as beaters sometimes do at a drive
when a hare gets up and tries to get back. It was a little shy of them,
but did not seem to mind the ship; in fact it came right up to us and we
got a boat down. It then tried to run down the floe edge and outflank
beaters, but Larsen, a long, fair-haired, blue-eyed fellow, got ahead
and fired bullets into ice in front of its nose—range about four yards,
and it got disquieted and turned back to the ship, then slipped over the
floe-edge into the sea, and we rowed after it, and a sailor made a dozen
poor attempts to cast a lasso over its neck; he bungled it over somehow
and we towed it, using dreadful language at us, alongside, and afterwards
got it on board into a cage.
[Illustration: THE LAST CARTRIDGE
A fighting Bear.
_From a Painting by the Author_]
I think this recapitulates our bearing for twenty-four hours rather
concisely. It does not quite convey the slight chill you feel at setting
out, on however beautiful and silvery a morning, at, say, five o’clock,
after being up all night, to wade across ice and snow to face the
horrible and dangerous Ursus Maritimus, or white monarch of the pole, and
it does not give the calm sense of conceit that you feel when you have
succeeded in slaughtering the same, and preserving your skin; it would be
bad form to express such sentiments loud out. The only sign our Spanish
friends showed was that they were a little sallow when they set out, and
a little warmer in colour on their return. A. C. H. quotes Neil Munro to
express his feeling. “Man,” he says, “am feeling shust sublime—could poo
the mast oot o’ the ship an’ peat a Brussels carpet.” No wonder, lucky
fellow, a one-thousand-and-twenty-pounder for his first polar bear. His
first black bear we thought mighty big a year or two ago, away back in
the barrens of Newfoundland; it weighed three hundred and eighty pounds.
Which is best to eat, polar or black bear, it is hard to say. I vote for
black bear pre salé and fed in the blueberry season. Still, the meat of
the polar bears here is extremely good and feels strengthening. One needs
strengthening. Yesterday was high summer, just touching freezing, but
still and a little sunny; to-night a gale from north-east and cold, and
ice driving gently round us.
But I am not complaining! No—I’ve been a summer and autumn in Antarctic
ice. After the bad days and black nights there in January and February,
nothing north of the Line need be considered as intolerable.
One note before winding up this day’s reckoning. If you wish to think
of the Arctic or Antarctic, you must think in colour somehow or
other. If you think in black and white you miss the idea, and form a
wrong impression all in black and white, just as I used to have from
engravings, and which it is very difficult to put aside. North Polar and
South Polar regions are essentially places of very high-toned delicate
colour, almost the only black is what you bring with you; mother-of-pearl
and birch-bark tints you have, and grimness there is in dead earnest,
dangers and minor discomforts, but it’s all in lovely colour in high note.
* * * * *
It is my watch and Gisbert’s to-night, but I am going to turn in after
writing this; two nights without sleep make one feel inclined to ride
out this gale behind a floe in one’s bunk—pipe, matches and book, and
practice chanter, all within arm’s-length, and jolly comfortable it is;
for, as Marcus Aurelius puts it: “If a man can live in a palace, he can
live there well.”
[Illustration]
I forgot to say we got our Bruin on board, after a terrible fight and
some blood lost, human and bear’s. We got a strop round his waist when
we had pulled him alongside with the lasso, and hauled him up in the air
by the steam-winch, the chain and hook fast in the strop. I think this
little drawing explains the method; it’s a most kindly and considerate
treatment. I mention this to ease the mind of some people who concluded
that a picture in this book of a bear hung by the head was a live bear
being lifted on board instead of being a bear that had been shot for an
attempt on our lives on the ice. Whalers and sealers and bear-hunters
I have found just as humane and gentle a people as those who stay at
home and often criticise them unkindly. We led the lasso under the floor
bars of a big wooden cage which we made to-day; three men hauled his
head down. Then we lowered him into the cage, and whilst he tried to
free his head, battens were rapidly nailed on over his back. So he is on
board, but not all right, it is quite possible he may pull away a batten
to-night. He is busy carpentering, and has already got one spar off. I
would prefer his going overboard to looking me up in my bunk.
It blew all night, so we all rested and had European breakfast at leisure
at nine. I did a picture of a bear I saw yesterday, Archie’s bear. It is
munching the head of a young hooded-seal, Cystophora Cristata, of which
we saw over forty in one lot yesterday. I also did a picture, from notes
at the time, of the jolly lonely bear playing with a piece of drift-wood,
lying on its back and tossing away the wood with his hind foot, just
before he got up, suspecting there was something in the wind, and before
going off over the floe down wind at that easy gait that leaves poor man
such miles behind whenever there is soft snow to negotiate.
CHAPTER XXVI
No whales yet, never a blow, no chance to use our harpoon-guns from the
ship’s bows or from the boats, so we keep their covers on. What patience
is needed for whaling! Two seasons ago a friend of mine, a captain of a
Dundee whaler, was up this north-east coast of Greenland with a big crew
for three months, and got only one whale and one bear. Then, with luck,
you may get several in one day, I have never yet seen more than three
killed in the twenty-four hours; but I have done nine months’ whaling
with three whalers and killed none! That is rather a record.
... The wind is easterly, the worst we could have for getting in to
North-East Greenland, for it is driving the floes inshore. We are once
more anchored to a floe and wait till the weather clears, for it is too
windy and misty to make good progress. We are still about seventy-five
degrees north and a hundred and thirty miles from the coast, and there is
an unusual amount of ice between us and it, so we may not reach it after
all.
* * * * *
Whales at last! Narwhals! the fellows with long ivory horns. The steward
spotted them first as he was cleaning a dish at the galley door; he came
running aft with a blush of excitement on his face, and we saw their
backs, three of them, and dashed for the whale-boat, but before we got
away the whales had disappeared! It was ever thus. They are the most
illusive whales. “A uni, a uni,” I have heard our Dundee whalers shout
down south in the Antarctic, and they too disappeared without scathe.
But are there narwhals in the South, you ask. Well, this is all I can
say, our men said they saw them. I did not. Their word “uni” stands for
unicorn or narwhal.
De Gisbert’s experience is similar; he has only killed females with
small horns or no horns. But with the beginner’s luck, a friend of his
in his first season in the Arctic—Count Thurn—got one with an immense
horn of splendid ivory; we must have patience then. Does the reader
know what they do with these horns? No one here can give a definite
opinion. Scoresby, the celebrated English Greenland whaler and scientific
observer, suggests that it may be used for killing fish for their food.
He found a portion of skate inside one, and as they have small mouths
and no teeth, he concluded the horn must have been used to kill the
skate. His undoubted ability and his education in science in Edinburgh
University give considerable weight to his conclusion.
The little excitement of narwhal-hunting broke the stillness of rather a
monotonous evening of mist and fine rain. Pretty enough, though, for a
little sunlight penetrates the mist, giving the snow the faintest warm
flesh tint, a pleasing contrast to the green and blue underside of the
snow blocks on the floe to which we are anchored. We can study these
delicate snow tints through our cabin door, as we sit at meals, always
hoping that a whale may blow in the still water, or a bear may cross
the delicate tints of the middle distance. Our language at table is in
Spanish, French, and Norwegian. Archie and I sometimes speak in our Doric
for a change. The talk is generally about whaling or hunting of various
kinds; here and there, east, west, north, south, Norway, Alaska, Bohemia,
Arctic or Antarctic, with a certain amount of more or less scientific
discussion about natural history and the elements. De Gisbert is the hub
or centre of the party; he drops from one language to the other with the
greatest ease. We talk a good deal about the coming Spanish National
Polar Scientific Expedition which he is to lead, and to which the writer
is asked to give a “Scotch escort” to a point with an unpronounceable
name east of the Lena river; no polar sprint this, but a serious effort
to read the inmost secrets of the North Polar basin, by every means
known to modern science. An attempt to find answers to all the riddles
put before mankind, the why and wherefore of tides, ocean currents,
temperature, colouring, electrical currents and air currents—information
about subjects we know a little of, and, possibly, secrets of nature not
yet dreamed of.
Then we turned in early for us, for last night’s damp and mist and the
quiet of the sea seemed to make us somnolent, so by twelve o’clock we
were mostly to bed, except the steward, whose galley is next my bunk. He
and the first mate and cook, a female cook we brought from Trömso, were
having a quiet concert. They made a group like a picture of the Dutch
school; the steward in half light, in a white jacket, trolling out an
air to the guitar, our jolly, beamy _vivandière_ and the mate sitting
opposite, almost (or as you may say, quite) on each other’s knees in the
tiny quarters, cups, dishes, and vegetables round them.
The steward, Pedersen, was pathetic to-day about the _vivandière_, he
noted a chip in a cup at breakfast and gazed at it mournfully and sighed:
“She is so mush too sdrong dis she-cook of ours.” She is strong, and
red-cheeked, it is true, and very beamy and has a laugh and a word for
everyone. She was one of the few who were not sick coming over from
Norway, and though so broad and strong, she nipped about between the seas
like an A.B., and laughed when the cold sea-water came up to her knees. I
back Norwegian she-cooks against the field.
I have written down what a tricky musician is this steward, he keeps
a music shop in Trömso in winter, his wife and kinderen look after it
in summer, when the midnight sun appears, then he attends princes and
humble people like ourselves, who go in search of whales, or adventures;
or scientific data to this “end of the garden,” where you have sun and
winter in midsummer, fog, snow, drifting ice-floes, sun, heat, cold,
huge energy, a great deal of beauty, and astounding repose. But why this
restfulness here? we all did at least eight to ten hours last night.
Neither the writer, nor De Gisbert, nor some others of our party ever do
so much at a spell down South. And at any time in the twenty-four hours
one can be awake or go to sleep with equal facility—appetites go up
wonderfully, we simply wade through bear steak. I noticed the smallest
of our Spanish friends, who would blush to face a whole egg in Madrid on
a July morning, calmly got outside four this morning, each with its slice
of bear; he has slept a good deal since. We consider that he is a pucca
shikari and also a born actor; it is pure joy to watch his movements of
hands and face and body as he and Gisbert jestingly argue out a subject.
He told us last night how the wine tasters in South Spain can throw a
glass of wine into the air in a thin stream, and catch it all in the
glass again as it falls. You see he is showing how it is done. He threw
up a glass of pontet canet, but instead of falling back into the glass
it all went down his neck and wrist. We laughed some, then he dried
himself and went on to show us something else, every now and then popping
his head out at the cabin door to see if anything was stirring on the
ice-floes.
[Illustration]
Some of my friends plan making a great sanatorium up in these latitudes
on claims which we have pegged out in Spitzbergen, so that people who
cling to life may go there to get rid of tubercular complaints. There
is not an atom of a germ there, so people with chest complaints recover
there on the land. But you can have persistent colds on board a vessel,
I suppose because of germs belonging to it. Some vessels seem to breed
a plentiful supply. I know a vessel that carries colds for all hands on
every trip. It is, I believe, somewhat similar with scurvy.
We got a very ugly brown shark this morning, one of those deep-sea Arctic
sharks (Squalus Borealis) that do not follow ships, but live away down
fifty fathoms deep and possibly eat cod. Why he came up it is hard to
say; possibly he scented seal. We welcomed him with a harpoon as he
swam alongside, and got a running bowline round his tail, and slung him
alongside, head down, till he nearly died. He was only ten feet eight
inches, a rough brown ugly beggar, not so fierce-looking or active as
those blue sharks we killed last year, off the Azores, for eating our
sperm-whale blubber. There is a Norwegian fishery for these sharks, for
the oil contained in their livers, which is used largely in commerce
as cod liver oil; chemically it is exactly the same. These sharks are
too big to pull on board the fishing-boats, so they are only hauled
alongside, when the liver is cut out and the stomach is blown up with
air, and stitched up; so they go off on the surface; if they went deep
down their relatives would eat them and neglect the Norwegians’ baits.
The vitality of this shark’s flesh tissue is remarkable. After this one
had lost its whole machinery, its flesh still lived, and after its head
was off, both flesh and head moved. A seal I shot this morning, after
rather an interesting stalk over soft snow and blue lakes, shot clean
through the brain, showed the heart beating a long time after.
I once wrote rather a lurid and perhaps too colourful a picture of
seal-killing, in the South, and the paragraph has been made use of by
people who will not eat flesh, but wear boots, and they showed how cruel
sealers were, and wished to stop them killing seals—honest fellows,
risking their lives in Antarctic ice and Newfoundland floes to keep
their wives and children in life at home. The seal may lose its brain
with a crashing shot and then its skin and fat for olive oil, or for our
chair-seats, shoes and salads, but that it feels pain after the shock, or
that the sealers are to blame, I deny.
Our port white bear at any rate approves of the seal and shark killing;
he hates the wooden cage, but doesn’t he swallow the seal’s blubber which
we squeeze between the battens, and he simply laps up the sharks’ foie
gras in heaps. He gave me such a scare this morning; I had forgotten his
presence and was counting the toes on a seal’s hind foot for pictorial
purposes and examining the formation of the dead bears’ heads quite close
to his cage, when he let out a roar within an inch of my ear. I confess
I was startled! He is only three to four years old, still he probably
weighs well over three hundred pounds and has a voice according.
[Illustration: ARCTIC SHARK, _Squalus Borealis_
_Photo by C. A. Hamilton_]
[Illustration: A MODERN STEAM WHALER
The harpoon has just struck a Whale. The Dolphins give a sense of
proportion of the Finner Whale.
_From an Oil Painting by the Author_]
To shoot a seal this morning I used De Gisbert’s telescope-sighted mauser
rifle, a new experience, the accuracy is marvellous and up here that is
necessary, as seals are wary. Down South you pat them on the head if you
like before you shoot; they do not mind your presence in the least. I
find wading stockings are perhaps better than sea-boots for these melting
floes, as you go sometimes over the knees, in the blue water pools and in
the soft snow. Also you can turn them inside out to dry, which you can’t
do to sea-boots.
The seal was fairly large and had three or four awful gashes, of a foot
or two in length, which were put down to either a bear’s teeth or claws.
It snows to-night—it is dead calm, broad daylight, but cold and no sun
visible, floes all round and our hopes are going down; we fear we may
never see Greenland’s icy mountains and the saxifrages and poppies that
I have set my heart on seeing. So we sat and sat in the silence and
made belief that time was passing all right, and quite enjoyed a small
excitement. A squeak—I would not call it a squeal—from our “too-strong
she-cook.” She was cutting up a piece of shark for our dinner, and
suddenly noticed that it responded to her touch—sentience of matter, you
may call it. I felt it was most unpleasing for some reason—it was quite
white flesh like halibut, and lay in a small block on the bulwark rail,
and when you touched it it gave a squirm or movement of say a quarter
to half an inch. We all collected round; and at supper we ate it, some
of us did—I did not—at least only the tiniest morsel. It began to feel
rather dull, so I suggested to Gisbert we should get the foils out and we
would fence on deck in the falling snow, and Archie would photograph us
and we would send the result to “Lescrime,” and we were just buttoning
up our leather jackets for the fray, when young Don Luis Velasquez put
his glass up at our cabin door and spotted a bear on a small floe not
three hundred yards away, eating seal. We thought it was probably the
sealskin and blubber of my morning’s seal, which we had let go adrift,
owing to the sores the bear’s claws had left on it, making it dangerous
for the hands engaged to skin it. _Pusey_ finger we called the wounds in
the Antarctic which we got from cutting up seals that had been torn by a
grampus. Though colds are rare in Arctic regions, and consumption is said
not to exist, yet often sores take long to heal; cuts on the hands, for
example, often take a long time to grow fresh skin.
So our quiet Sabbath evening became all excitement, and we dived for
rifle, pistol, and lasso; the lasso because we could see the bear was
not full grown, possibly a three-year-old, and we hoped we might get it
alive. As we raced down—four oars in the whale-boat—I endeavoured to get
some of the frozen stiffness out of the rope and got it into coils in the
bow, and before I had completely done so, we were down wind and near the
bear. It stared at us and made rather a sudden and alarming approach to
the floe-edge, as if it intended to come on board. I expected to lasso
it on the ice, but it plunged into the sea and came up within ten yards.
At the first throw the loop dropped neatly round its head and sank a
little, and a hard pull and a turn round the bollard or timber-head in
the bow made the bear fast. Cheers from the men and roars from the bear,
and Gisbert’s congratulations; he was surprised at such a cast from his
pupil. (But he was not half so surprised as I was.) It was very pretty
as it stood looking at our approach in the boat, faint yellow, darker
than snow; two black tashes for eyes, one for nose and two dark marks for
ears, and the red of the seal’s flesh and skin on the snow—very simple
colours, very delicate pale emerald-green and blue on the ice. When it
came running at us it was too picturesque! We towed it alongside the
ship, gnashing its teeth and roaring, where it swam about, expressing
its disgust, in language I dare not quote, at the rope round its neck
and its inability to tow the ship away. It may be too big and strong for
us to manage on board—probably measures eight feet from nose to heel and
is three to four years old; six-month cubs are what we can handle more
easily, and even at that age they are wonderfully strong. Gisbert told me
he lassoed a cub, and was throwing an extra hitch round its forearm, when
it got alongside him, put one hand on his chest, and he went down like
grass, and he is short and very strong, and is quite fourteen stone; he
got his arm rather badly bitten. All hands set to work to make another
strong timber cage, and they had it done almost before I had made a
picture of the bear as it looked at us approaching in the boat, and long
before Ursus showed any fatigue from swimming and roaring.
Then there was wild work in the boat getting the strop round its
waist—oaths and foam, and flying ropes—donkey-engine—roars from the
bear—shouts from the men—steam, and bear’s hot breath, all mixed up. But
out it came, only as strong perhaps as two or three wild horses, and
we managed to drop it into the top of the cage, hauling its head down
with the lasso rove through the bottom bars of the cage, and banged down
battens on top, with great eight-inch nails driven in, by six or seven
strong Vikings, Gisbert leading and having all they could do. Then we
cut the lasso and he was free of the loop in a second or two. So we have
two live bears now, possibly polar cousins. The first is to port, the
second to starboard of main-hatch, and their deep voices give a strong
accompaniment to our progression. They have no qualms about eating;
they tear the timber of their cage and eat seal’s fat from our hand
alternately.
It is my early watch to-day, three A.M. to nine A.M., till welcome
coffee-time. There is nothing doing, no whale’s spout and no bears
appear. Still one never knows, so Olaus paces the foredeck with his hands
deep in his pockets and Larsen works away quietly at the bear meat,
taking off every bit of the fat, so that it will be good for our table.
I write in our little chart-room on the bridge, with a view all round of
floes of ice extending right round the horizon; we are anchored to one—in
its shelter. The wind is falling and it is very quiet; there is the lap,
lap of the small waves against the green edge of the floe, the tweet,
tweet of some ivory gulls, and the homely barn-door-fowl-like cluck,
cluck of the fulmar petrels, as they squabble and splutter under the
stern for scraps of food, not forgetting the frequent low, deep growls
of the bear we lassoed last night. His companion, our first capture, is
asleep, possibly dreaming that it is free, poor fellow! So I study my
immediate surroundings without interruption. A flight of ivory gulls
has just come and has lit beside us on the floe. They are white as this
paper and yet not quite so white as snow; they have dark beaks and feet
and black eyes, so what you see when they stand in order on the pinkish
white snow is a series of almost invisibly yellowish white upright sort
of sea-birds, which you would not notice at all, but for their dark legs
and eyes and bills.
If there happens to be one of the pale blue ice ponds just beyond them,
then you see them white against it distinctly, and the blue is reflected
under their bodies as they stand beside the pool, or when they rise and
flit over it it shines under their wings. They always stand bills up
wind, as if they had come from somewhere and expected something, but
are not particularly anxious about it. They do not seem to be excited
about the flesh we throw into the snow at this early hour; later they
all start to eat it at once. The fulmars seem to eat all the time. These
yellowish white birds with chalky-grey and brown wings are always with
us, round our stern, battling ever about scraps of seals’ blubber; there
is quite a homely farm-door sound about their cluck, cluck. Seamen say
they are reincarnated souls of men lost at sea—rather a far-fetched idea,
to my mind. Then there comes a Richardson’s skua. We need a specimen for
Edinburgh Museum, so I drop it on the floe with no compunction; it is
the sea-birds’ pirate and has a touch of the cuckoo’s plumage under its
wings. It neither reaps nor sows, simply lives by cheek. When a simple
fulmar has filled itself with what it can get, fish or fowls or little
cuttle-fish and minute shrimps, by dint of hard work and early rising,
then by comes Mr Skua of quick flight, and ingeniously attacks the fulmar
from behind and underneath, till it disgorges its breakfast and the skua
catches it up before it reaches the water!
Though our ice-scape is very remote and far afield, and subdued in sound
and in colour, there is a great deal going on. At the floe-edge there
are reddish shrimps in the clear cold water, and if you take some of the
water in a glass, you will see still more minute crustaceans, a joy of
delicate coloured armour under the microscope. And there is inorganic
life amongst the ice; a blue block has just come sweeping past very
slowly—it is like blue and white muslin. But big life, bar our three
selves on deck this morning, there seems to be none. All the rest of
our crowd are sound asleep below decks. I think they should be up and
doing, for the sky is lifting and the snow ceased and there is more and
more animation amongst our bird neighbours. The ivory gulls find it is
breakfast-time and suddenly set to work, pecking at pieces of meat they
barely glanced at an hour ago. There is a promise of movement—possibly
of our finding a way through the purple leads, through these sheets
of ice-floes to Greenland in the west. Yes, there is more colour now,
the white night is changing almost unnoticeably, and the ivory gulls
begin to call before they take another flight (they speak just like our
sea-swallows or terns, a tweet, tweet). On first seeing an ivory gull
you are not greatly impressed; it is simply an entirely white gull.
But you recall Arctic travellers mentioning it, and the little pause
they make after its name; and when you see them yourself you realise
what that means ... that little creamy white body that reflects the
grey of the sea under its wing, or the blue in the pool on ice-floes,
its inconsequent floating white flight is the very soul of the Arctic.
As closely associated with the ice-edge there is another white bird
in the Antarctic, the snowy petrel, a delicate white spirit bird, a
never-to-be-forgotten touch of white delicacy in the almost awful beauty
of the Antarctic floe-edge, a small bird, white and soft as a snow-flake,
flitting amongst white and Doric ruins on the edge of a lonely sea. Here
the white counterpart is a larger, a more material creature on the edge
of a shallower, less impressive ice-pack, but the kinship is there.
How I wish it was breakfast-time! two more hours before our “much too
strong she-cook” will give us _frokost_.
At this point in these meditations we came across another bear; we had
let go our floe and were heading north-west, the day clearing (bump! that
was ice), when we spotted him on a small floe, across which he sped at a
good speed. At first we thought it was small enough to take with lasso
and keep alive, so we chased it, but it proved on close acquaintance to
be an old she-bear, and far too big and strong to rope, so we dispatched
it with my 38 Colt pistol with one shot in the centre of its white head
at ten yards, which killed it stone dead, much to the astonishment of
crew, who had no idea of what a pistol can do. Not an hour later, still
before the longed-for breakfast, we spotted a big bear on a floe to
windward, just five minutes after our watch was up, so it came in the
watch of Don Luis Velasquez, who came on at nine o’clock.
It was fascinating, watching the great beast with the glass as it
sauntered to and fro on the floe, a seal lay on the floe not far out of
the line from windward, and we fondly hoped to see the bear stalk it, but
before it quite crossed the line of scent, and when not a hundred yards
from the seal, he evidently thought he would like forty winks, so he
shovelled himself a lair in the snow and turned in, but it was not quite
to his liking, so he got up and looked towards us, and either did not see
our rigging or did not mind it and lay down again, so that we only saw
his great yellowish back above a snow ridge. So Gisbert and Don Luis had
time for a tiny whisky-and-soda, but no breakfast, and set out with a
large camp-following, and we others went on with coffee and bear-steak,
and at our leisure went to the bridge and watched their long walk over
snow ridges and wreaths and blue-water pools. The ice-bear looked up
when they were about two hundred yards distant and began to come towards
them, then thought there were too many, and retired. He was pretty well
peppered by both rifles before he gave in, fifteen to twenty-five shots
we heard—the account varies, but he was hit several times. When you are
by yourself, or with only another man, the bear will face you and come
to the attack, so you get a better chance than when it is inclined to
retire, as it did in this case. This was another male of large size. I
made a jotting of him before he yawned and lay down to sleep, he probably
had breakfasted—at least he did not notice the seal distant from him
about twenty yards.
There is much bumping to-day—floes are heavy and close and we have to
charge some which makes the splinters fly from our sheathing of hard
wood. It seems more hopeless than ever to reach the North Greenland
coast. The floes are so large and numerous, we fear that even did we do
so, a little easterly wind might hem us in on the coast against land
ice, where we might have to stay indefinitely. Still, two days may alter
the aspect of ice entirely: Svendsen details all this to us with the
stump of a pencil on the white wood of our new captive’s cage to which
he puts his black nose and ivory teeth and crushes splinters, now and
then using his claws. He must know us all now, but they naturally are not
very friendly yet and the deep, musical vibration of their growls coming
right aft from the waist, sound sometimes a little like curses “not loud
but deep.” We can stand that, but when the note changes to something like
“For the Lord’s sake let me out,” to freedom and the wide floe, we have
to harden our hearts and think of little children at home.
At lunch we talk bear and other sport and Arctic cachés. The last a
subject that is fascinating. The first I ever heard of was from one of
Leigh Smith’s men of the Eira. We were in the tropics, he was steering
when he spoke of it, with longing. He had wintered with Leigh Smith in
Franz Josef Land before that part became popular, and as he steered he
told me how, before leaving for their forty days’ voyage in an open boat
to Norway (they had lost their ship in an ice squeeze), they buried
the spare rifles, musical instruments, and champagne. How one’s teeth
watered as we heard of these “beakers, cooled a long age in the deep
delved” snow, and little did my companion Bruce or I ever think we would
be near that caché; but five years later Bruce was up there, and found
the rifles, musical-boxes and champagne bottles were there, just as
described, but alas the bottles were burst! Gisbert tells me he also saw
the same caché ten years later, and he knows of a finer one still, still
untouched by the A⸺ Z⸺ expedition. It is also in Franz Josef Land—a cave
in rock, blasted out, and covered with a timber door so thick that not
all the polar bears in the Arctic, good carpenters as they are, could
open it. That is the Duke d’Abruzzi’s caché, and there are others; one,
I think, on Shannon Island, which we aim at getting to and which we will
add to, if not in need of provisions, and draw on if we are in distress.
The idea is to add to such a store if you can, for the benefit of anyone
really in need. It is a wicked thing, however, to draw on a caché,
excepting in case of being in want of the necessaries for existence. I
have had one pilfered in the barrens of Newfoundland of tea and sugar,
raisins, chocolate and such luxuries, the necessaries, flour and hard
tack, being left untouched. Were the man found who did this, his life
would be made a burden to him through the breadth of Newfoundland.
But to come back to our ice-bears. I have lately, and at other times,
heard many stories about them, and the more I see of them the more do
I believe about their strength, and timidity, their fierce courage,
and docility. One bear does one thing, the next the opposite. One dies
with two or three bullets whilst running away, the next eats them up,
advancing to the attack.
Gisbert’s closest contact, bar the occasion before mentioned with the
young bear, was quite exciting and unexpected. He left the ship one day
to verify the height of a mountain in Franz Josef Land, which he had
previously calculated from sea—went up a steep ice-fall with ski in
tow and got to near the top, when a fierce gale, with snow, started.
Following the bear’s plan, he looked for a hole to slip into, found such
a shelter, and crawled in. By the faint blue light coming through the ice
roof and sides of the cave he discovered a great bear, with its black
nose resting on its folded paws and its dark eyes looking at him with a
kindly expression. He did not trust the expression, but, keeping his eyes
steadily on the bear’s, he gently pulled his rifle forward, and without
lifting it, with his thumb pushed back the safety bolt, and slowly
brought forward the muzzle to the bear’s ear and pulled, and so Gisbert
lived to tell the tale. It sounds a moderately tall story, but after many
others I have heard, and even from what I have seen lately, it does not
sound so wonderful as it may to one who has not been at “this end of the
garden.” When the gale blew over, some of the crew came up to his signal,
and three all told, slid down the slope on the white bear’s body, at the
foot it was, of course, deprived of its skin; when you think of it, the
whole proceeding seems rather hard on the bear.
[Illustration: FULMAR PETRELS
_Photo by C. A. Hamilton_]
[Illustration: “STARBOARD” BEING HOISTED ON BOARD BY STEAM WINCH]
Another bear yarn I heard from my friend Henriksen, whom I have written
about in previous chapters on our whaler the St Ebba. His father used
to go north, and once took a farm hand from his home in the island
of Nottero. Hansen was no sailor, and was a little weak-minded, but
enormously strong physically. In the fo’c’sle, the crew made him their
butt, till one morning he rose in his simple wrath and threw the crew
out separately up the scuttle on to the deck when they should have been
at dinner, and kept them out till they pleaded for mercy. Shortly after
he became their hero, for one day whilst they were all away on the ice
sealing they were signalled to, to return to the ship, for the ice was
breaking up, and all hands made a long run round an opening lane to
get aboard, but big Hansen hooked a piece of floating ice and started
navigating himself across, paddling with his ice pick, and he was not
in the least put out when he observed a big bear awaiting his landing.
But the bear seemed impatient and shoved off to meet him half-way, and
Hansen quietly waited and dealt it a mighty blow with his pick into the
brain as it came alongside, and killed it, then towed it along with him,
skinned it, and came to the ship with its head and skin over his head and
shoulders, very bloody but very pleased.
[Illustration]
Last night we were fog-stayed, we could not get ahead a thin fog with
the midnight sun shining through. We had many small things to occupy
ourselves with, but every five minutes some of us were out at the cabin
door to look at the view. Only a plain of snow fading in violet ridges
into the mist, with very few features, but the delicacy of the colour
you hardly notice at first, day after day grows on you, and if you try
to paint it, it grows more quickly, and you realise the difficulty of
trying to reproduce Nature’s highest quiet notes. It was our watch till
three—that is, Archie’s and mine—but the others stayed up, though there
was little chance of seeing a bear. So inside the cabin we piled coal on
to the small stove and blew smokes, and it was warm, distinctly cosy,
and the guitar thrummed, and several of us hummed and wrote and smoked,
and then went out into the cold, frosty air and looked at the colour,
the fantasy of ice form and colour and the icicles hanging from scanty
rigging, and came back to the cabin and vainly tried to find words to
express appreciation of the beauty of the white scenery.
So we stayed up till the end of our watch, then Archie and I turned in,
very sleepy, and our Spanish friends stood their watch as well, till
nine. They never seem to turn a hair for want of sleep.
CHAPTER XXVII
[Illustration]
On the 15th of July we started looking for whale or bear in the mist
again, but with never a sign of either. So painting was the order of the
day for the writer, such a chance, no letters, no newspapers, nothing to
take one’s mind off looking at the effects of this end of the garden.
Hours flew, _middag mad_ of bear passed, painting still going, only
interrupted by expeditions forward, where our men were packing the bear
and seal skins in salt in barrels. Later we went ashore—_i.e._ on to
the blue floe—blue ice covered with white crystals, you might call it
snow. Three of our party and the dog, a young Gordon setter, wild with
joy at freedom of movement, they go off a mile or so over hard, smooth
surface, which grows more and more faint in the sunny haze and distance.
The surface on this particular floe was smooth and hard and easy to walk
on. In most places you see the light coming up as through a carpet of
white crystals on pale blue glass beneath your feet. Where there is a
little water it is quite blue, and where it is dry you shovel your feet
through loose white crystals on the top of the blue. So this is rather
different from Antarctic floes, which, as far as I can remember, were
covered with fresh snow, so the walking was generally more difficult than
here. Before I had seen northern floes my Dundee whaler companions used
to tell me how they often played football matches on the northern ice,
and I wondered!—now I understand. I also believe now what I doubted, that
whilst doing so one misty day, Dundee sealers against Newfoundlanders,
referee, silver whistle and all in great style, a bear intervened and
took their walrus bladder football; what a sweet picture in greys that
would make, the sailor-men bolting for the ship, their dark clothes look
so delicate and ethereal on the floe in this fine mist, and to see a
bear’s faint yellow coat in contrast!
Our party came back towing a drift pine stem which we had spotted far off
on the ice from the mast-head. Quite an important find in the wide world
of ice. They towed it to the ship with a lasso.
Gisbert and the writer did quite a lot of lasso practice, partly at a
stick set in ice, partly at our dog, as it ran to fetch a glove—great
sport for us, but the dog soon showed a desire to climb on board by
the rope ladder. As we cut off the ice-worn root with our ice axe we
discussed the possible journeyings of the pine stem; from its roots we
knew it had grown on rocky ground, from the rings, its slow growth and
age, and consequently of the climate it had survived in; from the known
currents and drifts we calculated it came from far-away eastwards, say
from the Lena river in Siberia. When tired of lassoing, De Gisbert showed
me something about splitting logs. I am not a great expert with an axe,
and he is rather, he cut his sea-boot soon almost through the leather
of the inside of the instep without cutting his foot. To show him what
I could do, with a mighty welt I split a log, and the axe glanced and
cut my instep through the sea-boot and two pairs of stockings. A chopped
tree and a chopped foot may not appear to have wide or deep interest
to anyone but the owner of the foot, and may not seem worthy of record
in such Arctic notes as these. But let us pause and consider, if there
is not something wonderful and almost inexplicable in this apparently
trifling incident. Here you have East meeting East, North meeting North!
A “gentleman of Scotland born” proceeds by a devious route from Edinburgh
via Hull to an ice-floe in the North Polar basin. And here, from some
unknown river in far Siberia, possibly the Lena, by the great polar
current, after possibly years of voyaging, comes this lonely barkless
pine stem, and they meet. And the gentleman chops the extremity of the
tree with the ship’s axe and his own extremity at the same time—namely
his left instep, as before mentioned. Does not this incident, though
trifling in itself, recall the divine words of the Immortal William:
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we
will.” Perhaps, without any claim to originality, we may, under the
circumstances, be allowed to conclude, from the above combination of
circumstances, that the world is small.
So the snow had other red than the bear’s. Gisbert got his “first aid”
out within a second of the time I had got my own, he is very quick: but
the captain was first with his, and Archie administered a small tot of
medicine from three bens and three glens which he had brought in a little
flask all the way from Arthur Lodge, Edinburgh. It will be a sell if I
cannot go on one foot after the next bear or whale.
About these North Polar basin currents we have many interesting talks,
for De Gisbert has studied them for many years. He has asked me to
accompany the Spanish expedition in the vessel which will accompany his
Spanish Government ship as far as Cape Tsdieljulskin. This possibly
because as an artist he is so well content with trying to depict effects
of his “end of the garden,” most possibly because his, Gisbert’s, wife
and child are to go so far, and as she is a Campbell-Gibson she naturally
dotes on the bagpipes.
At night the mist cleared up a little and we made some miles to west,
pushing through floes. When we came to a blue fresh-water pool on one, we
again set to work and bailed our tanks full of fresh water.
Then on again, charging the floes with many a bump, which is rather
alarming to those of our party who are not salted to such shocks. We hope
the floes won’t close up behind us altogether, but when you enter the
pack, as the whalers say, “there’s no looking over the shoulder,” and one
must take risks in all occupations.
* * * * *
To-day we had a splendid bear chase, none the worse because our prey
escaped. The morning was exquisite, the mist rose and lay in lavender
wisps across the distance of the floes, and the sun shone and the sea
became a cheery glittering dark blue, and you could hardly keep your
eyes open when you came out of the cabin for the blaze of light. What
a change, everything sharp and clear, compared to the veiled misty ice
effects of last week!
[Illustration]
We were at breakfast and would have liked time for a pipe before the news
came: “An ice-bear!” and over the bows on to the floe by the rope ladder
five of us scrambled. The writer was armed with a heavy double 475, and
cartridges the size of asparagus, said to be unnecessarily heavy, but
Hamilton’s last monster bear took five of his 355 magnum, all in pretty
good places. It seems to me that a really big bear would be more surely
killed by a heavy 475 or 500.[16] Bad luck it was to have to travel with
a cut foot, and doubly bad at the very start to make a false step and go
head first into a hole in the floe, and to get wet through, with waders
full at the start. However, Archie cleverly caught the rifle and gave me
a hand out, and I got rid of some of the water in the way all anglers
are familiar with—that is, lying on your back and holding up your feet,
a few “tut tuts,” and we proceeded over hard snow, when we could get it,
wading blue shallows from time to time. Two of our seamen went flanking
about a mile out on to the floe and we beat up half-a-mile from sea-edge,
aiming at the place where we had seen the bears from the crow’s nest,
a female with two cubs. The chill of the early start, cold water and
the soreness of the foot wore off as we slowly covered mile after mile;
sometimes walking was merely a struggle, soft snow covering blocks of ice
with horrid pitfalls, other times over crisp, glittering, sunlit beds of
icicles set in blue, level as a mat, tumbling into glittering fragments
as we crunched across. But our trail was all in vain; from blocks and
hummocks we spied the plains and could not find our bears. They had made
a wide circuit, gone down wind, and got ours, I expect, and had gone
clean away, and as the floe was, say, twenty miles across and all over
hummocks, they were soon lost to sight, even from the mast-head.
Coming back at leisure we had more time to enjoy the warm sun and the
colouring. There were three distinct blues. Behind our little white ship
at the floe-edge the sea glittered deep blue, like Oxford blue; on the
floe between us and the ship there was spread a wide pond of shallow
water, lighter than Cambridge blue, and the pigeon-grey sky showed
patches of light peacock-blue.
A change of clothes, a redressed foot by Captain Svendsen—one of the
lightest handed surgeons I have met—and some bear-steak and we started
steaming round the floe, pretty sure of getting our glasses on to the
bears before many hours were past. For hours we watched with glasses
and telescope from the bridge and crow’s nest the passing white and
grey plains and snowy fantastic rock scenes till we almost slept with
the continual concentration of the eye on the moving white scene. But
alas, at five P.M., the mist came down again, so again we put our ship’s
nose against the ice-floe and we pray now that the mist may lift. The
skipper and Gisbert took advantage of this pause to make an Artificial
horizon with tar in a plate, and tried to find our position by same with
sun on the tar surface. But the tar congealed off the level, and after
calculations in decimals, yards in length, we find our position is two
hundred miles inside the north-east coast of Greenland!
Before midnight, with the sun still high above the horizon, the mist
lifted and again we go plodding round another huge floe. We cannot get
west yet, enormous floes bar our way, there is a narrow passage, say two
hundred yards wide, to west between two counties of ice, but it is too
narrow for us to venture through. Should the floes close we would be
imprisoned before we had time to retreat.
It is almost incredible, there is a feeling of movement to-day, the 17th
July, quite a perceptible sense of pitch and roll. You notice it even
without looking. The living movement of the sea—for ten days we have been
“in the ice,” with smooth water. How welcome is this open water. A clear
road lies before us to Greenland—why should the ice this year lie across
our track in such fields, making us take fifteen days for a distance we
expected to cover in four? Perhaps it was as well we met it; though there
were no whales there were at least bears, so we have their valuable skins
and seal blubber, and our two live bears to make up our cargo. They bring
rather an unpleasing aroma at times into the pure Arctic air. Their cages
are in parts becoming more and more thick, with stumps of the two-inch
battens, which they have eaten their way through. We begin to wonder
how to get one of them across from Trömso to Edinburgh, for it would be
awkward if they eat their way through on a passenger steamer. _Mem_: Keep
on practising lasso and throwing hitches and pistol practice.
At three this morning, twenty minutes to three to be exact, and in Don
José’s watch, we spotted a bear on the great floe we were hanging about
yesterday; a bear and two cubs, probably the bear of yesterday, and he
and Gisbert went off armed cap-à-pie, and the writer could not but be
amused at the old lady’s cleverness, though it was at the expense of our
companions. It was a mile away, but with a fine glass every movement
could be followed, and with no glass to aid its sight it could apparently
follow our movements. It stood up its full height, craned its neck to one
side or the other, then got on all-fours and spoke to its cubs, and they
set off up wind, then it turned round, took another spy at our friends,
who soon looked like little black dots amongst the waste of floe, ice
hummocks and pinnacles, little lakes and shallow valleys, and as they
pursued their way steadily to where the bears had been seen, it made a
wide sweep to their left and got away farther even than we could follow
it from the mast. I made a jotting from the telescope as per over page,
which gives an idea of the kind of going.
[Illustration: A POLAR BEAR]
I would know that long cunning female again, I believe, were I to meet
her, from the odd movements, from her “out-stretched neck and ever
watchful eye.” The cubs should be grateful for such a mother; without her
skill in character-reading, they would both be in little cages on board
here! Does it not make the reader comfortable to know that they are at
liberty, free to enjoy seal-killing and fat galore, and pure snow and air
and the Arctic world to roam in? When they would not follow fast enough
Mother Bear turned and spoke angrily, then finally went and spanked them.
A bear and a monkey are the only animals, excepting man, who spank their
young. So up here you see little domestic touches in bear life, which,
so far, you cannot get in a zoo. It is worth coming north to see such a
matron tending her young, to see the jolly round yellow cubs full of fun,
gambolling over the fine old mother, playing with her ears and head and
teeth that at half-a-bite could take a man’s head off like asparagus.
Here is a picture of such a group. “Rest after Play,” it should perhaps
be called. “True till Death” might be too harrowing.
[Illustration]
Sometimes fatal accidents occur in bear-hunting. I have heard of several,
but they are small in number compared to the number of bears shot. A
few years ago Gisbert witnessed one. Two Norwegian sealers came on an
ice-floe after two bears somewhere east of Spitzbergen, and they killed
one and set to work skinning it. The second bear was holding towards
Gisbert’s vessel, so one of the Norwegians hurried off to annex it by
himself, which is not a very safe thing to do. He pursued it some time
and wounded it, and the bear went for him, and his rifle jammed, and
when De Gisbert’s party came up a little while afterwards the man was in
ribbons.
Now I hope we may stop writing about bears and soon come in touch with
our older friends, the whales, of one kind or another. We are prepared
for Balean whales, or Nord Cappers, “the old kind,” I call them. But for
the big stronger Finners we are not prepared. I have written about these
in a previous chapter—about the special tackle required to master their
enormous strength. “Modern whales,” I call them, or Finners, the largest
animal that exists in this world, or ever has existed, up to one hundred
and twenty feet; longer than the prehistoric Diplodocus. The Balean whale
or Mysticetus that used to be fished here, and which has grown so scarce,
though it is generally depicted destroying boats, is a fat, leisurely
“fish” compared to these bigger and more active Finners, but alas, he is
now not only scarce but is also very shy and wary.
Forty-five miles we plod along, with northerly strong wind, and pass
two of what they call icebergs here—“ice chips” down South—a grey sky
ribbed like sea-sand overhead, with the light off snow land on the sky; a
yellowish cold glare to the westward; that is Greenland, and we at last
pull up against the land-floe. It is just the same as the big sea-floes
which we have been amongst, still it is against the land! Twenty-five
miles of it we guess; when the haze over it lifts we shall see
Greenland’s icy mountains. The days of heat and basking in the blooming
saxifrage and yellow poppies seem still far away. But patience—if you
wait for ever so long you sometimes get your heart’s desire.
The strong wind from north and west is cutting off bits of this land-floe
of all sizes, from a yard wide to a mile or two, and so taking them down
to cool our north temperate zone. I wish the process had begun sooner,
so that we now might be nearer land in shallow soundings looking for
walrus. I sincerely desire to see them, as I think my heavy ·475 would
have the chance of its life as against the smaller bore rifles we have
with us. You have to shoot them, then harpoon them before they sink;
when one is harpooned the others rally round and there is wild work.
Whales, musk oxen and walrus, coupled with a bee humming in the Greenland
meadows, is my desire. It is said there are mosquitoes, but for none of
the breed have I any desire, either little or big, from Bassein Creek or
Seringapatam. They do say, however, that the Greenland specimen does not
have any fever on its proboscis.
* * * * *
Whales at last in our night watch! I must write my notes about them
before I turn in. Some people say whaling is not sport. I differ from
them. It is the best sport I know. We had bear and whale in the same
basket to-night, first a cast for a whale which went off, and then
immediately after a shot at a bear which we got, and then another whale,
which we got also, both within two hours. Certainly though it was only a
narwhal the whale was the best sport.
We lie in a small bay the length of our small vessel, which is one
hundred and ten feet in length, and to our left hand there is a bigger
bay in the floe, about two hundred yards wide, and narwhals have appeared
in it. So we dropped our whale-boat with the harpoon-gun loaded and put
the line in order. This, of course, should have been all in order and
ready, so time was lost. Then we tumbled on board by the port chains and
rowed down to where the whales had last appeared; and waited for them to
come up again.
It blew a little with cold, fine snow. As we waited someone on board
shouted “A bear!” and we cast our eyes down wind to the ice-floe and got
a glimpse of pale primrose passing amongst hummocks; and very quickly
we got the harpoon out of the gun and backed down as fast as possible,
getting into a bit of a sea, and as we approached the floe I got two
475 shells into the rifle. As we came within fifty yards up came Bruin,
making towards us. It was very difficult to hold straight, for the sea
was breaking in foam and the boat was tossed about amongst chunks of
ice, so I held on and on, wishing to make sure—up and down we went, and
round went the muzzle of the rifle, but still the bear came on, as if he
wanted to board us. So lest he should change his mind and bolt, I let
loose at about eight yards and tried to hit the middle of its chest, but
I was a trifle off and hit the point of his starboard shoulder—with such
a heavy rifle and big ball and cartridge we would have expected to knock
him over, but it only turned it! The second barrel hit him a little high
and back of the shoulder, and he tumbled out of sight over a hummock. So
we made wild jumps on to broken ice in the foam and scrambled on to the
floe and over very rugged hummocks for a few yards, and put in a third
shot, which seemed to finish it, and Svendsen and two men hurried on to
get the body, for the ice was closing round us, but they found it still
breathing, so Gisbert and I, who were keeping the boat off the floe-edge,
backed in again, and with difficulty handed the rifle to Svendsen, who
put in another bullet, and with a rope the three dragged it over the snow
towards the boat. It was a mighty drag even for the distance of a hundred
yards. Then we backed in again through the surf at ice-edge and Svendsen
and the men struggled into the boat with the line, and we hurriedly
pulled and shoved off, for some heavy ice was closing round us, and got
out just in time, with the bear floating in tow. In the rough water clear
of ice, we managed, with another struggle and without upsetting, to pull
the bear on board and rowed back to the ship, greatly rejoicing! Just
as we got it heaved on board by the steam-winch, much to my relief, I
spotted the narwhals again and off we set, three pairs of oars rowing
hard, and as quickly as possible, the harpoon again in place.
I have been at the killing of much bigger whales, but this spotted
black-and-white fellow with the horn in his nose, plus the bear, was to
my mind as interesting a little hunt as any. Sometimes a rabbit stalk
is of more interest than that of a deer! A fine black-and-white-spotted
fellow showed with a great ivory unicorn, but out of shot. Then another,
more brown in colour, appeared, and Svendsen let drive. The harpoon shot
was excellent and very quick, away went the line, I do not know for how
many fathoms—we passed it aft and all hauled in and let out and hauled in
again, finally we came alongside the whale, with its circle of splashing
and foam, and it raised its tail, and we put in a big bullet from the
475, which went from its stem to its bow, and it collapsed instantly. It
was a surprisingly killing shot, for one bullet to kill the whale, and
yet the bear took three to stop it. We hove our line in short, and set
to work to tow the whale alongside and began to flense it—that is, to
strip the blubber off the carcass—and were all very pleased, and were
just drawing the harpoon from the gun, which we had reloaded, when again
whales appeared in our little ice bay. So we again threw our oilskins
into the boat and went off again. In our bay we waited twenty minutes
by the watch, and up one came again, a better one than our first was
leading: it was white, with black spots. Our first was brown, with white
markings. We very nearly got the harpoon into it, but it only showed for
a second or two each rise and it escaped. So more waiting in wet cold
wind, with a lot of bears’ blood, and snow and water under foot: but
this journey we had each a tot of aqua vite. So we waited and waited
again, just as you wait for a rising trout—only with a little more
subdued excitement and perhaps more than usual wet and cold: and again
the handsome beasts appeared, and we dashed after them, three pairs of
oars, but they went off under the floe and we waited again till endurance
ceased, and, very wet, and cold, and shivering, we got aboard for supper
at four in the morning. Three o’clock yesterday morning till four o’clock
this morning makes a longish day of experience. I would have given two
bears to have got the biggest narwhal with the splendid horn. Perhaps if
we had harpooned one of the baby whales of the family we might have got
the homed male, for narwhals, like sperm whales, stand by each other. Or
we might have had his great ivory tusk through our boat, as has happened
before. They have driven their spear through many inches of an oaken
keel. You can see such a keel in Bergen Museum.
[Illustration]
We cut up the narwhal and found it full of small cuttle-fish and
shrimps—the bear was full of lead. These great 475 cordite seemed to
have less effect than the higher velocity 250 mannlicher. I must try
them again, but I begin to be a convert to the smaller bores and high
velocity.
Now it is Archie’s turn for another bear, so I can retire to paint and
bring up my game-book with four bears and a whale to enter—two bears with
rifle, one with lasso, and one with pistol, and possibly the whale which
was partly killed by harpoon, partly by rifle.
CHAPTER XXVIII
If I had not been writing these notes I would have harpooned a whale, I
believe, for a few minutes after getting on board the narwhals appeared
again, and by the time we were afloat and at the place they had appeared
at, we were too late. So, to be out of temptation and the cold, I turned
in at six A.M., after a long day of the unexpected. First, open sea! then
the narwhals’ appearance, then the bears, and narwhals again. Quite good
hunting if it were not for the persistent mist that worries all of us
more or less and prevents our getting ahead.
[Illustration]
I hear this morning that after I had turned in, the mate had a shot with
the harpoon at a narwhal and missed. I am sure our gun shoots short,
possibly the powder is faulty. I have known a man miss fifty shots
in succession in the Japanese seas, owing to this cause. He got more
suitable powder, and he killed sixty-nine whales without a miss. This is
the old style of gun and harpoon which we have on the Fonix. A is wire
strop or grummet running in slot in harpoon shaft. B is the “forego,”
a length of extra fine and strong line attached to harpoon. C shows
the line going into the bottom of the boat. D, crutch turning in; E, a
bollard or timber-head.
On the Balæna, a Dundee and Greenland whaler I was on for a long cruise,
we coiled down eighteen hundred yards of two-inch rope in each boat,
extremely carefully coiled down in three divisions, one in the bows, one
amidships, and another at the stern. After using the modern heavy Finner
tackle from a small steamer these old lines seem to be very light tackle
in contrast. Last year we coiled down five-inch ropes (_i.e._ five in
circumference) three hundred and sixty fathoms to port, three hundred
and sixty to starboard, each line filling a bulkhead of, say, eight feet
by eight, and each line weighing about a ton, and the harpoons weighed
nearly two hundredweights. To play a fish of, say, ninety tons that can
snap such a cable or tow your hundred-foot steamer at eight to fifteen
knots up wind, with the two-hundred-horse-power engine doing eight
knots astern, is some sport. But the thin lines we have here are quite
adequate for this Balean whale of the Arctic, for the Right whale as a
rule does not sprint and it floats when it is dead, and usually, on being
harpooned, dives deep and stays down till it exhausts itself from want
of air, and so the lancing is easy. The rorquals go off at great speed
nearer the surface.
Does the reader know about the great Svend Foyn, who invented the harpoon
for the great finners of modern whaling? He was a man of remarkable
determination and strength of character. Many yarns have I heard about
him.
This is one of them:
To show how his new harpoon worked, he took his wife on a trial
trip—great man as he was, he made mistakes, and had his limitations. He
soon made fast to a great finner with his new harpoon and line, and was
he not a proud man? But the harpoon struck the whale too far aft and did
not disable it. It took out the whole line and with a rush took their
little steamer in tow at a terrible speed out of the fiord for twelve
hours at fifteen knots against a gale, and they were steaming seven knots
astern with a sail up to help to stop the speed.
“Let go, let go,” prayed the wife, “I am seek, I am afraid.” “No, no,”
said Foyn, “I vill never let go. I vill show you veech is de strongest my
vill or de vill of de beasts,” and he held on and finally got the whale
lanced. But it was an awful fight. When they towed the whale ashore in
triumph his wife was nearly dead, and she said: “Now you have shown me
your vill ees stronger den de beasts’—now I vill leave you,” and she did.
And through his life his second wife was his right hand.
[Illustration: THE END OF THE TRAIL]
What a huge industry has sprung from that new harpoon first planned by Mr
Welsh in Dundee, but developed in Tönsberg by Svend Foyn, working with
Henriksen the engineer, that wonderful patriarch of Tönsberg. Gruff old
Svend Foyn died in 1895, a millionaire; but he preserved great simplicity
of life and dined off one tin plate, and despised luxuries; and only one
ailment did he ever suffer from, that was toothache; so if anyone had
toothache they got his sympathy, no other complaint got any. Only one man
in Norway could get to windward of him, and that was Yensen, his steward.
Once Foyn came on board at night and Yensen was lying on the cabin floor
very drunk, but with just enough sense left to clap his hand to his
cheek, and when Foyn roared out: “Halloo, what the hell’s the matter
with you?” he groaned: “Toothache, Captain, terrible toothache.” “Ho,
ho,” said Foyn, “I’ll soon put that right,” and he went to his cabin and
poured out a sou’-wester of whisky, which he ordered Yensen to swallow
neat, of course; he did so, and made a face, and had some difficulty in
getting forward. Foyn was as pleased as could be next morning, when he
visited Yensen and found he had only a headache. The steward was very
diplomatic and tactful. Once, with his Captain, he went up a high hill
somewhere about the Nord Cap to look out for whales in the offing and
there came such a clap of wind that it blew the great Foyn down and hurt
his person and his dignity. But on looking round he found Yensen slowly
getting to his feet, muttering: “That was a terrible blast, Captain.”
Yensen had really not felt it at all, so he saved Foyn’s feelings.
His new industry has been the making of Southern Norway and half of
Tönsberg. But the Tönsberg people remember him with mixed feelings.
They would not subscribe capital to their townsman’s new venture; not
only that, but they insisted on his doing all his whale factory work
outside the town. “All right,” he said, “if you won’t take a share in
the business I will give you the ‘smell,’” and he built his works to
windward and made many hundreds per cent. profit for years, and the
Tönsberg people only got the smell. Now, however, there are very few men
in Southern Norway who do not have shares in one modern whaling company
or another, and the island of Nottero, for example, in the south of
Norway, is dotted with pretty homesteads, owned by successful whaling
owners, captains and mates. There they call whaling an Industry. Here,
even though we tell of eighty per cent. dividends running for years, it
is called a Speculation.
[Illustration]
But to come back to our whales. Whilst enjoying the sun through the mist
and the intense stillness we heard a deep growl or groan, something like
a bear or a cow, a deep note which seemed to come from the floe across
the little bay I have mentioned. Peering into the sunlight track, on the
water we noticed forms moving and more groans came from these—Narwhals
they are!—and away we go, get the gun uncovered and two ·475 shells in
the breech of the big rifle, and just as we came to the place where
they were, there they are no more, only an oily swirl on the faint
ripples. So we lie on our oars and by-and-by they appear again down the
ice-edge—seven or eight. I practise laying the gun and harpoon on to them
and fondly hope I may get within range. Then comes the chief of the clan,
a glorious fellow; how I do desire to own the great horn which I see for
a moment. Next time he comes up. I feel sure I shall let go, and have the
gun ready, feet spread out and the line all clear. But they are gone! off
under the ice, and again we lie idly waiting. Then Archie whistles from
the ship and signals that he has seen them out seawards and away we go,
and as usual arrive at firing distance just as they “tail up” for their
long dive.
[Illustration: Sperm breaching]
[Illustration: Small Finner leaping]
Some whales “tail up” before a long dive; some more, some less; some
finners only do this A dive after showing several times and blasting
B. But these narwhals show their dumpy feeble tail, C, as also does
the sperm D, before the long dive. The rorquals’ tails are magnificent
appendages, and it is often thrown clear of the sea when such a whale
is “fast” or harpooned E. The sperm can make a big swipe with his tail;
it is apparently more elastic in the spine than the finner. To see a
sperm breaching is a fine sight; he runs fast along the surface, every
second leaping clear out, or at least going, as it were, on his tail,
and thumps down with a crash of spray. Though I have seen thousands of
Finners I have only seldom seen them leaping clear of the water, but
here is a jotting of one that rose several times within thirty yards of
us—close enough! leap after leap, its tail ten feet clear of the sea,
head first, straight up into the air and down again head first; what
stupendous strength and what delicate colour, its underside white as kid,
ribbed like corduroy, its back grey, glittering in the sun (see page 235).
* * * * *
We left our sheltered ice bay this morning, 19th July, because the mist
lifted and the sky hung in level lilac bands above the ice-floes, and we
got a few hours’ further steaming through the ice towards the coast. And
I am rather sorry. For we had got to know the biggest ice features of
that bay, and the fishing and shooting were worth quite a good rent—two
bears, one narwhal and lots of hunting for other bears in two days. I
would have stayed a week more there myself and so would Gisbert, as we
are both very keen about the narwhals, but the others were not, and
thought there wasn’t much chance of getting within shot.
I must say the narwhals were provoking, rising trout in a chalk stream
are not more wary, still there was always a chance. I’d have given a good
deal to land one of these splendid ivory horns. Time after time we got
almost within harpooning distance and the group of long spotted black and
white backs would signal to each other and quietly disappear and sink.
We stalked or rowed as quietly as possible to one lot, and I had half
a chance and let drive but the harpoon struck water just a foot short
of the nearest and biggest. What a flourish of tails and spray there
was as they plunged and left great quiet swirls in the rippling water;
our boat and hearts bobbing but no whale fast to a straining line. You
salmon-fishers don’t know the saltness of the tears for a missed or lost
whale.
Svendsen, who has only done bottle-nose harpooning, was put on for next
chance and did exactly as I had done, only he got his hand cut through
the butt of the harpoon-gun being a bit loose. Truth is, our gear, guns
and line on the Fonix are rotten. He told me a curious thing that
happened with him a year or two ago; whilst bottle-nosing his mate had
made miss after miss at whales with the harpoon, and coming alongside he
said: “_By G⸺_, if I can’t hit a whale I’ll hit a gull” (fulmar petrels
were, as usual, round the vessel), so he blew at one and the harpoon cut
it in two! But a bottle-nose is an easier mark, to my mind, than the
narwhal. Narwhals are apt to show so little above water—only about four
to ten inches, and that only for a second as a rule.
Almost at every watch we heard their groanings and went after them.
Sometimes we thought we heard the sound coming from under the water. I am
sure we did.
Our biggest disappointment came at night—two in the morning rather. A
bear was spotted—a bear on the far side of our loch, and Gisbert went off
with some men in the whale-boat and we watched in our night clothes (much
the same as day clothes in the Arctic) and saw the captain do a record
sprint over the floe to turn the bear towards the gun, but the bear that
at first seemed inclined to come and pass the time of day changed his
mind and went ambling away, giving us a stern view till only its black
nose and mouth were visible, as it looked round occasionally, and then
it vanished in the lilac distance amongst the snow hummocks, and the
writer turned in, thinking the play was over. But this morning, I am
told, the real disappointment came. They gave up the bear, for a large
black-and-white narwhal, with a magnificent horn, appeared round the ice
point and they rowed round for it. It was lying leisurely on the surface,
only going below occasionally. Gisbert was to take the harpoon. They made
a splendid approach, breathlessly still, oars not making a sound, and got
within five yards! And the whale rose high out of the water and Gisbert
pulled the trigger, and the gun missed fire. The cap that explodes the
powder had been withdrawn for safety, when they began the bear-chase, and
not replaced! You can imagine the disappointment. I can assure the reader
that such an approach, the approach and hunting of any whale, in fact, is
far more exciting than one’s first stag or bear. There is more risk than
in bear-hunting. But a danger of the narwhal is that if you make fast to
a young one the rest of the family, parents and relatives, are down on
you and you have a chance of getting the great ivory spear through your
boat. There is all the possibility of lines and legs getting mixed, boat
upset, or dragged under floes, and lots more, if you care to tot them up.
Curiously, there have been far more lives lost at bottle-nose whaling
than at that of the larger kinds (the bottle-nose and narwhal are about
the same size). A bottle-nose is not larger than the narwhal, but it goes
off with such a dash that I have known several men to have been carried
overboard—Captain Larsen for one. He told me he went over with coil round
his leg, and another man in front; he got loose but the other man never
came up again.
The great Svend Foyn was once taken overboard—that was with a five-inch
rope, after a finner whale, which is seldom or never known to check its
first rush. This one did, slacked the line and Svend Foyn came to the
surface and struck out and clambered on board, where the mate stood white
with horror, and all the welcome he could muster was: “I—I—I am afraid
you are wet, Captain!” and Foyn laughed himself dry....
Then Fortune gave a belated smile on our adventurers. The foolish bear
left the immense floe, on which it was perfectly safe, and took a swim
to a small one lying on the far side. Our boat having gone round after
this narwhal, was therefore able to spot something moving across the calm
water, and when the object got to the floe and crawled out on to the
ice, great was their rejoicing to find their bear again. So they pursued
it again and killed it with one head shot, one in the neck, and three
in the body. It was a small bear, a female about three metres, thirty
centimetres—that is, seven feet six inches—and had bad teeth and looked
old! My last, about the same length, had splendid teeth and looked young.
This accepted measurement, which we take from nose to tail, does not give
a true impression of the size of a bear, for this bear standing up would
be about nine feet in height. I do not see why we should not measure a
bear standing up as we measure man, from top of his head to his heel. We
never think of giving a man’s height in feet and inches from top of head
to the seat of his trousers. And, besides, what is the _end_ of a bear’s
tail? Is it the flesh and bone or longest hair? I’ve seen a hair about
five inches long on a bear’s tail, and including the water dripping from
that you would have thought, by the measurements, it beat the record.
CHAPTER XXIX
Before we left our last misty anchorage we partook of a meal of both bear
and narwhal. The narwhal’s flesh is blacker than an old mushroom, and as
food it is only passable. Young bear is our best food, but there is a lot
of trouble about preparing it, for we remove all the fat, which has not a
good taste.
This morning one of these little grey seals or floe rats looked at us
from astern, and as I plan a motoring coat I felt called upon to deprive
it of its pelt, painlessly, after administering a tabloid—lead in nickel.
I do not think there is any sport in shooting seals without a pucca
stalk, still, the skins of these little grey fellows (Vitulina, or are
they a new species?) are too good to leave. I think six will be enough
for a coat. I have got three now.
The flippers of the seals here are highly developed, with distinct claws.
In the Antarctic the flippers are less distinctly articulated. The
finger-bones are more bound together by ligament, and the claws or nails
are scarcely noticeable.
All day we travelled north and as westerly as possible, trying to get
within sight of Greenland, and for once the sun came out and we felt as
if we could paint on deck, and did so for a little—dead smooth sea, with
fine icicles forming and very level fields of ice, with few hummocks,
extending to the pigeon-grey ribbed sky on horizon—rather monotonous.
The guitar was going somewhere on board and most of us cooling our heels
in the silence. Only the captive bears seem busy—grate, grate, grating
at their wooden walls; one got nearly out last night, when we were off
after the narwhal. We saw excited figures jumping about on our foredeck,
and when we came alongside there was fierce growling, poor old Port bear
being prodded in the back to draw its attention, whilst three seamen
struggled to nail on new wood in front of its nose-end of the cage.
But to come back to this day that begins so quietly, we are now all agog,
we had a splendid bear-hunt and spotted a female with cub, a very small
thing, and it was fascinating watching all their movements and signs to
each other. We tried to jam the ship to the floe-edge, but for hundreds
of yards it was guarded by floating pan ice—that is, ice in cakes of a
few yards diameter and not deep, only, say, a foot. A big whaler could
have jammed through comfortably, but we are not strong enough and got
stuck and retired as gracefully as possible and went a long round of
miles and miles to where we could land on the true floe, practising lasso
en route in case we may have another opportunity of throwing a rope over
a live wild bear.
Later we spotted the bear and child, and Archie and party went off after
it, and from board ship we watched their slow procedure and the bears’
rapid disappearance. I thought then that the fun was over, and retired
to draw—but they had the best stalk they have had. They struck the spoor
of a bigger single bear, followed it by directions from mast-head,
and came within a short distance, when the sleeping hero awoke, and
promptly stalked them, then Archie fired at forty yards. He says: “Give
me pheasant-shooting and a covert side, and nothing on four legs bigger
than a spaniel.” It is rather an awesome thing seeing a fellow in white
robes and formidable teeth, that when on his bare feet stands well over
ten feet high. A cordite rifle is then a very comfortable thing to hold
in your hand. The first bullet in the chest knocked the bear over and
two more shots killed it. It took about five hours there and back to
finish the bloody business. And even on their tramp home we on board
were kept in interest, for Don José Herrero, with the captain, went out
for a fourth bear—relationship to others not known—Svendsen tried to
draw the bear after him, whilst Don José hid behind a hummock. A bear
will always attack a single man, sometimes two, seldom a number, and the
plan worked effectively up to a point. It was lovely to watch Svendsen’s
simulated frightened flight and the bear following, stalking him behind
every hummock, keeping cover, and then scuttling across the open to make
sure of its victim. But somehow or other the bear did not just come far
enough and our second lot of hunters came back with nothing in the bag.
Later, we noticed the same bear working along the horizon. I expect it
will strike the track of the homeward drawn bear’s skin. I hope he will
evince sufficient interest in his deceased relative either to follow the
trail of the skin to the ship or to the carcass; it was far too great a
distance to bring in all the flesh. An eight-foot bear, nose to tail, ten
feet four inches nose to heel, is a frightful weight, about nine hundred
and eighty pounds.
[Illustration]
It is still the Spaniards’ watch and we steam away back to where we saw
the bears first—if we cannot find whales we must take bears—_En falta de
pan, buenas son tortas_ (If you cannot get bread, cakes are good enough),
and if you cannot get either bears or whales you must either draw, write,
smoke, or go to bed. I would go to bed, but still have a lingering
interest in my fellows’ proceedings with the above _ursidæ_.
* * * * *
After the somewhat exciting afternoon and evening after bear, the night
felt very quiet. Mist fell and stilled the least ripple. Archie came to
my cabin—two can sit in it with a squeeze—and celebrated the occasion
with a pipe and a glass of aqua vite, and he retold his adventures. I
ought to have been with him, I believe, as comrade, to draw a bead on the
ferocious opponent if necessary, and afterwards put it all down in paint,
but Gisbert is most unerring in his aim, and being a little lame, I might
have kept them back. At eighty yards, a big bear, Hamilton says, is very
imposing, and when it stalks you to within thirty-five yards and you give
it your best in a vital spot and it is not killed, you are inclined to
wish yourself at home. You think of what will happen if your foot sticks
in the deep snow or if you miss with your next, or only wound it. The
size and shape of these wild floe-bred bears is far greater than any one
may see in captivity. I suppose the age of the males, their food, and
free life account for their enormous chest measurements and huge bowed
forelegs.
It is certainly best to attack a bear in couples, on account of
above-mentioned possibilities—lives have been lost by not doing so.
As we turned in, the mist rose a little and left a streak of palest
primrose between it and the horizon, the shape of a great searchlight,
but how delicate was the warm violet of the mist and the darker tint on
the smooth water. In other ten minutes the light increased, then the sky
was faintest yellow, except a low arch of cold bluish tint above the floe
to which we were anchored; on the floe were three small icebergs.
Where we are to-night there is little life, only a few petrels chuckling
quietly at our stern, where there is always some blubber hanging over for
their benefit.
There is not a ripple on the sea, not the slightest perceptible motion. I
think the stillness and silence of the Arctic is a thing seldom noticed;
the hundreds of miles of drifting floes which surround us break all
swell. Everyone sleeps to-night after the exertions of yesterday. If
there is a watch on deck I do not hear him; in my cabin the only sound
is the snoring of our starboard bear. His berth is close to mine; when
he does not snore he growls, a deep vibrating organ note, which is a
little fearsome, and when he stops the deep note there is an ominous
scrape, scraping in the stillness, that shows his set purpose to get out,
and—what? I wish he was overboard or in our Zoo, or behind iron bars or
something stronger than fir-wood battens, which he tears into moss in no
time! A rat tearing wood is vexatious in the silence of the night, but
to hear the patient and effective work going on beside one when you know
there is possibly no one on the look-out, makes one anxious, so I keep my
pistol handy at meal-times and between them.
An uneventful Sunday. After the manner of our great examples of
Reformation times, we held mild sports. Fencing, two entries, F. J. de
Gisbert and the writer, we may not say who took the prize. Lassoing, five
entries, De Gisbert and three Spanish, first Don José Herrero. Don José
Herrero now surpasses our Professor Gisbert, and the writer comes only
a little behind, but still a halo is seen over him for having lassoed
a live bear! Shooting at floating bottles, range inside thirty yards,
Entries, the writer with Browning revolver, Spaniards mannlicher rifles,
easy win for pistol, showing age and practice make up for telescopic
sights. Pipe-playing, march, strathspey and reel, one entry, a walk over.
Guitar accompaniment, three entries, De Gisbert easily first, steward and
writer draw. Painting water-colour evening effect, one entry—judge the
writer—subject, a pale yellow sky, lilac strip clouds above floe, floe
high in tone, faintest pink with pale blue in crevices; prize not awarded.
In evening we tied up to a gap in floe-edge, hoping for narwhals, because
they seem to keep close to edge of the floe. And sure enough they came
when we were at evening meal, a great black-and-white-spotted bull
leading, with a visible gleam under the still, dark water of his white
ivory horn; after him, more drab-coloured whales, presumably Madame and
bébés. We waited out in our boat, the writer with harpoon, and pursued
two lots. One of them was a splendid bull, but both lots vanished a
fraction of a second before I got a good chance at them, so we saved
powder.
During the night we got to some extent embayed. We had floes all round,
and raced round like a bird in a trap, but found a way out of the lake
about four A.M.
As we plodded round in the early morning, it rained! straight down
heavy rain and warm at that, with the thermometer two degrees above
freezing—most unexpected and unsuitable Arctic weather—might as well have
rain at Assouan! When the rain ceased thin mist still hung over the day
and it was very quiet indeed.
Our Starboard bear seemed to feel the quiet and monotony and made a very
good attempt to get out to-night. He did not seem very overpowering on
the floe, but now, when he got his head and one great forefoot out and
the timber was flying and six men struggling to nail him up, he gave one
a sense of great strength. He is now inside the remnants of timber baulks
of about three cages. As he chews one batten up more timber is nailed on
over the first stumps. Some of us thought the bridge gave a good point of
view: the struggling figure, and the steam of its breath as the cage was
turned over, and Gisbert’s cigarette smoke as he pulled and hauled and
directed the various manœuvres, made a fairly dramatic picture. I thought
my services might be called on at any minute with my Browning, but six
men, active of mind and body, and various ingenious appliances of tackles
and hatchets and big nails, at last made Bruin secure, and the stillness
of the misty day come over us again.
Later, a great narwhal raised his back and tail right astern, groaned
and went under with hardly a ripple, and we saw his white length come
towards us under the glassy surface and disappear under the ship. So
the whale-boat was lowered and a crew went out and lay a hundred yards
off. My fishing instinct told he was the only one about, so I stayed on
board and painted an ice effect. The whale-boat and men lay perfectly
reflected, and looked almost too still and colourless through the thin
mist to be real, looking more like a faded print of people waiting for
perch than whalers waiting with stern intent to do or die. Bow lay on his
back smoking, the smoke rising straight up, the others chatted in subdued
voices.
On board, Pedersen the steward started his guitar and mouth-organ, and
altogether, with the tum-tum, common waltz music, and the outer stillness
it did not feel a bit as it ought to do in the Arctic regions,
“Where there’s frost and there’s snow
And the stormy winds do blow,
And the daylight’s never done,
Brave Boys,”
as the old song goes.
I have mentioned our many-sided steward. Photography seems to be another
of his accomplishments—hobbies, I should say. Light or no light, he
fires his camera. We could not help smiling the other day when he went
for the first time on to the floe with a party to photograph a bear-hunt.
Hardly had he gone five yards when one leg went deep into a hole in the
floe and his shoe came off. He emptied the water, and then the other came
off, so he hastily fixed his tripod, fired a shot at the ship and came
on board again, and took to the guitar and his proper offices. To-night
a sudden idea seized him and he left his cosy corner by our galley fire
and Johanna, our “she-cook,” and came with guitar and that instrument
called the mouth-organ, and arranged our bears’ heads and skins on the
main-hatch, and sat himself down on a block of wood between them and
got one of the men to fire his camera at him. But first he produced a
pocket-mirror, when I called his attention to a hair being astray, and
having arranged that, he pulled his white jacket into position, fixed
up the guitar and mouth-organ and struck a fine pose. I might have
fired a plate at him, but there was not nearly enough light. The head
of Hamilton’s enormous bear, as if resentful of this last indignity of
having to pose in such a picture, broke the barrel it rested on as if in
protest—even the head and neck is a big lift for one man.
Another picture composed itself a little later. We watered ship from one
of these shallow blue pools on the floe, two men at the pool filling
tin pails with a large tin bailer. To encourage them our jolly, burly
_vivandière_ went out to them with her cheery laugh, carrying a glass
and bottle of aqua vite. There was colour! and if not elegance, a beauty
of fitness, which is saying a good deal for the lady; the ample, strong
form, in pale blue and white pinafore kind of dress, tripped over the
floe, and the deep blue of the sailors’ clothes and her red cheeks, and
the golden yellow of the aquavit, the grey of the zinc pails, and the
blue and white of the snow, suddenly struck one as the first decided
effect of strong colour contrast which we have seen for days.
Nothing very exciting to-day, mist and snow on deck till evening, when
it cleared, and became very calm. We were all at _aften-mad_ when word
came a bear was sighted, so our Spanish friends armed themselves and went
forward to the bows, and the vessel slowly approached the floe on which
the bear had been seen, and to our astonishment the bear approached the
ship steadily, and lightly climbed a round snow-block and steadily gazed
at us, a pale primrose patch in a great whiteness, with interesting dark
eyes and muzzle. I have tried to recall the effect, but the highness of
the scheme of colour makes it difficult to paint, and probably impossible
to reproduce by any process of colour-printing.
Our friends calmly held their fire till within twenty-five yards when Don
José began with his telescope-sighted mannlicher and hit the bear at his
first shot! unfortunately rather near its tail. The bear, enraged, tore
at itself. Then a sharp fusillade began from both rifles and by-and-by
the bear succumbed. It had been hit not less than five times. It was only
a small bear, but, as Don Luis senior remarked: “It was forte bien mieux
de tirer from the ship than to go march, march, toujours sur la neige.”
This is the way we speak on board, with a little Spanish thrown in.
CHAPTER XXX
Bright sun for once and away we have been steaming since early morning,
south and east, hoping to get clear of the great floes that bar our
way to the west. I long for mountains, the flat plains of ice-floe and
snow grow very wearisome. Now, near land, these land-floes are like
endless plaster ceiling that has dropped more or less in fragments. In
the Antarctic the floes look as if a Greek temple had come to bits and
lay floating on the sea. There is a considerable difference, therefore,
in appearance; at least I speak for the southern ice which I have met
south-east of Graham’s Land. There are no seals, therefore we hardly
expect bears, and there is never a sign of the blow of a whale. Only one
narwhal this morning, we almost ran into it. I wish it had driven its
spear into us, it seems the only hope of getting a good one.
Floes extend in a line for miles north and south; we think it will be
best now to wait for them to open, rather than to wander away south in
hopes of getting an opening round them. Shannon Island, on the north-east
of Greenland, is our aim.
... The floes are flatter, with fewer tombstones protruding from the
level white; it gets monotonous. Mist comes at night. Hamilton and
Gisbert play chess, Don José and the writer teach each other English and
Spanish. Don Luis plays patience and Don José Herrero does nothing, with
quiet dignity. This morning, after an hour at Spanish, I turned out first
of our party for breakfast and found our starboard bear also on the point
of coming out. It had its head and feet out and was only stopped by a
single rope, a mere accident, but it puzzled the bear—rope was new to it.
The she-cook and writer were the only people on deck. I tried to look
not afraid and she certainly looked perfectly cool, and kept on wiping a
dish, but went into the galley. I secured my revolver and told the man
on the bridge. I took the wheel, whilst he dashed below and called for
help, and there ensued a wild struggle; Bruin had lost a moment at the
last trifle, the silly rope that was slightly elastic giving way to his
pulling. Several of the crew turned up and got some thin wood battens,
but one after another, as they were hastily banged across the front, he
tore them to bits. And he has learned that shoving is also effective,
and six men this morning went back at first, to a shove of his two great
paws, till they got leverage. “With a long enough lever you can move the
world”—that is where our men came in. Now he has about eight inches of
timber in front of his nose. I will give him two days, not more, to get
through that. Gisbert says he is sure to go overboard at once if he comes
out. I think it is as well to have my pistol beside me at breakfast; we
must at least have a chance of some shooting if it takes charge of the
ship and does not go overboard as predicted.
[Illustration]
Gisbert tells at breakfast this touching little tale, possibly a
chestnut, above illustrated. “Once upon a time a hunter met a bear and
said: ‘Here comes my new fur coat,’ and the bear said: ‘Here comes
my breakfast,’ and both were right!” With such frivolity he soothes
our nerves. But the deep, vibrating note of Starboard and the sound
of industrious scraping keep one on edge for the rasping tearing that
comes when he really sets to work to get out. Some great chains have now
been found in the bottom of our little hold, and he is now really being
treated as a wild animal; the chains are being fastened all round the
woodwork, so I will allow him other two days to get free. All our wooden
battens are done or nearly done, therefore this resort to iron.
* * * * *
We—that is, De Gisbert and I—made a small discovery this morning in
rope-throwing—we practise it at odd times, with the prospect in view
of tackling other bears alive, which is perhaps even higher sport than
shooting or photographing them. For some time we have almost all been
able to cast the ordinary running loop at short range, but are erratic
with the half-hitch cast, such as you use after casting a loop over a
bear’s head to secure its forefoot.
[Illustration]
I do not write these details for bear-hunters, but the game is excellent
sport _per se_ on deck, say, on a P. & O. liner outward bound in August;
it would be splendid on any deck, better than deck quoits. It would be
excellent for a garden-party or sports for Boy Scouts.
You beg or borrow, from the bos’n or laundry-maid, five fathoms of
rope—log line is the best. Splice a metal eye to the end to make a loop
or lasso. Then you fix up a spar, with a cross-piece, and stand as in
this sketch, with the loop—larger than A, or to taste—and cast over B,
with right hand, and haul taut with left hand. The next thing is to cast
a half-hitch over C. You imagine B is a bear’s head and you wish to throw
a half-hitch over (C) a fore paw, so as to haul the paw up to the neck
and throw the bear. Then you can try left-hand or right-hand casting over
X, which is not so easy!
[Illustration]
To cast the first lasso loop (note position of hand and eye in loop A)
you swing the loop round the head and let fly and let the coils of line
in left hand go free. This is a little difficult at first; casting on the
half-hitch is much easier if you lay the line properly, as in Fig. (4).
If you lay it as we did at first, as in Figs. (1) and (2), the loop falls
short as in middle Fig. The idea is to have plenty line to your right, so
as to make a big flowing hitch, as shown in lower Fig. (4).
Gisbert and I worked out this discovery in the morning till we could
put on hitches every time, and in the afternoon we challenged the
“Professor,” as we call young Don José—because of his skill in throwing
the loop—and his cousin, Don Luis Velasquez, for a bottle of champagne,
and holding our hand, we easily beat them and felt very slightly ashamed
of ourselves for taking advantage of our small discovery of a knack.
This morning in sunny mist appeared a dot, far away over the snow, and
we put glasses on it and made out a seal. As our young men thoughtfully
hung back from a stalk, it was left for De Gisbert and the writer to make
the effort. Finally the writer started over very rough going, with very
little chance of getting within shot, still, just to show an example, we
felt one of us must try.
So we climbed over the bow and got on to the floe-edge and away from
ship. It was very charming on the floe amongst these ice tombstones
and ledges fringed with huge icicles that, in a wide view, are simply
monotonous white, but which all become very sweet and beautiful when you
are close to them and can examine the details at leisure. The only way
to see nature thoroughly is to have it rubbed into you. Who can see a
rainstorm with an umbrella up? When you have one leg in a hole in the
floe and the other on the floe, and hands, rifle and staff going, you do
not know how deep, there is plenty of time for the dripping icicles over
the blue ledge in front of you to impress themselves on your memory; and
for a time at least, the seal you are stalking, or even the bear that may
be stalking you, or when you think of the beauty in front, the cold in
your boots, become of little importance.
Then you toil on, dripping from nose and eyebrows just like the icicles,
for on this blessed day of days through these mist wreaths there is hot
sun and the ice-floe glitters gloriously. Everyone said that the seal
could not be approached. But by dint of much consideration and a crawl
here and there, I managed to get within a hundred and fifty or a hundred
and sixty yards. Then I thought, “Just to show what could be done by old
age and experience,” I’d try to get even closer—to a hundred yards—that
lost the seal for me; for when I got behind the tiny knob of ice I aimed
at the seal had got into its hole in the floe. For the last fifty yards I
was following the two or three days’ old track of a bear; I wonder if he
and I had both stalked the same seal with the same result.
A day’s stalk, or rather a few hours’ stalk, after a seal suits my taste,
and Hamilton agrees. He says, apropos of a big serious old bear-stalk:
“Give me a pheasant cover, with nothing on four legs bigger than a
spaniel.” You don’t then have that sensation of cold water: you are quite
comfortable and can claw down your birds and chat with any fair one who
has begged to see you do it.
From above, the careful reader may gather that we have at least in this
Greenland sea seen the sun. It is nice! Now, as I write, about twelve
o’clock midnight, it may be said to be shining; and in the rays, with
double winter clothing, it is really quite warm. But in the shade there
are many degrees of frost; that is why the icicles hang so beautifully
to-day over the blue ledges on the shaded side of the raised edges on the
floes.
It is a poor floe and feeble ice compared to that in the South. We passed
a berg this afternoon, an Arctic berg, so we said: “How grand!” But in my
mind I saw again the stupendous ice-cliffs of the South and their vast
green caves, into which you could pack a dozen such Arctic iceberg chips.
The atmosphere and colouring here remind me of the east coast of Scotland
in June, clear, crystalline, unenveloping, quite unlike the velvety
feeling of our west, towards the Gulf Stream, say down the Wigtownshire
coast, or the west of Spain.
I have often seen this scenery depicted in old whaling pictures, where
the ships and whalers look quite large in proportion to the ice-forms.
This is the difference between Arctic and Antarctic. In one, man and his
vessels dominate the scene, in the other the great forms of nature make
man and his works seem very small.
This afternoon with my pistol I shot an old female seal through the
brain—this after a futile stalk of hours for a seal in the morning with
long-range rifle and telescope sight.
Though we can’t find whales yet, the colour of the water is promising;
it is full of plankton: if you draw a muslin net through it you collect
in a few yards, in the tail of the bag, an almost transparent jelly—a
minute quantity of which, examined under the microscope, reveals
marvellous beauty, millions of minute crustaceans and diatoms that fill
you with wonder at the life in the seas, which infinitely surpasses in
multiplicity the life of the land or the air. These probably form the
food of the shrimps and little cuttle-fish, and the narwhals eat the
cuttle-fish.
The narwhal we caught the other day was full of small cuttle-fish, only
about a few inches across the spread of their tentacles, and it also
held red prawns or shrimps. But the cachalot or sperm whale of the warm
seas kills very large cuttle-fish. We dare not say up to what size. I
myself have only seen the sperm, after it has been harpooned, eject small
cuttle-fish, but large circular marks in their backs, something like
Burmese writing magnified, look as if they had been caused by the sucker
on the tentacles of enormous cuttle-fish, and wandering grooves over
their sides suggest that the parrot-like beak of the cuttle-fish has made
its mark. I have seen one of these at least thirty-five feet in length.
The contents of the stomach of many of the largest whales in the world,
Balænoptera Sibaldi (Blue) and Balænoptera Musculus (Finner), which are
killed nowadays, consist almost entirely of small shrimps, about one
quarter of the size of the common shrimp. On the landing and flensing
stage of Alexandra Company in Shetland, after several finner whales have
been cut up, I have seen piles of this shrimp food lying on the slip,
amounting to several tons in weight, with only, on rare occasions, a few
minute fish amongst it all.
The food of the whale that used to be more common up here, the Right
whale, Balæna Mysticetus, is about the size of barleycorns and looks
rather like sago with a brownish tint. The whale takes a mouthful of
these, plus water, and squeezes the water through the blades of whalebone
round the edge of its mouth, each of which has a fringe of hairs on
the inside. These hairs, interwoven, make a surface to the palate like
that of a cocoanut mat, which makes a perfect strainer. Then the whale
swallows the mass of minute crustaceans that is left on its tongue and
palate. The tongue is an immense floppy plum-coloured thing like a
deflated balloon. I would give much to know exactly how its nerves and
muscles act so as to work down the minute food from its palate into the
throat. Smaller Finner whales we know of, which feed on herring, round
the Shetlands and British coast, locally called Herring Hog, or Springer,
run to thirty feet or so. They are not hunted as yet by the modern whaler
as they are rather too small to be worth towing to the station, but no
doubt their day will come when our industries need them, and the large
whales become more shy and hard to capture.
[Illustration: Arctic and Antarctic Proportions]
CHAPTER XXXI
This chapter will show that it is foolish to sit up late, and that it
does not do to shoot polar bears in pyjamas. Last night Hamilton and I
sat up fairly late playing vingt-et-un for matches. But the Dons and De
Gisbert sat up still later, almost all night, brewing a concoction of
seal-oil and things on the cabin stove for boots. Just as they succeeded,
it upset all over the shoulder of Don José junior’s coat. They were
very merry, but they should have been in bed, as it was their morning
watch at nine o’clock, and they went to bed not long before that hour.
Spaniards are quite reckless of the night hours, a few days’ stay in
Madrid will convince anyone of this—the people walk about all night. The
aforesaid brothers when they did turn in got into pyjamas—how people
cling to custom. Gisbert, being more experienced, of course turned in
all standing, as anyone of any polar experience always does. Now they
are sorry for these late hours and for sleeping in pyjamas, for result.
Soon after they had turned in, there appeared a very large she-bear and
two cubs close to the floe-edge, which could have been shot from the bow.
Just the chance they like, no horrid walking and stalking over snow.
Gisbert was ready in a minute, but they lost the precious time getting
out of the pyjamas into warm clothes, and the bear could not wait, and
perforce they had to follow her over the snow and a fog came down.
They have lost it; and here we are, a whole ship’s company, sleeping,
or doing nothing but grousing and counting the hours, as we lie on
dead-still water in dead-still fog—which is waste of time and patience
and is quite absurd, Q.E.D.
We are back to our last bear forest, “the woods are full of them,” as
Hamilton says; back to bear-hunting because there are no whales and
because our path west and south and north is barred with ice. Perhaps
by the middle of August there may be a road open to the land. We have
seen the mist on the hills, at any rate a wide stretch of many miles of
whitish light thrown up to the sky, which tells us that the land is there
and that we are not more than fifty or sixty miles distant from it.
We still hope to get the she-bear and the cubs; they are nice small cubs,
not like the well-grown wicked fellows we have on board; we could almost
make pets of these small fellows.
A man we know of got one a year or two ago. He was one of three
Norwegians left on a certain island in these latitudes—we will not give
its exact bearings—to collect skins during a winter. They got a hundred
bearskins and ninety white fox of considerable value, and they are there
still in barrels, and ought to be quite good yet. They lost their boat
and were picked up and taken home. They had a baby bear, which they
brought up on the bottle. It was a charming pet till about twelve months
old and then he had to be destroyed or he would have killed them in play.
I am sorry to say here that at _middag’s-mad_ we, aft the mainmast, had
not remembered this was Sunday till pancakes came on the table. As the
second lot arrived the steward stepped in rather quietly and whispered:
“A seal astern,” so we jumped out with the pistol (by what some might
call a lucky shot), hit it through the brain and it floated dead, and
a white ivory gull hung over it. It was just the kind of skin, too, I
wanted for the projected motoring coat. Then we realised it was Sunday,
and to make up leeway we displayed bunting, the Royal Spanish Yachting
Club and our Royal Eastern Yacht Club—the vice-commodore’s—and the Red
Lion of Scotland (the origin of which is buried in the mist of historical
obscurity) at the fore, quite a gallant display for such short notice.
With the flags’ first flutter the air went round to the north, and now,
instead of being heavy and depressing, there is a bracing feeling, and
the eye can see far and wide amongst the lanes of sea-water and the
floes of hummocky ice. Harp seals dash across the surface of the loch
we are in, as if they too enjoyed the change from damp, heavy air to the
keen, sharp, exhilarating air from the north. There is no use firing
at these harp seals in the water, for they always sink on being shot.
Besides, some of us think a shot might disturb the she-bear and family.
She went off to a floe about the size of Perthshire, and we follow round
northerly, and perhaps to-morrow morning we may sight her again.
One of the prettiest and rarest things in the world is to see a mother
bear with her cubs, the little yellow fellows with their black eyes and
noses jumping and rolling over their mother, pulling her ears, and the
old bear showing every sign of love for her offspring. Then to see the
old bear stalking a seal and the little ones sitting away behind, jogging
each other, making notes about their mother’s cleverness. Their education
takes two years. The smaller black bear of Newfoundland and America sends
away its young after one year’s teaching; there means of subsistence are
more simply obtained, there is so much wild fruit and so many roots and
other things for them to eat. But to stalk a seal up here on these flat
ice-floes, even with a rifle, takes very considerable skill. I speak
with feeling. For the bear to get within clinching distance must require
even greater experience. The polar bear has usually two and sometimes
three of a family, not oftener than once in two years. The mother is
frequently seen with only one cub and the father is then supposed to have
eaten the other. The male bear is said to take little or no interest in
the education of its young. Why the young, two or three year old bear we
first caught showed such interest in the old bear, Hamilton’s first bear,
I cannot quite understand, for though he kept half-a-mile to leeward he
always seemed to have an eye lifting for the old bear’s movements. I
wonder if he was waiting for the old fellow to kill something, then to
drop in on a neighbourly call about meal-time.
Alas, this journal is all bear as yet, and no whale to speak of; I have
never been in such lifeless water anywhere in regard to cetacean life.
And yet we should see various whales, the Balæna Mysticetus, called the
Right whale, bowhead or Greenland, the fat, slow, but valuable whale of
the old-fashioned whaling....
In the evening a bear was spotted. Gisbert and Don José and three men set
out after it. With the glasses we saw the bear disappear in the distance
and then the little black spots of straggling figures also disappeared.
They returned several hours later in the best of spirits, though they had
never seen the beast. They had fallen in with a curious experience. On
the floe they found a greeny blue grotto—I remember we saw them standing
on a high ridge, it must have been under this—into which they went, and
were amused at the ghastly silvery appearance of their hands and faces.
It was about fifteen yards long, and they could walk in upright, with
a blue shallow pool in the middle, and overhead part of the snow and
ice was thawed to about a thickness of a few inches and the blue light
shining through this with icicles hanging thick, gave an effect that can
be imagined. I think I would rather have seen that than have killed the
bear. There were no bears in the grotto; but I know of a man, Captain
Yule by name, of Dundee, who killed—well, I hardly like to say how many
bears, in such a cave. Take a blue cave, whity yellow bears with their
dark eyes and the sombre figure of the man, and rifle smoke, flame
and blood, and you have a picture fit for the cover of The Wide World
Magazine.
They had walked about ten kilometres over snow, rough going, and came
back about one A.M., wet, with ice on beards and moustaches, but glowing
and happy with the exercise. They had a hot grog, got off long boots
and were very comfortable, when another bear was spotted, and away they
went over the bow by the rope-ladder to the ice, chawing biscuits and
chocolate as they went. Don José being a little tired his cousin took his
place, and Gisbert went off merrily. Spaniards are very sporting so far
as I know them; they work up to their collars, always keep up a cheery
appearance, and—can’t they sleep after exercise—it is now past midday and
there is not a sign of any of them! There is a fresh breeze, but it is
foggy, with sun overhead, so we cannot do much.
To put in time I took a boat after a hooded-seal, which I spotted through
a lift in the sunny haze about a mile off on a small floe. We excuse
ourselves killing seals by thinking of the benefit we confer on our
fellow-men in the South by adding to the general store of material used
in the manufacture of margarine and olive oil; but besides this base
commercial consideration we have our captive bears to consider, they must
exist, to afford amusement and instruction some day in our Zoological
Park in Edinburgh, London, or Madrid. As I approached, the seal finally
shovelled himself off the snow into the sea and disappeared. Trusting to
its showing some curiosity, we waited, and it came up about a hundred
yards off, and showed part of its head, which I managed to hit, but it
disappeared. So we waited about the place, and by-and-by it came up only
about twenty yards away, when a shot from the pistol finished its pain.
In my experience it is a very rare thing for a seal to reappear after
being wounded or killed. I must disagree with Sir Ernest Shackleton in
this matter. He said in a lecture to our Royal Geographical Society
apropos of Antarctic seals: “As fast as we killed them, up they came
again.”
[Illustration]
It is a strange life this up North, a little while ago mist and cold, and
you longed to be home—wherever that might be—and now the sun is shining
hot, and you might be in a yacht off Aberdeen in summer; it is the same
crystalline atmosphere, with cold air, hot sun, but bracing—very nice
indeed! But up here there is some risk!—only two hours ago we were in
a tight place. No real old Arctic whaler would mention this; they all
minimise dangers—for their own comfort; if they did not, they would end
in staying on shore and going to the workhouse. But the writer, who is
only an amateur whaler who “only plays hide-and-seek with the sea,” as
a nephew of mine puts it, may be allowed to say that there was grave
danger, and putting aside whale and bear dangers, there was in this one
of our first really nice, sunny evenings, a very serious prospect of
our spending the last few months of our lives on a floe with a failing
commissariat. We ran ourselves on to a green ice tongue that we thought
had enough water over it to float us, and got fast. I was below, and
though accustomed to the ordinary shock of ramming ice, I knew at once,
by the long rise of our bows and the roll to port and starboard that we
were in a fix. Perhaps a small diagram may help to explain—so here you
see two floes meeting, bright sunshine, blue sky overhead, and rippling
blue water where there are open pools in the ice—a scene of perfect
summer peace. The two floes, each weighing millions of tons, are very
wide; they are slowly moving towards each other; they nearly meet; and
we mistakenly try to get between them before they close, and run our
stem and half our keel on to A, the submerged ice-foot of the floe B.
The floe C is coming towards us in the direction of B—well, to cut it
short, if the floes C and B meet, with the Fonix between them, our party,
thirty all told, have our little house squeezed, and when the floe opens
our home goes down and we get on to the floe till we are rescued by
some relief expedition, or we flicker out. But for having lots to do I
personally would have felt the necessity of a pipe or a dram—but as it
was the writer and two men and a boat had their hands full, getting out
an ice-anchor and wire-rope astern to D to kedge her off. The said hawser
burst and the artist showed the seamen the bend for a wire-rope, in a
hurry or at any time. Boy Scouts know it. Hamilton stood by at the wheel
and Svendsen and men shifted the cargo aft to take the weight off the
bow. An ice-tongue of floe C touched at D and gave us breathing-space
and by-and-by we kedged her off astern, just in time to avoid a squeeze,
and got through between the floes. One might write a chapter about our
manœuvres, but now the guitar is going and the skipper has thanked the
artist for handling that nasty rough, rusty wire hawser against time,
and expressed somewhat flattering surprise at his knowing how to make
a simple fisherman’s bend in a hurry; and again we are in open, quiet
waters and open ice, with a hundred yards between each floe, and everyone
frightfully cheerful. For some of us at least knew, though our Spanish
friends apparently did not, the grim possibilities. Also we are all the
better of the efforts in a small boat and the work of shifting cargo,
barrels of salt, etc. I guess and bet Svendsen will not take any more
unnecessary chances of dodging through too narrow lanes between this time
and the next.
By late _aften-mad_ we have quieted down, and have a beautiful display
of the bull ring. Chee Chee, our young Gordon setter (or collie; it’s
a little of both), does the bull, Don Luis Herrero de Velasquez does
our espada, and other bull-ring functionaries all to perfection, with a
foil for the espada and a sack for the Vueltu, this on our upper deck in
the ten o’clock P.M. sun, everyone applauding and the steward’s guitar
joining in below. His music is very cheap music, in such a contrast to
Gisbert’s old airs, half Spanish, half African, that go away down to the
depths.
CHAPTER XXXII
“Ugh—ugh!” our starboard bear shouts to-day; not a roar now, it is a
hopeless complaint. “Ugh! let me out—ugh! look at my coat, all stained
and soiled.... Ugh! let me out, I don’t want to go to a zoo”—then almost
silence, only a steady chawing of timber and scrape, scrape, for hours on
end.
* * * * *
The above labour ended in his getting his head and one paw out this
morning early, and the skipper and Hamilton only being about—the rest of
the crew were afloat in the boats—they had a lively time. The skipper
anxiously shouted: “All hands on board!” and they came and all bore a
hand, and there were timbers, nails, hatchets and hammers all about, and
bears’ roars, till it was subdued. Hamilton got his hand hurt. It is a
wily fellow this starboard bear, waiting his opportunity till all were
overboard hunting, and again I expected to have to use my pistol. Almost
all hands were in the boats securing two bear cubs, about a third of the
size of the bear referred to. We spotted them and their mother on a floe
about five A.M., playing together, poor things, and they took to the
water and we pursued. Dauntlessly we approached, Don José in the bow,
rifle in hand. Without tremor he calmly held his fire till within a few
yards; the first shot went extremely close, a second actually touched the
bear, but the range gradually shortening allowed of greater accuracy and
the third shot hit it in the neck and killed it.
A boat followed the two youngsters, and after a number of ineffective
throws they were at last roped. From board-ship we rather smiled at the
ineffective attempt to lasso, but we gather that several casts were well
thrown and over their necks, but each time the cunning little beggars
threw the noose off their heads with their paws so quickly that there
was not time to haul taut.
Now there is a frightful row going on; the two cubs are roped alongside
and the two seniors on board, all are shouting: “B-e-a-r, b-e-a-r,
w-augh, w-augh, b-e-a-r.” Holy smoke! It is as if half-a-dozen zoos were
in chorus and were shouting for dinner; it is a frightfully tiresome,
irritating sound, arranged so by Nature, I suppose. No mother bear could
shut her ears to it, were she alive. The two cubs, each on a line, are
swimming; they seem to prefer the water to the floe-edge. A huge mushroom
of ice, pale blue and of exquisite form, drifted alongside, and the young
male cub got on to it and it slowly turned over—how he swore and gnashed
at his rope; but what exquisite delicate colours, the bears, the ice,
and the reflections make. They are brother and sister; the brother is
the stronger and makes, if possible, more row than his sister in their
struggles for liberty. But he threatened his sister, thought it was all
her fault. He was swimming behind her and made a pretence at biting her;
she did not argue, simply turned, and in a second put her four white
teeth into his cheek and the yellow face flushed with blood and he said
no more. So they go on complaining together or alternately to us and to
all nature. Now the little woman goes on to the floe-edge blown, wheezing
and puffing—how she tugs violently at the rope, a faint primrose heap
of impotent anger and wretchedness spurning the white snow. “Bear” or
“Bé-waugh” in bear language must mean “Mother, why don’t you come to help
us?” The sea is red with poor mother from our scuppers. Her skin is off
her pathetic-looking red body, to decorate the boudoir of some lady of
Spain.
To condescend to the base commercial aspect of our hunting, a living
bear is undoubtedly of much greater value than a dead bear’s skin, yet I
believe our joy would emphatically be greater were our four live bears
dead, for apart from the natural fear of our lives, should either of the
larger couple get out, we have to endure their ghastly chorus at all
hours.
[Illustration: TOWING TWO BEAR CUBS TO THE “FONIX”]
[Illustration: CAPTIVE POLAR BEAR CUB CLIMBING ON TO A DRIFT ICE]
Hamilton, being nearest, perhaps suffers more than some of us; we try
to encourage him by pointing out the opportunity there is of developing
his taste for natural history, and the Seton-Thomson effect at a lecture
he might make with even a fair imitation of the language of these large
carnivoræ. He and I agree to differ about the qualities of our first two
bears. Because our Port bear was evidently interested in the very large
male bear which he shot, he thinks it is the biggest, strongest and
altogether the most perfect bear for a zoo, and because I lassoed the
Starboard bear, I naturally think its dimensions and spirit are superb,
and I point out that its three almost successful attempts for freedom are
proof of this. Yes, I still back “Starboard” for trouble. Hamilton says
Port bear has eaten through more wood than my Starboard bear. I think he
is wrong by an inch or two; at any rate my bear has required tons more
iron chain, and sacks of nails.
The drifted pine, which we found on the floe weeks ago, is all
used up for Starboard’s cage; he has torn through three plies of
one-and-a-half-inch battens, now over the remains he has chains, baulks
of the pine-tree and other bits of timber. At some places the wood is a
foot thick, and yet I still back him against the field to get out first.
Getting the bears on deck and into cages, even though they are just cubs
and a third of the size of Port and Starboard, was an interesting sight;
pathetic if you look at it in a way. Fancy the strength of these little
heroes that look about the size of a man. They took six men each and a
powerful steam-winch to overcome them. Fluff went the steam and up came
the kicking, roaring, yellow-white bundle of strength and teeth, with a
strop round its waist, and a line round its neck. Lower away! and the
winch reverses and the ice-bear comes down from the sky and is guided to
the open top of his cage by the line on his neck led through the lowest
bar of the front of his cage, and as he is lowered by the winch two men
haul on it, so his head is kept down and his mind occupied with the rope
on his neck; whilst other men rapidly nail on battens above his back,
then the rope to his neck is cut and he quickly rids himself of the
noose—brother and sister are side by side—or end on, in one cage, with a
partition between them....
Already they take seal blubber, and Gisbert has put a tin of preserved
milk into their drinking water. Their poor gums were bleeding with
efforts to chaw the wicked ropes that held them by the neck....
Four P.M. The children are now more quiet, one condescends to lick my
finger and has accepted several slices of fresh seal blubber, with every
manifestation of pleasure, and it carefully licks each paw afterwards,
toe by toe.
Now it is my watch for a bear, and I do not feel in the least inclined
for more bear, on the floe in orthodox style, or in the water style,
which Scoresby cautiously observes “presents a certain amount of safety.”
He studied in Edinburgh University. A belt of mist is down again to
westward and there is a fine fog bow; we are in the sun, but cannot
proceed, blindfolded, as it were. We might get into some cul-de-sac in
the floe ice.
Odd, is it not, that only a few minutes after writing expressions of
disinclination for bear I was working at a poor attempt to get effect
of a fog bow in water-colour, and someone shouted “Bear!” and I had to
dive for rifle and pistol, tumbled into the boat with four men and rowed
away into the sun’s glitter. Sure enough the bear was there, swimming
across from one tiny floe to another, so there was the chance in the
water recommended by Scoresby. We swung along at a good rate and I got
it, first shot, in the centre of the brain, at about twenty yards with
the pistol, which made up a little for the absence of a stalk. Great
was the joy of the men over the ·38 automatic and its deadly effect. To
anyone who has not had the excitement of shooting a sitting rabbit, I
would recommend polar bear shooting in the water: on a floe in difficult
ground there is a chance for the bear, a definite chance, and quite a
good chance too for the bear, if the hunter is a duffer. But of course,
as compared with rabbit-shooting, there is the difficulty of getting to a
floe with a bear on it, and you may be nipped in the ice, or you may die
of scurvy, so rabbit-shooting taking it all round may be safer.
One of the bears on board, the poor little female cub, was most touching,
when this pistolled bear was brought on board. She longed for a mother,
and tore at her cage to get out to this last bear, a female, but in no
time it was skinned and cut up to become our daily food, for we must eat
bear now three times a day, our fresh food from Trömso having gone bad
and tasteless some time ago.
The mist lifted in bands, and strips of colour came into the sky where
the sun ought to have set, but obstinately swung round high above the
horizon, and the sea became literally as calm as a mill-pond, and now all
the scraps of floe, separating in the stillness, are perfectly reflected.
One piece of ice in particular we notice against the vivid lavender with
deep bottle-green transparency when the midnight sun shines through it.
As we enjoyed the stillness and mystery of the rising mist, Hamilton
said he thought—no, he said he did see land; and we said, “Oh!” and
“Really!” and doubted, but it was!—a little hard point above the low bank
of mist on the horizon, and everyone got their glasses out and gradually
Greenland became more distinct—no doubt now, mountain-tops, heaven be
praised, hills again. We have only been about four weeks away from
land; still, that gives one a deep heart-longing for it. We had almost
made up our minds that we were not to see Greenland this year, possibly
never, but we have seen its mountains! Even supposing the floes close up
and gales come, and we are driven back, still, we have seen these icy
mountains we promised to see long ago. I wish there were several artists
here—there is beauty, delicacy and colour enough to keep all busy.
Possibly the colour and reflections, and the view of mountains appeal to
us on account of the many days we have spent in the misty plains of flat
ice floe. It will be difficult now to sleep with the thought of land and
rocks under foot, saxifrage, Arctic poppies, and possibly musk oxen, and
possibly even a mosquito or two, and ptarmigan, and possibly great walrus
on the land ice. I certainly greatly desire one splendid pair of walrus
tusks. That and a musk ox’s head and a narwhal’s horn will satisfy me.
I do not want a museum; still, there is always some small corner in a
house or studio where such things may be stowed to serve as reminders of
days in the open.
There is very fine ice forming on the still water; the surface looks as
if it had a scum of liquid like melted sugar in an imperceptible form of
ice. Other parts are covered with more developed ice-crystals. There is a
pleasant, soft, rustling sound, or hissing, as we go through it.
[Illustration]
We have a seal or two in view—a hooded-seal we have just got. Don Luis
Velasquez made a very pretty shot at its neck at a hundred yards. Now
there is a larger kind, a mile or two off in our line of route; Gisbert
will have a shot at it. This thin ice forming now is pleasant enough, but
the same formation, if we were here a little later, would make us anxious
to get out and off home before it got too strong.
There is really colouring in the sky this midnight, sun reflections,
salmon and pink—the first decidedly warm colours we have seen since
leaving Trömso. Some of the ice-blocks assume strange tints, one piece
with dark lilac pillars supporting the portal of a cave with three arched
entrances each fringed with icicles—inside a glory of greens and blues.
Did fairies live in this cold land, such should be their palace.
[Illustration]
To-day, 31st of July, in the early morning, we got to within a few
miles of Shannon Island, North-East Greenland, and could see the snowy
lomonds behind it. Though the land is almost entirely snow-clad, it
looks comforting after a month at sea. But the pack ice is too jammed
to the west to allow us to land, so we steer slowly south, winding in
and out amongst the ice-islands, sometimes shoving a small one aside. We
picked up a big seal this morning, a bearded seal, P. Barbata; it is the
biggest seal of the Arctic. Still steering southerly, Greenland faint
to the westward, with glasses we see fiords and glaciers. Sky and sea
silky and still, the only sound the faint pulsation of our little engine.
It is hot in the sun! I can hardly believe it, and yet huge icicles
are forming round the edges of the ice-tables. The endless floes grow
wearisome. There is too little life. There are only a few seals, only a
few sea-birds and not a sign of a whale. The pensive sunlit stillness of
the day and the mirror-like surface of the ocean were scarcely disturbed
this afternoon by the slaughter of two great blue seals. The largest
showed that a bear had lately paid it attention, by the cuts on its
enormous body. It weighed on the steelyard three hundred kilos, equal to
six hundred and sixty-seven pounds; about the weight of four policemen. A
big bear with one paw can lift such a seal out of the water and throw it
several yards on to the floe. The blue seal is rather like the Barbata or
bearded seal, excepting the colour of its coat, which is more brown than
the blue seal’s. Each has a very small head in proportion to the bulk of
the body, both have only rudimentary teeth, they eat crabs and seaweed.
Whether the teeth are provided for the purpose or whether the seal is
restricted to such small fry because it has such poor teeth, is perhaps
a matter which would be best discussed at the Royal Physical Society in
Edinburgh or London after lunch.
[Illustration: Phoca Barbata]
It may seem discontented, but I must confess this prolonged fine weather
(we have had seventy-two hours of the same white sunlight) begins to get
a little on our nerves. Nature here is so extremely mathematically laid
out. The sea is polished to a high point, all the little cloudlets are
arranged in such order that ribbed sea-sand would be quite irregular in
comparison. So of course you have these cloudlets, level bands of pale
blue and some faint yellows, all repeated in the mirror. Very high-toned
delicate colour, but, if I may criticise, just a little sickly. I think
with the advance of years one does not find these extremely delicate
harmonies quite satisfying, one rather longs for ruddy, tawny colours and
tropic blues in their deepest notes.
It is so calm, so stagnant, if I may say so, that our thin brown smoke
hangs in wisps where we left it many hours ago. And yet for all the
smoothness and polish there is an untidy aspect, for there are little
and great bits of ice floating all over the place. There being no wind,
little scraps of ice and big bits get all separated, and each takes up a
bit of sea to itself. When there is any wind these pieces herd or pack
together. We trust that the ice along the shore may soon follow this
example, for it is only pack ice, not the fixed shore ice of winter. We
hope it will disperse in a day or two and let us inshore to see “the
saxifrage and poppies.”
With the glass we frequently look at the faint far-away mountains and
glaciers. A little while ago I thought in the silence I heard a shot
from away over there, thirty or twenty-five miles off—no, it must have
been a glacier cracking, a berg calving, perhaps. That sound carries in
such weather a tremendous distance, and so too does the wave made in the
sea by the ice-cliffs falling.
Vessels lying in calm several miles away from such glaciers have been
nearly swamped with the wave raised by a calving berg.
The evenings are now, on the 1st of August, just distinguishable from
the day by a little increase of yellow in the sky and pink on the snow.
To-night the sea froze over with a thin coat of ice and we go rustling
through it.
Later, about twelve o’clock, we were in an open lane, between floes and
no thin ice, where a family of narwhals seemed to be working for their
living. So we lowered a whale-boat as quietly as possible and rowed
gently after them, and as usual, just as we got, say, to within forty
yards, and held the harpoon aimed ready to drive it into the biggest
bull, say at twenty yards, for they show very little above water, they
quietly slipped under for other ten or twenty minutes, and then appeared
several hundred yards away. With modern big harpoon-gun from the bow of
the small whaling steamer, we can harpoon from thirty to forty yards, but
in shooting from the bow of small boat close to water’s level the range
is more limited. We tried waiting, following, and circumvention, and when
we tried to cut across their course, one of them broke water actually
between the oar blades and the boat and made a great swirl; and evidently
this too close contact scared the family party, and they all disappeared,
and we went on board, still hopeful, however, for three times at least we
had been within a second, or say two yards, of our chance of securing a
great white ivory horn.
... Our patience was tried again and the writer’s was found wanting. I
had turned in and heard the boat being lowered away, and let a crew go
without me, and never heard them come back, though there must have been
thunderous treading of sea-boots on deck a foot above my head, ropes
falling and blocks rattling—you can sleep soundly here when you get the
chance.
But C. A. H. complains that he cannot, for, poor man, the two new bear
cubs are almost touching his bunk, and their scrape, if not very loud,
is pretty constant, and bear perfume permeates his cabin even more than
the rest of the ship. But praise be, there is a light breeze to-day
from landward. I have not yet observed any scent of saxifrage or Arctic
poppies, but it has freshened the too still atmosphere and we hope it
will help to open up the land pack and let us land for musk oxen.
[Illustration: PAZE]
[Illustration: EL CATHARO VALIENTE
NOTE.—For description of above drawings see pp. 274-275.]
[Illustration: SHOWS CAPTIVE BEAR CUBS, BROTHER AND SISTER, AND ICE
BEGINNING TO FORM ON THE SEA WATER]
Our starboard bear raised Cain! almost all the wood of his cage is chawed
up, so round the inside of the remainder we have hung heavy iron furnace
bars and other round bars, holding the furnace bars more or less in
position, there are ropes, chains and wire round all—a horrible sight,
for the poor fellow inside, with all his struggles and the black of the
furnace bars, is quite black, and he has lost a lot of hair. I would give
a good deal to see him free again and over the side. But I pray heaven he
does not settle his account with me before he goes for having roped him
into his present sad condition. I believe it was the noise of the fight
he put up that awakened me this morning, at least what I heard made me
look out, and sure enough there were six men struggling with crowbars,
hammers, axes, etc., etc., and then poor Bruin’s black head appeared
between timbers and nails for a moment, till he was again closed up. It
would take a couple of months of the ice and snow to clean his coat again.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
In the afternoon—now he is almost quiet, for when he tries to claw at the
wood through the cast-iron bars they fall back into place again, and he
cannot eat iron! So he is thinking now which is the weak point; in a day
or two he will attack it. I am very sorry for him, now he is quiet and a
little red shows where he has been scratched. I can imagine, like the old
Scottish fighting Admiral Barton, that he murmurs:
“A little I’m hurt but not yet slain,
I’ll but lie down and bluid a while
And then I’ll rise and ficht again.”
[Illustration]
A mist came over the scene this afternoon, with light shining through,
but enough to stop us making progress, even should the ice-pack allow us.
So we moor fore and aft alongside a small floe and set to work with pails
to fill our fresh-water tanks from the three blue pools on it, pale blue
flushed with lilac, cobalt round the rim of each. We stroll on the hard
snow, stuff like coarse salt laid down on a blue translucent carpet, and
play the pipes, and play with Chee Chee, the ship’s pet. The only game
she does not like is being lassoed. Finding a mit hidden in the snow
suits her, and a great many other games taught by various instructors.
Our youngest Spanish señor ventured to row away from the ship a little
this morning, and this the youngest Don Luis Herrero told me a fine
yarn about how he had come on a splendid saddle-seal unexpectedly—that
is a dappled brown and white kind we have not got as yet; he described
it vividly as seen from five yards. Gisbert at lunch told me it was
a make-up, therefore the writer tried to pull his leg in return by
illustrating his pretended encounter with the famous seal as per marginal
notes. (See p. 272-273.)
You may not think it, but such a small attempt at an amusing drawing
caused laughter on board. You see a little joke goes a long way in the
ice-pack, as for instance the drawing below.
The only mild excitement to-day, 2nd August, was a boat expedition,
with los señores, two rifles in the bow, and two pairs of oars, against
a large harp-seal, with a splendid white skin and large black spots,
suggestive of an A1 carriage-rug. Fire opened at a hundred yards (the
first shot was accidental), but several struck the water quite close and
in front of the seal, which made it take up a very indignant attitude,
and for an instant it seemed to hesitate as if it thought a retreat on to
the floe would be its safest course. But a bullet finally hit it in the
back and it acted on its first intention and dived off the floe. The two
Don Josés were rather disconsolate, for certainly it had a very beautiful
skin. We hoped to get quite a lot of these large harp-seal skins and
their blubber to fill our casks.
The harp blows his nose up in a remarkable way, so hard that it inflates
the fore part of its head. Naturalists assure us that, like the shark’s
fin, this has an awe-inspiring effect on their opponents. We accept
this cum grano salis. This is what I remember of the harp’s attitude
and expression (1) before he was actually fired at, (2) its attitude
of astonishment, and we may call the next his adieu. These designs are
executed, you observe, with a certain chaste economy of lines. (See p.
274.)
[Illustration: An Incident from “Bearing Straights.”]
CHAPTER XXXIII
Finding no whales and being unable to get on to Greenland, for some
twenty miles of ice now separate us from its shore, we decide to turn
back.
Right about wheel then, for we are sick of eternal flat ice-floes. If we
had a new boiler, new coal supply, new food supply and unlimited time, we
would hang on. The ice may open in ten or twelve days, but we arranged
to finish our hunting, if possible, at Trömso, Norway, about the middle
of August. So we have just time and no more to get there by that time,
granted there is fine weather and little fog.
But as I write, seven P.M., we are again into a fog bank and have to
tie up to a floe. It is thin fog, and sun shines through it and we hope
it will lift. So it is good-bye to our chances of whales, musk oxen, or
walrus, for walrus we can only get along the coast in shallow soundings.
One whale, and that only a narwhal, is our poor basket. We must console
ourselves with having got a fair number of bears in the time—seventeen in
the month, one narwhal and a lot of seals. It will not pay, but we may
yet get bottle-nose down about Jan Mayen Island, if the drift takes us
southerly in that direction before we get out of the ice easterly.
Perhaps I may here be allowed to put down some notes on the protective
coloration of the Arctic fauna.
Evening of the 2nd August. We thought we were in for another bear this
evening, because a young man on watch probably mistook a piece of yellow
ice for a bear, and we went back on our tracks, but found no bear. We
hunted round the floe on which he vowed he had seen it, but did not find
even spoor, so I fear his cry of “Wolf” will not be listened to for many
a day. Naturalists tell us that the yellowish tint of the bear’s skin is
given to it by Nature to allow the bear to secure its prey, the seal—that
the seal is green enough to mistake the bear’s skin for a piece of yellow
ice, and thus the fittest survives. As these yellow pieces of ice are
few and far between, and as there are far more pieces of blue ice, and as
the predominating colour of the snow is white, I’d have painted the bear
blue and white if I had been Nature, with only a touch perhaps of yellow
here and there.
Naturalists have also told me that whilst waiting for a seal at its
breathing-hole in the ice, the bear covers its nose with its paws to
prevent the seal seeing the conspicuous black of its nostrils. I should
think myself this is to keep his hands warm. Five black claws on each
foot must be as conspicuous to the seal as the black nose. Again,
sometimes a bear covers itself completely with snow, all but its nose!
This allows man in his turn to have a chance of proving himself to be
the fittest. A case in point was when two men I know up here encountered
a bear. It took careful stock of them and did not like their protective
smell or the checks of their tweeds, so it did not immediately attempt
to eat them (possibly it was not hungry), but it retired, as it thought,
out of sight, and with a few grand sweeps of its great forearms and
hands covered itself up with snow, only leaving its black nose exposed.
But for this wonderful foresight on the part of Nature in making the
bear’s nose black, the order of evolution might have been reversed. Man
strolling along and seeing nothing but white snow might have slipped
out of existence in the warm embrace of Ursus Maritimus. The protective
coloration of the black nose, from the man’s point of view, surely proved
that Nature originally intended the bear to be cooked with onions for our
dinner.
When they spotted the black nose, the two men proceeded to guess in which
direction lay the neck and body. (I think only an artist who has studied
the drawing of a bear’s nose and head could have told for certain.) So
when they did hit it in the neck, it must have been rather a fluke! It
was a fighting bear, and came out of the eruption of snow with fearful
roars, and in a great hurry, for a bear. But Nature insisted on the
evolution and survival of the higher species and wiped out the bear with
two 475 decimal bullets, nickel covered, and added, very incidentally,
vermilion to the general colour scheme of the floe, tempting one to drag
in the trite quotation: “Nature red of tooth and claw.”
We are inclined to dwell at some length on the theory of the protective
coloration of the fauna of the Arctic and the Antarctic regions. For in
these frost-bound portions of our sphere there is frequently so much
fog, or nebulous condition of the atmosphere, of such density that the
naturalist observer is compelled either to evolve theories or play cards.
Another of the carnivoræ of these high latitudes, _Vulpes lagopus_ or
Arctic fox, has also by Nature been given a remarkable skin as protective
colouring of perfect whiteness (value to-day about £12). Beyond doubt,
as with the bear, this resemblance of the colour of this skin to the
surroundings is in order to allow the fox to secure its prey—namely, the
_Lagopus hemilencurus_ or Arctic grouse, of which it is particularly
fond, as also of the _Lagopus glacialis_ or white hare of the polar
Arctic regions.
Now, seeing that the fox is singularly gifted with cunning, a fact which
has been universally admitted by naturalists of all times, Nature,
to prevent the complete extinction of the smaller fauna, such as the
hare, which has neither wings to fly with nor fins to swim with, has
also gifted the hare with a white coat, and so the balance of Nature is
preserved. In the case of this _Lagopus hemilencurus_ or Arctic grouse,
which, unlike the fox or bear, is unprovided with teeth with which to
protect itself, Nature, with its unstinted bounty, has provided it with
lateral appendages, one on either side, with which it is enabled to fly;
thus it has, besides its protective coloration, another means by which
it can escape its natural enemy, so the preservation of the less cunning
but more edible species is preserved. We might perhaps have thought that,
being provided with wings with which to take flight, the protective
coloration for this bird would have been unnecessary, but we must
remember that the fogs of these high latitudes, which have already been
alluded to as affecting the actions of the higher animal _homo_, put this
bird to a disadvantage. For it has been stated (the writer need hardly
quote his authority here) the nebulous conditions referred to in these
high latitudes are sometimes of such density that they may actually
prevent this bird from seeking safety in flight. This being so, we can
the more readily understand the necessity of the protective coloration
for this succulent bird.
As an example of how very thick such a fog can be up here, it is related
by an explorer (an American, I believe) that the men on watch on a
certain occasion on his vessel were sitting on the bulwarks smoking their
pipes and were leaning against the mist, when suddenly it rose and they
all fell backwards into the sea.
What may seem unaccountable when you consider the bear’s protective
coloration is that seals of various kinds in the Arctic regions should
have apparently no protective colouring. Whilst lying on the ice beside
their holes they form quite conspicuous objects, even at a distance of a
mile on a clear day, and less if it is foggy or on a dark night. But the
reason for this apparent contradiction is not far to find; for, as we
have already explained, owing to the colour of the bear’s coat being of
a yellowish tint and occasional pieces of ice being also of a yellowish
tint, with a far-away resemblance to the bear’s coat, the seal takes the
bear for a lump of ice walking, so Nature here has stepped in and said to
the seal: “If you are such a silly fool as to mistake a bear for a piece
of yellow ice, why, have a dark brown coat and be blowed to you,” so
everyone is pleased—and so on.
The bear, or supposed bear, of last night, interrupted a quiet, misty
evening we were spending alongside a small floe of a quarter of a mile
in diameter of hard, smooth, frosted ice. Our men were occupied drawing
fresh water from the blue pools. Eastward lay mist, north and west a pale
orange band just showed beyond the violet-coloured floes and soft grey
sky, just the quiet effect for decoration of a silk fan.
On the smooth floe we held various sports, tossing the caber, for
example, the caber being the remains of the pine-tree we found on a floe
as we came north. Also we had fencing. As there was rather a pretty small
blue iceberg alongside, C. A. H. got his camera and photographed the two
champions. The too-strong she-cook went a walk with Chee Chee; a little
trot, rather; she must weigh about two hundred pounds, but she rather
trips than walks. I wonder what a bear will think of her if he meets her.
She is broad and deep-chested, with round red cheeks, and has a gentle
voice and a gurgling laugh any time in the twenty-four hours of daylight.
There was also a little pipe-playing, so the smooth floe with the blue
pool was quite lively, till the call came to bear arms! Then everyone
but Chee Chee came on board, and it stood alone, with all hands saying
endearing things to make it come on board. Whether it was my seizing the
lasso, the sight of which it hates, or one of the men circumventing it,
I would not like to say, but from one reason or the other it came with a
sudden bolt—I think the lasso did it!
[Illustration]
I nearly forgot to put our Spanish friends into the picture; here they
are, there is just room, right-hand top corner, hilariously shooting
skuas, those robber birds. The señors are jolly the clock round; what a
fallacy that is, about “solemn as a Spanish Don.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
There being still mist this morning our budget of news can only be
described as strictly Local, for we can only see over a few yards of
floe and rippling sea. Three hooded-seals appeared astern just now,
as I went out for a breath after completing the aforesaid masterpiece
of the floe-edge scene. They went off with a splash, as if alarmed at
finding themselves near us, and then they came up again and took stock
of us at about two hundred yards. We could not see them well, so we did
not shoot. What we may call Home news, is of our cubs forward. William
the (comparatively) Silent worked through his floor, and it had to
be renewed. We call his sister Christabel, for she bit her brother’s
face without any reason; but it is rather unfair calling her so, for
he certainly threatened her—thought she caused all the troubles he had
had in his short life. She refuses to have water. Even when we pull out
her water-trough she violently draws it in again and upsets the water.
She has strength! I think she will be a great catch in a zoo, where her
pretty ways could be studied behind bars with safety. The old Starboard
bear is now mastering the material iron; teeth, he has learned, are no
use, so he is applying brain. He eats sugar from our fingers, and would
eat hand and arm with half a chance. I begin to sympathise with him in
regard to confined quarters; even the wide space we have of about three
square yards of deck, in which to have our exercise, feels confined after
about five weeks’ time.
I forget what we did or did not do in the morning of Sunday, 3rd August.
I expect, the same as usual. There is thin mist, with sun shining
through, an unhealthy mouldy morning, and we have a feeling as if we had
had bad champagne the night before—a slight nasal catarrh, and a little
sneezing going on amongst your neighbours and several complaints of
rheumatism, cuts, and boils.
I have always heard the Arctic likened to atmospheric champagne, where
men’s spirits are said to be high and colds exist not. Well, all I can
say is that in this particular vessel in these latitudes (there again,
there’s someone else sneezing) there are many such complaints, and
smells! Hamilton says “The look of the sea suggests a smell.” It suggests
to me London on a November morning. Sea and air are so stagnant and cold,
you could lean against the icy smell of our bears or kitchen, and a cigar
whiff almost strikes you.
When the sun got up we steered away east and south—a hundred and forty
miles we have yet to go, to get out of ice into the open sea, “the rough
highway to freedom and to peace,” as Morris puts in his Jason, and all
day we passed down lanes and lakes and across belts of deadly still water
between floes of flat ice, with few and small hummocks. And seals became
plentiful. As far as the eye could reach, occasional black marks could be
seen on the floe and little black bullet-heads appeared in calm water at
the floe-edge, and some of them came and examined us from thirty or forty
yards as we passed, for an instant, and dashed under water again, leaving
a swirl like the rise of a ten-pound trout.
[Illustration]
Yes, I think that was the whole day’s programme, excepting an alarm for
bottle-nose whale. That came in the middle of _aften-mad_, seven or eight
P.M., and we hastily loaded our two bow harpoon-guns, and got all ready
and waited and watched, but the bottle-nose did not appear again. In
several books on whales I see very misleading drawings of the bottle-nose
whale, _Hyperoodon diodon_. This one is taken from notes of these whales
in various seas, alive and dead.
We were about to lay ourselves down to rest when a shout that a bear was
in sight came from the mast-head, and all of us became very much alive.
It was on a floe a mile off, and the floe was peppered with seals, and
it lay on its back and turned up the black soles of its feet and rolled
about, apparently quite pleased with its own company, and indifferent to
the seals.
A remarkable thing happened when our little body of hunters set out
after it—the seals lay on the ice, without popping into their holes,
also other seals came alongside to within ten yards or so of the Fonix.
It looked as if they knew that we were men bear-hunting. This struck me
as odd up here. Of course in the Antarctic there would have been nothing
remarkable; and Gisbert, who has been in Arctic ice scores of times, also
thought it unaccountable, unless it was actually the case that the seals
knew that we were in pursuit of their enemy.
Still another thing extraordinary happened—we were watching the great
old fellow stretching himself, and all his movements through the glass,
noting his colour, light warm yellow, lighter than the violet of the
floe in shadow! when he raised his black nose and face and went off
at a walk to the left. I am sure he had not seen our guns or smelt
them, it must have been that extra sense which the black bear also
possesses—instinctive knowledge of a presence. Soon he came to a place
where two of our men were visible to him and then, Hamilton tells me, he
went off at a gallop! A great big male bear! It is a rare thing to see a
bear gallop, I just missed doing so—took my glass off to make a note in
colour, and he had got to a walk again when I put my glass on again. He
made off fast to the left, where the floe ended, and about half-a-mile
of calm sea and small bits of floe separated it from the next floe. This
manœuvre left the two guns and the men far behind, so, to prevent his
escape, we lifted our ice-anchor off the floe and steamed away to cut
him off, and we got between him and the next floe when he was about a
hundred yards from it, and so turned him back—a great big fellow swimming
strongly, making a dark green wake behind him across the smooth bronze
colour of the water—his last swim up the golden track of the midnight
sun. Poor old man, the orange rays touched his pale face, and he looked
anxious. I think the seals knew he was in difficulty, for several swam
quite close to him, their natural foe. We dropped a boat for the guns on
the floe and they soon came up and opened fire at about twenty yards, and
by-and-by a well-aimed shot hit in the neck. It is a male bear of great
size—what an ignominious ending! But if you only think of the killing
part, what hunting could be called sport? After all, it took Man much
work to circumvent this ice bear—a ship built for ice work, then the
engine, coaling and provisions for a year, and several weeks’ navigation
amongst the risks of sea and ice combined. He weighed eight pounds short
of a thousand, stood on his heels from nose or eye nine feet two inches.
He bore two old wound marks on his body, possibly made by Eskimos; we
wonder if it was the memory of them made him go off so quickly; possibly
it was only hunger and thoughts of dinner that at first disturbed him,
for he had only a little seal’s skin inside him.
It was the first time I had seen a bear look lighter in tone than the
background; the sun being at a low angle, the undulating surface of floe
was all lilac and tints of pale green, and yellow, and only the raised
hummock and projections and the bear itself caught the golden light. The
shadows on the bear’s body were comparatively dark green. So many people
paint bears, and so few people see them in their natural surroundings
that these colour notes may be pardoned.
From one A.M. to five-thirty P.M. I heard at intervals in my sleep my
Spanish friends fighting the battle over again, and occasional shots at
seals. Their vitality is extraordinary (the Spaniards); they can talk
for hours and hours without evincing the least sign of fatigue, whilst
we poor northerners are creatures of habit and feel ready for bed after
eighteen or twenty hours’ hunting; and we get tired of talking in a
fraction of the time they spend yarning.
They are rather bull-ring enthusiasts and back their bulls against any
bear. Gisbert plans capturing one of these full-grown wild bears that are
never seen in captivity and taking it to Madrid—more easily done than the
reader would at first think, but it would be real sailor’s work. First
of all you would find your big bear on a floe, which you could sail
round—easily enough done—and by one means or another get him to take to
the water, also easily done. Then follow him in two boats, each would
throw a lasso over his head, when the interest would begin. Whilst number
one boat hauled taut he would probably roll over and thrash with his
paws, then number two boat, with loop still fast to his neck, would throw
a hitch over a foot, and so haul the foot to his neck, and so on with
the other fore foot and hind feet; his head would then sink and hitches
could be cast all over him, till, like a fly in spider’s web, he would
be helpless. Then the big strop round him and a strong winch chain, a
hold lined with iron plates and you would have such a bear as has never
been seen in captivity, a floe-bred bear, say twenty years old, of huge
dimensions. Gisbert, who knows all about bears as well as about bulls,
backs the bear in the ring; so do I. Its four enormous limbs, each with
a hand and claws on them, a neck and head and teeth of enormous power,
all told three times the weight of a bull, and combined with cat-like
activity and quickness of eye. Possibly next year this may come off and
Hamilton and I will go down to Madrid and make a book, for all Spain
would give any odds on their bull. In Madrid an elephant was pitted
against a heroic bull; the bull at once charged and prodded the elephant,
which annoyed it so that it swung round and broke the bull’s back with
a swipe of its trunk. But a lion or black bear and a tiger the bull has
easily mastered. A lion stood the charge and was lifted clean into the
air and came down and bolted inside out with its tail between its legs.
A tiger ignominiously fled, chivied by the bull all round the ring. So
Madrid people are prepared to lay their shirts against any polar bears,
or anything under the sun; they are in honour bound to do so.
The bears they have seen in European zoological gardens have been brought
as cubs, or at oldest were two years old, when they left their native
floes, and are narrow chested and have narrow hips. Wait till they see
the enormous proportions of chest and hind-quarters of a full-grown
fellow that has lived, say, twenty to forty years, up north, with
boundless liberty, on full rations!
Hamilton backs the bear to take a picador and horse under each arm, and
the bull in his teeth, and our young Spaniards are a little offended
at the picture, mais nous verrons, perhaps as soon as next year, if De
Gisbert comes north hunting another season before the Spanish Government
expedition starts.
We continue to make our way towards the edge of the ice through the mist,
till we come to quite an open space of several miles in width, where the
slight roll from south-west tells us of the open sea to come, and we talk
of our hopes of a smooth crossing to the north of Norway. The Dons make
preparation for retirement, and divide their beer, apples and chocolate,
kindly offering us a share. With great forethought they have preserved
these provisions against the expected confinement. But I trust it may be
sunny and smooth, for their sake.
This day, the 5th of August, it is really hot in the sun, and there is a
light air behind us, and there is only a very long, almost imperceptible
swell—the sea silky blue, with delicate ripples, and the pans of floe ice
are moving visibly, slightly dipping and rising, and the blue sea swells
green over their white, as they rise, and hundreds of little streams run
off them like icicles. “This end of the garden” is to-day very fresh and
delicious, and after all these weeks of fog and nasty weather we hang
up our bodies, as it were, to dry, and lay out our souls to the sun and
thank the Creator for life. Life in a fog in the Arctic in the part where
we have been is small beer, it is impossible to be truly thankful for the
permanent possibility of sensation.
CHAPTER XXXV
After several weeks’ trying to get through the ice we failed to get
ashore, owing to there being twenty to sixty miles of fixed land ice, and
now have worked our way back eastward through three hundred miles of pack
and floe ice. By luck we might have found part of the coast free of ice,
or only a few miles of it, but apparently, instead of this drifting south
and giving some rain to the British Isles, southerly and easterly winds
have held back the South Polar ice-drift. Eight to ten miles off the
coast of Shannon Island, on the north-east of Greenland, was as far west
as we could press; other navigators have taken almost the same course
and have found as little as only fifteen miles of ice to shove through
between Norway and Greenland.
Yesterday we got the open sea and swell and now, as I write, we have come
in contact with ice from north of Spitzbergen, and the ice from Siberia
coming round north and south of Spitzbergen, and it is so plentiful that
we are obliged to go north-east to find an opening easterly.
All afternoon we have been trying to find an opening and till six or
seven could not see a way through, and ice coming from north jammed us
considerably, but it was light pack, not more than four or five deep, so
our ship, little as it is, was able to hold her own. You could by its
thin and flat appearance at once distinguish the Spitzbergen ice from
older, heavier polar ice, which we just left to the west.
Now, at seven in the evening, we have struggled through, and are leaving
all Arctic ice behind. The pieces get smaller and smaller as we approach
the open sea, till at the sea-edge there is only a margin of, say, a mile
or so, studded with small pieces a few feet wide, and then again there
is a further margin still smaller, remnants that were once hummocks or
even parts of some iceberg. Then even these faint sentinels of the Arctic
fade away behind us in a pale line, and we are free and in a handsome,
rolling, free-born, deep-sea true-blue ocean swell. Everyone is pleased.
One is bound to admit that at any time in the ice there is, especially
to one who knows about it, an indefinable sense of strain. This strain,
slight as it is, expresses itself in our crowd. De Gisbert is playing
“The Cock o’ the North” on the mouth melodeon, with great go; the writer
has just adapted the old sea chantey to the bagpipes, “What shall we do
with a Drunken Sailor,” and a violent desire to excel at lasso-throwing
has seized Archie, and so on.
Even our home, lately so sedate and dignified and restrained in its
movements in amongst the ice, has taken a jolly seaman-like lurch and
roll. The crow’s nest and mast, shining in the sun, go swinging to and
fro across the sky—now she puts her nose down into the blue, pleasantly,
and rises and our old level horizon of the ice days is away below us
as our bows point to the skies—right and left we roll and we swing her
south-east, for habitable land, for Trömso and Trondhjem and green trees
growing and new fresh food; for even a few months in the ice with food
getting rather stale makes us hanker a little after a new kitchen. We
are tired of eating bear and of looking at their legs, which adorn our
shrouds, great red-black limbs that we see all day swinging against the
sky and eat slices of at every meal. Eating and seeing dead bear and
hearing and smelling the living captives twenty-four hours of the day is
too much of a good thing, so this is why we hanker after a new kitchen.
I dislike a storm at sea, but I do confess I love the sea when it is
smooth and blue, and it soothes you with a long gentle roll such as we
have to-day.
[Illustration: OUR LAST GLIMPSE OF THE ICE]
It looks as if we were to have a smooth crossing to Norway, still the
fiddles must come down from our cabin walls and again grace our little
table. For in a small boat such as ours every yachtsman knows that they
are inevitable whilst deep-sea sailing. Gisbert cleans his rifle and the
fiddles are on the table! so we are really done with the Arctic in the
meantime. He and I each used our rifles an hour or two ago in the ice.
No one knew who was to shoot at a seal on a floe that possessed a coat
we all envied; we were rapidly passing, so someone had to shoot and
that quickly, so Gisbert and I dived for our respective rifles, and each
loaded at the same instant and each fired as we swung past at eighty
yards, and each within the hundredth part of a second, and each hit the
seal in the middle. Neither of us knows which was the vital shot. We
shoved the ship’s head against the floe and a man clambered over the
bow and made a lasso fast to the seal. It seems a small matter to pot a
seal on an ice-floe, but I would give many pounds, shillings and pence
to be able to pass on the beauty of the colouring of that chunk of ice
and green and lilac reflections in the purple sea, the silvery grey of
the seal sparkling in the sunlight on the snow, and the reflected white
light on the pink face of the man who jumped on to the ice to bring it
aboard. The Prophet, we call him, a typical Norseman, with blue eyes,
bushy yellow eyebrows, yellow hair and a kindly expression—he may be
thirty years old, he might be a thousand—he is a type. His prophecies
almost always come true. “It will be better before it is worse.” “We will
get another bear before Gisbert cleans his rifle,” and so on. Remarks
such as above are more interesting in his broken English—our steward’s
broken English this morning almost rose to the level of punning. Archie
Hamilton asked him sympathetically how he had slept—Archie, Gisbert and
the steward all sleep in the fore part of the deck-house, and the bears
are just outside. Gisbert snores, and the steward coughs alarmingly, and
the bear shouts, so Archie says he has not slept a wink for nights. “Nay,
nay,” said Pedersen, “no mans can sleep, der is Gisbare, he go snore,
snore, und dem fordumna ice-bears dey go roar, roar, all de nights—no man
can sleep noddings!”
[Illustration]
At night we are in the open sea, rolling south-east, and try to hit off
the north of Norway somewhere. The sun almost sets now, there is at any
rate the warm glow of sunset, it pours into our two cabin ports from the
north, making two golden discs wave up and down on the white walls that
look quite green in contrast.
The guitar is mended, the glue gave way with the fog in the ice and the
heat of the stove combined. So again we have music, Gisbert the principal
performer, the writer causing some surprise at his remembering part of a
Spanish love song picked up in Southern Spain. Gisbert sings a number of
these queer folk-songs, with their strange airs and unexpected intervals
and the beat of Africa in the heart of them.
[Music]
I insert the scrap referred to above. It is not everyone who cares for
this minor music, but it draws tears to a Spaniard’s eyes; and it appeals
to the writer, inexplicably, for we have no music like it in our country.
The words amount to this: that in love, the eyes are as eloquent as the
lips.
We have to play and hum tunes to keep our minds off the deep sea roll,
that after the stillness of the ice comes as almost too much of a good
thing.
CHAPTER XXXVI
To-day it is almost rough, a fresh north-east breeze, and as our little
ship rolls far and often in a swell, or anything like a sea, strong men
turn pale and say they feel a little tired and will go and lie down.
Killers appeared at _middag-mad_, and but for the excusable lassitude
of our party we might have tried for one, even though it is a little
rough for accurate harpooning. Their great black fins, “gaff-topsails,”
sailor-men call them, cut through the water with a spirt of foam like
a destroyer’s bow. Some say they use their dorsal fin as a weapon
with which to attack large whales from underneath (Balænoptera and
Mysticetus), but I do not believe this, for it is not sufficiently firm
to do harm.
Some have higher fins than others. I feel afraid to mention the length
I have seen them myself, or to quote the height another observer has
given to me; but I think we may say eight feet and be well on the safe
side. Others are only about two or three feet. In the Antarctic ice I
have often seen them going along the edge of a floe, and our men stated
that with this fin they pulled the seals off the edge of the ice into the
water, but verily I do not believe them. The same men vowed that the Cape
pigeon, which they saw for the first time in their lives, a chequered
black and white petrel (_Daption capensis_), was a cuckoo. They were
quite sure of this, for one of these Dundonian whalers had once spent a
summer on shore and had seen a cuckoo! That was in the memorable year
when he saw ripe corn for the first time.
Another excuse we make to ourselves for not pursuing these whales is
that they do not have very much blubber; still, if we fall in with them
again in little quieter water when we all feel fit, we may take some.
When you get fast to one of these killers the others hang round till
their companion is quite dead, much as sperm whales do, and even try
to help their harpooned friend to freedom by giving him a shoulder on
either side. Bottle-nose whales do the same, so when you get one on a
line you run it till you secure some of the others. Big finners generally
bolt in a great hurry and leave their harpooned relatives to look after
themselves, excepting young finners in apron-strings, which will also
hang round the parent.
Dr W. S. Bruce told me that when he was on H.S.H. the Prince of Monaco’s
yacht with a boat’s crew they tackled one of these killers, and the
unwounded killers came so close to the boat they could touch them with
their hands. What must have been most interesting and instructive was the
fact that the skipper who did the harpooning had been a Peterhead whaler
and he knew all the expressions appropriate to the first rush of a whale
in four languages—Scots, English, French and Italian—and he used them
all. These killers run to twenty or thirty feet. With really big whales,
heavy harpoon, big gun and huge lines, the whole business is so gigantic
and awe-inspiring that men are silent, breathlessly so! But with lighter
tackle somehow or other there is usually a good deal of small talk. This
killer thrasher grampus or Orca gladiator, Tyrannus balænarum, has great
teeth and eats whales piecemeal, porpoise, seals, and, some say, his own
kind.
An accepted Danish authority, Eschricht, declared he opened a killer, and
it contained the remains of no less than thirteen porpoises and fourteen
seals. Personally, I do not understand how, even with two stomachs, a
thirty-foot grampus could hold such a lot, unless they were very small
specimens. The reader may not be aware that many whales have two or
more stomachs, like ruminants, but whether they rechew their food is
doubtful. The immobility of the tongue, and in some species the absence
of teeth, is supposed to make this improbable, but to the writer this
immobility of the tongue is not proved; it seems to be a great purple
pillow covered with innumerable nerve points which might readily break up
the small shrimps on the rough, mat-like surface of the whalebone palate.
If they ruminate, and that under water for hours at a time, it would
account for the way they sometimes appear all at once in numbers and feed
voraciously, and then vanish for hours.
I have made a picture of a pack of rather small killers attacking a
finner whale, an incident I observed in the southern ice from the
distance of two or three yards. They pursued the large whale like a pack
of black and white hounds, but neither whale nor hounds made a sound that
I could hear.
Dr Frangius, however, in his “Treatise of Animals,” says that when an
orca pursues “a whale” the latter makes a terrible bellowing, like a bull
when bitten by a dog. I wonder what kind of whale he refers to, for I
have seen a number of finner whales being attacked by orcas and have not
heard any bellowing, except the narwhal, whose groan is certainly like a
subdued bellow of a cow.
Yesterday we had wind, and the sky that portended wind if any sky does.
When you have this sky it is almost safe to prophesy wind—say three days
of it—this is our second day.
We make one mile an hour forward. We are a hundred miles off Norway
and hoped to be in soundings fishing cod at two A.M. to-morrow on the
coast. But here we are plugging almost at the same hole, our poor wee
ship throbbing with the strain. We carried away our mainsail yesterday—a
thing to make a yachtsman weep; still, after all, it was a sail, and
even one sail on a steamer gives dignity. Don Luis Herrero in the lee
alley-way just cleared the halyard block. Had he not been very quick in
his movements, as many Spaniards are, he would have been a dead man.
Starboard bear broke half out; that is nothing new. William has learned
the mandolin, he has a piece of wood in his cage, one side of which is
crossed horizontally with stout wire, and with the wood, holding it
in his teeth, he scrapes the wires up and down and plays three notes
for ever and for ever. I do hope that, in whatever zoo he may become a
resident, he may be provided with a similar instrument with which to fill
his life. He, as far as I can see, now makes no effort to escape like
his big relative the Starboard bear, who is more of a mechanical genius
than an artist. William’s sister Christabel behaves well on the whole,
takes lots of tinned milk and water. Poor old Starboard, he really looked
pathetic after his big effort this morning; he is black, or brown-black
now, as I have already mentioned, and his black eyes, by contrast, look
light brown, so does his nose. No one would take him for an ice-bear.
His voice changed after the effort, and he made a sort of piteous sound
instead of challenging and held his mouth open, and I suggested water,
and Archie poured a pail of fresh water into his feeding drawer from a
chink in the roof of the cage, and he eagerly lapped it up and went off
to sleep. They have plenty of salt water—a small sea came over the bows a
little while ago, and swept away every chip they had torn; incidentally
it swept into an open bunker and nearly drowned the Prophet, who was
acting as stoker in the engine-room. He came on deck looking rather wet
and depressed and fossicked round and got the cover of the stokehold
closed; it was under a bear’s cage, so it was not so easy. In the ice the
Prophet was a jolly bear-hunter, with lasso round his shoulder (which
he could not throw), also he was clean and “the Prophet.” With such
yellow curly hair and eyebrows and blue eyes and pink, clean face he
seemed essentially an ice-man; it is rather a come-down to be merely a
black stoker homeward bound at the end of a cruise, and with nothing to
prophesy.
My word, it is time to shut my cabin door on this early morning.
Starboard bear and a starboard cabin! and the bear awake and growling
hell and thunder, and a big sea running too. Blow his money value we say!
Everyone is rather tired of the violent ceaseless movement and the
drenching of spray, but our two youngest Spaniards, in heavy coats,
make merry over it, sitting up on the bridge and chatting and singing
continuously, pluckily keeping their spirits up. I think they would do
the same even if we had a full-fledged gale.
Our musical steward, sad to say, has felt the roughness of the trip, fog
and wind combined, and this afternoon we were anxious about him, rolled
him up very tight in blankets and put a hot bottle at his feet, for he
was throwing up blood and seemed about to die; in fact, he looks a dead
man now. Hamilton too is feeling tired and lies down. Altogether we would
be glad to be up some fiord fishing cod for the sake of the rest and
fresh food.
We had a gleam of sun from the north to-night, golden precious sunlight;
it touched waves far away in front of us till they were yellow as golden
guineas, while the crests near us were colder, more sickly white than
silver or thawing snow.
Every cloud has its silver lining, but give me the touch of gold on the
crests of long waves at the end of a gale, half the crest radiant, and
the side in shadow cold, bluish white.
But our short-lived sun-gleam fades and we are all in grey—the timbers
creak, creaking anxiously, sorely, and we plod along, two miles to the
hour at the best, our disreputable sail set again,—a subdued crew longing
for land.
One comfort about this wooden craft is, that she was built for
bottle-nose whaling and has bulwarks. The modern steam-whaler is somewhat
smaller and has no bulwarks, only a rail, because she must offer as
little resistance as possible to a rapid side rush of a big whale. So in
such weather, even in this half-gale, they would be under water all but
the bridge, whilst here we can go nearly dry-shod behind nearly two and
a half feet of bulwark, behind which our too-strong she-cook in slippers
can easily dodge the little water that comes on board.
* * * * *
Seven-forty P.M.—An interval here of twenty-four hours.
It would take each of us books in black margins to describe the
melancholy of the gale; not a very severe gale, with only low waves for
the amount of wind, but they are hard, and telling on our little home. It
is remarkable what low, hard waves we have here. South of Norway, with
similar strength of wind, I am sure the waves would be twice the height,
but here they seem very hard and give heavy hits for their size. South in
the sub-tropics, with half-an-hour’s wind, I have seen waves get up twice
as high as those we had last night, which were not a bit dangerous—have
had them over the bridge, soft and warm, and no harm done; here a wave
that size would do a great deal of damage. In the north I expect this is
due to the greater density of the water owing to its lower temperature.
... Gale all night, falling in morning, leaving an abominable swell.
[Illustration]
Sight land through mist, rain, heavy swell, everyone very tired of life.
Trying to make out where we have got to. Made this jotting in night. It
is not elaborate, but I think it expresses a certain amount of movement.
[Illustration]
And this is a single-line description of the appearance of Norway
as you approach it over the swell. A one-line drawing of swell and
mountain-tops. Why make two lines when one is enough?
In Tuglosund, the north entrance to Trömso fiord, we find stillness and
twilight.
On this sad occasion, 9th of August, we have again to light the midnight
oil, or put it down “candle,” in my cabin—midnight sun versus candle, and
the candle wins. There is absolute stillness, not a sound in the fiord
but the gentle throb of our engine.
How sad it is to lose the light.
* * * * *
It is almost incredible, the tranquillity of the dead-still water as we
lie at anchor fishing cod—breathless stillness, so quiet one does not
know how to go to sleep, no more bracing of limbs now against the side of
the bunk to steady one’s restless slumbers.
[Illustration: OUR ENGINEER’S DAUGHTER AT TRÖMSO]
... Larsen has gone ashore for fresh milk and also fresh eggs, rowing
across the reflections of hill and rocks.
The candle burns straight up without a flicker; last night we could not
have lit a pipe had we felt so inclined—what are we to do about clothes?
Suddenly we feel our double winter clothing is far too thick; can it be
possible that to-morrow morning we will only need thin summer clothes?
As we fished we talked more intimately than before. I found my Spanish
friends had been in our West Highlands; they compared this fiord with
Loch Etive, and Ben Nevis to a snow-capped mountain we have reflected in
the still mirror, and they say the hills remind them of their own—Spain,
West Scotland, and West Norway do indeed have certain similarity.
But the quiet! and the candlelight and the soft northern midnight
twilight in the fiord, and the ripple of the boat coming back with the
milk are great things! to be remembered by themselves for ever and aye.
If our night at anchor at the entrance of the fiord was quiet and
peaceful, Trömso on a Sunday felt even more so. We came in with a brisk
breeze blowing sharp ripples on the sheltered strait or loch, and were
thankful to be under shelter, for the same breeze off the hill-side,
clothed with alder and heather, would be a different thing a hundred
miles north by west.
Even our bears seem to be at rest. By the afternoon we have all got
shaven and shorn, and into more townified clothes, in some cases to
advantage, in others not so. The blue jacket with brass buttons of
the styrmand gives him far more of an air than he had with his old
weather-worn pea jacket. But De Gisbert is ruined. The old Gisbert,
the bear-killer, and the new F. J. de Gisbert would hardly recognise
each other. Polar Gisbert in a great thick, deep blue Iceland jersey,
broad-shouldered, deep-chested, with black beard with a wave in it,
and black hair unbrushed and curling, a vermilion-and-white spotted
handkerchief round his throat, loose corduroy knickers and wooden clogs
like a Dutchman, was a picture of the jolly deep-sea piratical-looking
Columbus we know. But this Gisbert! of Hamburg and Madrid, in a quiet
blue serge suit, with trousers, and brown boots low at the heel, and a
white collar sticking into a closely cropped black beard, and straight
combed-out hair, and a straw hat! might be anyone!
C. A. H. does not change his get-up much, but when he goes home to hang
his bearskins in the ancestral hall, he will have to do so. Sisters hate
beards.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
They, the Dons and Gisbert and Hamilton, have all gone up the hill to
be entertained by a local magnate to-day. I was asked, and was there
before, on our first visit, and it was quite charming—gramophone music,
cigars with red and gold bands, delightful whiskies-and-sodas, and nice
cosy rooms, with the windows all shut. But the cut on my left foot felt
painful on putting on shore boots, and the house being uphill I felt
obliged to deny myself the pleasure, and passed a very quiet afternoon on
board. The engineer’s children came off to see me (and incidentally their
father). The eldest was about twelve, I think, and they talked Norwegian
to me, and opened their blue eyes wide and puckered their fair faces
with wonder, when they found I could not understand their little words,
however distinctly and slowly they said them. They insisted then on my
playing the pipes to them again, and apparently were hugely pleased.
I was sometimes sorry for the engineer’s lot when we were at sea, in bad
weather, for he is pale, rather like a gentle Louis Stevenson, and seemed
to have little to interest him at sea beyond the engine, but now I do not
pity him for his welcome home from such a beauty of a daughter, with such
jolly blue eyes, so full of wonder and fun. The whole family looked over
my pictures and were interested in ice-bears (Is bjorn) and ice-floes,
but I think they were more fetched by a picture of the Fonix, done this
morning, of the effect yesterday morning at three o’clock in the gale. I
daresay they realised from it what sort of a life their poor dad leads
sometimes—at sea.
By the way, it was not a dangerous gale, though tiresome and
uncomfortable. But to show how differently things strike people, I heard
that our two youngest Spaniards, who spent all night on the bridge,
apparently as jolly as could be, chatting and laughing, believed all the
time the ship would very likely go down—plucky of them, I think. And yet
again, when we were in danger of being pinched between two ice-floes a
few days previously, they were joyously potting skuas and gulls on the
floe, without an idea of the danger, whilst the writer was hopping about
like a hen on a hot girdle, with apprehension.
Hamilton will not look at this picture, it makes him simply squirm, which
is rather flattering to the artist. Just now he says: “It is too beastly
like.” I must show him it again, perhaps after many days—say in a London
or Clydebank fog in November. Perhaps pleasure will then be what past
pain was.
CHAPTER XXXVII
We find little difference here in Trömso since we left for the cold
North. Then it was sunny but very cold, now all the snow has melted
away from the hills and they are green with belts of dark alders that
run up the corries from their reflections in the calm fiord. The rough
main street of wooden houses presents the same series of little wooden
doll houses, some made of upright planks, some of horizontal, in subdued
harmonies of weathered pale green, blue, and worn slate, which would be
a little sad but for the summer dresses of women and children, bright
splashes of colour—scarlets and pale blues, vivid but harmonious, only a
little noticeable on account of the uniformity of the black and dark blue
clothes of all the men.
Is it coming back from the Arctic, where there are no people, or is it
the atmosphere of Trömso that makes the character of each individual
seem so distinct? You could sketch any of the figures, men or women, in
the brightly painted street of doll houses, and the drawing would be
recognised by anyone in Trömso.
Everyone seems to be at least on a bowing acquaintance with every second
person he meets. Opposite this Grand (wooden) Hotel I see two of our
men in dark suits and bowlers, each has a little tobacco in his cheek.
I know this because I saw them put it in almost on the sly; each doffs
his bowler as some acquaintance comes up. Larsen has barely time for
one whiff of his cigarette between the sedate bows which they make to
passers-by. Who could believe that a few days ago he was in old blue
dungarees and sea-boots, hauling with us hand over hand on a narwhal
line—and Larsen—it is difficult to realise that a week or two ago we saw
him skeltering over a floe, a long, dark figure against the ice, blazing
black powder cartridges and splashing bullets at three yards’ range into
the ice in front of a three-year-old polar bear’s nose, to turn it. It
strikes me that the way these fair-haired men stand, and move their
heads, and their type of face, is rather like the men of Berwickshire or
Selkirkshire. You could hardly tell a Selkirk man here from a native, but
the average man of Trömso is perhaps smaller and thinner.
[Illustration]
The women here are not so well grown and good-looking as those in
Trondhjem. Half the men are teetotallers, at least in public. I saw
rather a remarkable sight here at the table d’hôte, six men at table
in a row, “travellers,” I think, each with a large burgundy or claret
glass full of new milk beside his plate—very different in habits and the
appearance we associate with their deep-drinking Viking forefathers. It
really does look as if with milk drinking we may yet have peace to be
amongst all men.
* * * * *
We go down the coast between the islands in sunshine—little cloudlets
round the greystone peaks in the blue sky. This day is the Glorious
12th, and we are far from home—and we are more than content, to be
comfortably on shipboard, glad to leave the northern ice regions, and yet
we know that in six months’ time we will long to return. We watch the
hills go past in luxurious repose from the luggage-covered decks—lovely
hill-faces, wooded elk ground below, and higher up, slopes, with scrub
and heather, just the place for dal ryper, the counterpart of our grouse,
bar the white flight feathers, and above, the heather-grey rocks and
stones, where you find the Norwegian ptarmigan; a glorious country, and
so like our own.
No wonder in the ancient days our forefathers exchanged visits from these
fiords to our Highland lochs and islands, and from old Alba to Lochlin,
as described in the tales of the Ossianic times—friendly visits for
feastings and marriages, and more often on bloody forays.
I wonder if the gentle ancestors of this little _smuke pige_ that waits
at our table formed one of the attractions of these round tours by our
fathers. How delighted she was to stand for a few minutes and to have her
portrait presented to her. On the previous page there is a fountain-pen
ink jotting of what I remember of the original. Is she not a familiar
type? We might meet her in Kent or Caithness.
[Illustration]
I forgot to say we made arrangements, before we left Trömso, about our
Port and Starboard bears. The Port bear goes to Spain, and Hamilton and
I take Starboard to Edinburgh, to present him, between us, to our new
Scottish Zoological Park, which promises to be the best in the world, and
of which this writer had the honour of being first Honorary Treasurer!
We will hand it over with the greatest pleasure, and then modestly
withdraw; for the more you know of these two bears, the more you become
of a retiring nature. I think we must have our Lord Provost to grace the
ceremony of its presentation to the Park. The Right Honourable the Lord
Provost, in his scarlet and ermine, and all the bailies, in reds and
purples of various tints, what a grand spectacular effect! (Our company,
we hope, would be excused.) And the Lord Lyon King-at-Arms we would have
to come too, for colour effect, vermilion and gold, in his English
tabard.—Ghost of Sir David Lindsay! with only one wee lion; and in the
second quartering!
Fancy the bear’s contemplative pause after the address of welcome and
before it has decided what part it will take in the ceremony. I must make
a picture of this in oils.
Our Spanish comarados intended to take their bear to Madrid, but they
hear the temperature there has lately been one hundred and twenty degrees
in the shade, so they fear it would melt, consequently they decide to
build a large iron enclosure across a small river which runs through
their estancia and the cork woods of their northern hills. There was such
a den or prison already in Spain, where I am told the bear, also a polar
bear, worked out an honourable old age, fishing salmon and trout for the
family of its owner. It must be a pretty sight to see a white bear beside
the foam of a fall, waiting its time to clip out a silvery grilse or
salmon.
The process of discharging a cargo of live polar bears is fraught with
considerable interest. If they escape their captors’ ropes and chains
they go overboard, and as happened here, two got loose and landed at the
fish-market steps. Trömso natives are accustomed to visits from all sorts
and kinds of people and beasts. Grand Dukes and Laps, walrus, whales, and
bears, but not bears at large. They fled, and the bears tucked into the
fish stalls, and the bill for their lunch amounted to one hundred kroner
(£5, 10s.)—probably any other visitors might have bought all the fish in
the market that day for ten kroner. They fortunately took to the water
again after their meal, and were recaptured. Once a walrus escaped at
Trömso from board-ship, and it also took to the water, and it was also
recaptured! It loved the captain’s wife and she whistled to it and it
came back.
Our bears’ cages, all tattered wood and iron bars, were lifted, bears
and all, by the winch over the side, and of course sank almost to
water-level. One of the iron bars was levered up a little with a crowbar,
which gave, in Starboard’s case, an opening for his delicate paw, which
instantly came out and tore the cage to smithereens, and out he came,
and, evidently to his great content, wallowed about in the sea and washed
his face, and took a dive or two and rubbed his paws, saying “Bé-waugh”
and “B-e-a-r” frequently, and looked perfectly happy and amiable. Just
to prevent him swimming ashore and going into the fish-market, we put a
stout little rope round his neck, and he continued to enjoy his bath,
whilst we made ready a new cage, each batten of which is covered with
sheet iron on the inside and has the appearance of strength which I
should desire for such an opening ceremony as I have above suggested, if
I have to be present. When this cage was in order, our duty was to get
the big strop or ring of heavy rope round his waist, so as to haul him
out of his bath with our sixty-horse-power winch, and this was done with
some escape of steam and some splashing and profuse remarks from the
bear. Now he is in his new quarters, into which he cannot get his teeth,
and he ruminates peacefully and eats and drinks what is given him. I
wonder what his teeth will go into when he first comes out.
Christabel and William we are selling for much moneys by telegraph to a
certain millionaire. They will make charming pets and William, as already
mentioned, promises to be a musician as well, but they will never attain,
in captivity, to the size that Port and Starboard may be expected to
attain, for the latter have already spent several years on the floes
eating seal galore.
Bears have gone up in price; very few have lately been landed, as far
as we can hear, in Northern Europe. Recent years have been rather bad
for expeditions. We know of several which have been wrecked; some of the
crews are dead.[17] Gisbert is going to hang on with the Fonix at Trömso
and may go North again in search of survivors.
Slipping down the Norwegian coast amongst the islands in a passenger
steamer feels very luxurious after being in such a small vessel with
always a certain amount of risk; and after views of ice and sea, bears
and seals day after day, rocks and trees and little farms or fishermen’s
houses nestling in the greenery, with mountains and snow-fjeld far behind
them are very welcome. There is the “human interest,” which I have
previously said has been remarked for its absence in the polar regions by
careful observers.
[Illustration: “STARBOARD”
Photographed by Mr. C. T. McKechnie soon after its arrival in the
Edinburgh Zoological Park.]
... What a country this is to breed real men. Every boy in every one of
these isolated farms must of necessity learn to row, to ride, to sail,
to hunt, ski, handle an axe, do iron and wood work, besides his farming;
and for one pound sterling a year he can be in touch with the centres
of European news and civilisation. On the telephone—eighteen kroner a
year they pay to send messages under the sea and over forests and fjelds
to their township, say forty or fifty miles distant, whilst we belated
people in these backwoods of Berwickshire have to pay nine pounds a year
for the same convenience.
As I write we see two such natives enviably employed—two small boys—the
day’s work done on the farm, they don’t go to school in summer—they are
now managing a boat and fishing. With the glass I can see the bow is
almost full of cod, haddock, and some codling. The elder boy looks about
twelve years old. He pulls up two at a time, shimmering, iridescent,
pink-tinted haddock. Who could believe the rather plain grey fish we see
in the fishmonger’s could ever look like a chunk of mother-of-pearl?
Woods and islands, rugged mountains, grey fjelds, with snow in
patches, pass hour after hour, till we come to the fiord of the old
capital—Trondhjem Fiord. It reminds us of our Firth of Forth, on a larger
scale, with more woods. For me Norway begins at Trondhjem going north,
and ends there coming south. Southern Norway seems to have no tradition,
no direct appeal to me. In the soft distance I can see height after
height fading into the distance; to the north and east with the glass I
can see the woods of Sundal in Stordal, where we have hunted elk, and
seen the golden birch leaves falling, and the snowflakes drifting down
into the green depths of the swaying fir woods. The water of the fiord
is tinted with Stordal River. I recall its salmon and hear again its
solemn roar when the mist hung low in the glen. What days of exertion
these were, climbing and descending under the dripping pines, two men and
a hound, stealthily, silently, with hardly a word for hours, watching
through the woods for the gaunt form of a bull elk, days of such fatigue
and nights of profound repose, alike haunted with the sweet melancholy of
the saetar songs.
Why do such merry, cheerful people as bonders’ daughters sing such sad
songs? Here is what I remember of one that haunts me now.
[Music]
Its rhythm just suits your steps if you hum it, not loud enough to
disturb an elk as you slowly ascend, step by step, through the wet
pines in the morning to the high grounds, and the quick part helps you
returning as you swing down the last of the hill-side from one red-leafed
rowan to the next, down to the level; and months after, it comes to you
when you are in a street and you see the woods and the river winding
a silver thread at the foot of the glen and the welcome smoke of the
log-built farm. Once I hummed it unconsciously on a dull, wet day at the
quayside in Hull, standing amongst emigrants looking at the swirling and
muddy river, and a Norse woman standing near with a white handkerchief
for headdress began to hum it too—we could not speak to each other, but
our thoughts were harking back to saetar and glen and hill—the charm of
Norway.
Another haunting folk-song I heard here years ago—I must put it down
to preserve it—at Vibstadt, Namsen Valley, on a hot midday I heard the
bonders’ daughters sing it as they weeded lettuce in the blaze of light.
They called it _Barden’s Dod_ (The Death of the Bard), and we have the
same air in our Highlands; it dates back to prehistoric times; and we
call it “The Minstrel of the MacDonalds.” No one that I know sings or
plays it now at home. But a year or two ago, on the top of a mountain in
Southern Norway, as we rested at lunch, a Norse hunting companion began
singing it, and I started, and he smiled and explained his wife was one
of the little girls who had given it to me in Northern Norway twenty
years before. The Norwegian words, I am told by a Norwegian antiquarian,
belong to the Viking period.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
[Illustration]
In the smoking-room on the way south on board we naturally talk much
about fishing, for half our fellow-passengers have been salmon-fishing
and there is much comparison of Bags and Rivers. Some have done better
than they expected, others growl at their bags, and the season, and at
the agent, whoever it was, that put them on to such a bad river. But all
are charmed with Norse scenery, and Norse people. We come in for some
questioning about bears. There is no invidious comparison between a bag
of bears and a creel of salmon; but we have to be careful about whales,
for it would be a little rough on the veteran salmon-fisher to cap his
best with a yarn on whales: after he has, at length and with the utmost
modesty, recounted the fight his fifty-pounder put up, and the hundred
yards it took out, it would scarcely be considerate to refer to some
fifty-ton or one-hundred-ton whale, and the miles of cable it had reeled
off in a twinkling. Of course everyone knows a whale is not a fish—still,
the slight similarity is such that whaling yarns are apt to be damping
when fishing stories are going; though the true Walton angler is happy
catching any size of fish; a six-ounce trout to me, in a Highland burn,
is almost as good as a whale. Notwithstanding this delicate tact on our
part, whaling was introduced one evening in the smoking-room, and the
writer was rather surprised to find that several men had very little idea
of the functions of whalebone or its place in the whale’s anatomy, so we
had to draw diagrams, such as these here reproduced, to describe shortly
the way whalebone works. This is a side view of the head of a finner
whale; it shows the outer edges of the whalebone plates that hang round
the sides of the upper jaw. The blades vary in thickness in different
whales; in the common Balænoptera Borealis, such as this, it measures
about a quarter of an inch thick and is about two feet at deepest. The
blade has hair on its inside edge. If the whale’s head were cut across
between the nose and eye, or corner of its mouth, the section would
be like this. These hairs intertwine and form a surface to the palate
like a well-worn cocoanut mat. The whale opens its mouth and takes in
possibly a ton of water thick with small shrimps, partially closes its
jaws and expels the water through the fibrous surface and out between the
blades. I suppose by raising the enormous soft plum-coloured tongue (D in
section) towards the hairy palate or mat of interwoven hairs at the edge
of each plate (CC in section) it prevents the shrimps going out with the
water, and the tongue works the shrimps down to its throat. I have not
calculated the food which I have seen come out of a whale’s stomach when
cut up, but I say, at a rough guess, forty to sixty gallons—three or four
barrels of very minute shrimps. I have only seen the remains of one of
the Right whale, Mysticetus, and those of the smaller, somewhat similar
whale, Balæna Australis. The Right or Greenland whale had very long bone,
up to eleven feet. To cover the whalebone, the lower lip is formed as
in this jotting. Scoresby maintains that when the Right whale’s mouth
is closed, the blades bend or fold back towards the throat. This seems
probable.
[Illustration: A Finner’s Head]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A Right Whale’s Head]
You see from the difference between these whales’ points that the rorqual
is a more athletic beast than the Right whale.
[Illustration: RIGHT WHALES AND SPERM UP TO 60 FEET, FINNERS UP TO 110
FEET
1. Greenland Right whale, _Balæna Mysticetus_, up to 60 feet in length,
generally found near Arctic ice. The smaller whalebone whale of the
Atlantic and Southern oceans is somewhat similar in shape; it runs to
50 feet; shows tail as it dives; has no fin on back. It is called the
Nordcapper or _Biscayensis_ and _Australis_.
2. The Sperm or Cachalot, _Physeter Macrocephalus_. A toothed whale 50 to
60 feet; shows tail when it dives; sometimes breaches, i.e. leaps several
times in succession as it travels; blast low and projected forward.
3. Seihvale, _Balænoptera Borealis_, 40 to 50 feet; blast about 10 feet;
does not usually lift tail out of water before final dive; has fin on
back, is therefore a “finner.”
4. Fin whale, _Balænoptera Musculus_, up to 75 feet. The Blue whale,
_Balænoptera Sibbaldii_, is similar, with smaller fin on back; both make
blasts about 18 feet. The Blue whale in Southern seas has been killed up
to 110 feet.]
The sperm or cachalot whale’s head is very peculiar. It has teeth in
lower jaw and a small tongue. All the part forward of the dotted line
here, which represents the skull of the head, is a mass of fibrous oil.
When you cut through the skin you can bail it out with pitchers or pump
it out till it gets too cold, after which you do not know whether to lift
it in your hands or in a bucket. It is beautifully clear, no one knows
why it has this extraordinary spongy forepart to its head. This sperm oil
is chemically different from the oil of other whales; it is more of the
nature of a wax: the other whales are of a fatty nature. It makes the
finest lubricant for modern machinery.
[Illustration: Head of a Sperm, showing Skull]
The blow hole is on left side of this “case,” the blow pipe from lungs
going through it. And the jet of steam is thrown up two or three feet
and forward, so a sperm’s blast is easily distinguished from that of the
finner, which is bigger and straight up, say to twenty or thirty feet, or
possibly forty feet, in the case of a large Blue whale.
APPENDIX
OLD AND NEW WHALING
The Greenland whaling was practically given up in 1912, and the Southern
whaling for sperm and cachalot and the Southern Right whale, which in the
first half of the nineteenth century employed five hundred to six hundred
vessels, practically stopped forty years ago.
WHY THE OLD STYLES OF WHALING STOPPED
The growing scarcity and wariness of the Greenland Right whale and the
fall in the price of oil and whalebone gave the Balæna Mysticetus or
Greenland Right whale an indefinitely prolonged close season, and in the
Southern Seas the sperm and the Southern Right whale (Australis) fishing
almost entirely ceased, owing to increased working expenses, smaller
catches, and the fall in the price of oil.
“MODERN WHALING” IN NORTH ATLANTIC
In 1886 Captain Svend Foyn of Tonsberg, Norway, invented the plan of
capturing the powerful rorquals, commonly called Finners, that are very
numerous, but were too strong and too heavy to be killed in the old
style from row-boats, and which till his time had not been hunted. By
his process a small cannon on the bow of a small steamer could fire
a heavy harpoon, one and a half to two hundredweights, attached to a
four-and-a-half hawser. This steamer and line were sufficiently buoyant
and strong to play the whale and to haul its body up from the depths when
it sank dead. The Greenland whale and sperm both floated when they died.
Fortunes were made from the firmer whale hunting off the Norwegian coast.
COMMERCIAL ASPECT AND METHOD OF MODERN WHALING
Some of these companies work with shore factories, others with both shore
factories and large floating factories on board steamers of up to seven
thousand tons burden, and each company hunts the whales with, on an
average, three to four small steamers, which harpoon the whales within a
radius of eighty or ninety miles and tow them in to the shore factories,
or the floating factory which is at anchor in some sheltered bay. The
bodies are rapidly cut up at a fully equipped land station, and both the
blubber and carcass are entirely utilised. At a floating station the
bodies, as a rule, are cast adrift.
WHALE MEAT MEAL AND GUANO
Whale meat meal is made from fresh whale flesh; it is used for feeding
cattle. It contains 17½ per cent. proteid, and guano is made from the
remaining flesh and about one-third bone. The analysis of this gives 8·50
per cent. ammonia and 21 per cent. triboric phosphates. The whole of
the dried bones and meat may be made into one product—a rich guano with
10 to 12 per cent. ammonia and 17 to 24 per cent. phosphates. The best
whale meat is better to eat and tastes better than the best beef; it is
“lighter” and more appetising. The writer proposed to supply an immense
quantity to our military authorities, but the offer was not accepted.
WHALEBONE OR BALEEN
The baleen or whalebone of these finner whales is only worth about £30
per ton. It hardly pays to cure it and market it. The whalebone of
the Australis or Southern Right whale has fallen to £85 per ton; it
is occasionally caught. Its bones and that of the finner brought down
the price of the Greenland whalebone, which a few years ago was sold
at between £2000 and £3000 per ton, one good whale having a ton in its
mouth, which paid the expenses of the trip.
During the short season, 1st November till end of April, in a recent
year the catch in South Georgia by twenty-one steamers amounted to five
thousand whales, finner, hump-back and blue whales, which gave two
hundred thousand barrels of whale oil and eight thousand tons guano.
RETURNS FROM WHALING
Taking in the other islands of the Falkland Islands Dependencies in the
neighbourhood of Cape Horn, the catch in a recent year amounted to four
hundred and thirty thousand barrels of oil—eight thousand three hundred
and seventy-five tons guano, the gross value of which may be reckoned at
£1,360,000. Practically the whole of this goes to Norway.
For forty-eight years this Modern Whaling has been carried on in the
North Atlantic, and since 1904 the Modern Whaling which we advocated
in Edinburgh in 1895 has been prosecuted by Norwegians in the South
Atlantic from desolate barren British possessions, with the great results
mentioned above. There are vast areas of ocean teeming with these whales
where, so far, they have not been hunted, and still the general British
public stands aloof and takes no share in it. Whaling to-day, from the
Norwegian point of view, is an industry: three generations have been
brought up on it; but from the average British point of view it is still
a speculation.
AMBERGRIS
Ambergris is a biliary concretion generally found in the alimentary canal
of a feeble or diseased sperm whale. Sometimes it is found exteriorly
near the vent. It is also found floating or drifted ashore. It is of
great value, and is principally used as the basis or vehicle for perfumes.
Some years ago Norwegians found four hundred and twenty kilos in a sperm
on the Australian coast; this was valued at £27,000. This is much the
largest piece I have heard of.
It is a solid, fatty substance of a marbled grey-and-black appearance,
and generally contains the beaks of cuttle-fish, which form the principal
food of the cachalot or sperm whale. When fresh it has an intolerable
smell, but after exposure this goes, and leaves what some people call a
“peculiar sweet earthy odour.” It burns with a pale blue flame and melts
somewhat like sealing-wax.
THE WHALING INDUSTRY
The St Abb’s Whaling Limited, of which the writer was appointed chairman,
found whales at the Seychelles in great numbers in 1913, and we got
permission from the Government there to start an up-to-date whaling
station with licences for two whaling steamers, which we chartered and
had sent out to us from Norway.
Our capital was about £20,000, and our station and factory was nearly
completed, and we were catching numbers of sperm and some “finner”
whales, when war broke out. Our supply of coals was cut off; barrels
could not be obtained for oil; sacks could not be got for the whale guano
(which is made from bones and whale meat); and freight completely failed
us owing to the congestion caused by war material on the various lines.
We could neither get supplies nor send away our products to Durban and
other ports, except in some small consignments on our Diesel motor tank
whaler, the St Ebba, which finally we were obliged to run on sperm oil at
about £28 per ton!
We could not “stop down” owing to contracts; and the difficulty of
raising more capital under war conditions finally forced us to voluntary
liquidation.
This promising industry, therefore, had to be stopped in the meantime,
and it occurs to us that as one of the “Empire’s resources” the
Government could very easily put it into working order again, with
great profit and for the benefit of the Islands, Africa and the Old
Country. For we found immense numbers of sperm and finner whales round
the Seychelles, and even before getting into our stride we had secured
one hundred and forty whales and shipped home two thousand three hundred
barrels of oil, besides what was lost before the station factory was
completed and what we were obliged to use locally for our Diesel motor in
place of common solar oil. Six barrels of whale oil go to the ton.
With the experience before them of the vast revenues from whaling at
South Georgia and South Shetlands going almost entirely to Norway, our
Government has, we think, wisely restricted the granting of whaling
licences at the Seychelles to British concerns. Our company rented land
for our station, built the factories and has some years’ lease to run,
and the best season for fishing begins about 1st of May.
The vast whaling industry in the Falkland Island Dependencies—the South
Georgia and South Shetlands—was started as a result of the information
that Dr W. S. Bruce and the writer brought back from there in regard to
the immense number of finner whales we had seen there in our Antarctic
voyage of 1892-1893 to the Antarctic and Weddell Sea; and in one of the
first of the Norwegian companies, which is still successful to-day, the
writer took a considerable interest at its start. This company is to-day
paying a dividend of over 150 per cent. But for the war I consider the
Seychelles whaling should have paid handsomely now.
In regard to this great modern whaling industry in the sub-Antarctic
seas we may here say that, previously to the Norwegians starting it, Dr
Bruce and the writer held meetings in Edinburgh and urged the leading
business men, merchants and shipping people to take it up. We foretold
the fortunes that were to be made, but they did not rise. A little later
the Norwegian who we hoped to have as manager for the first whaling
station in South Georgia, Captain Larsen, succeeded in raising capital in
Argentina, and I am told began with a modest 70 per cent. profit in the
first year. Norwegian companies quickly followed his lead and utilised
our Empire’s resources for Norway!
FOOTNOTES
[1] Values of whales and their products constantly change. To-day finner
whales’ oil is becoming almost as valuable as sperm oil.
[2] A pram is a flat-bottomed boat, square stern and pointed saucer bow.
[3] A. Balænoptera Musculus; B. Balænoptera Sibbaldii; C. Balænoptera
Borealis; D. Balæna Biscayensis; E. Physeter Macrocephalus.
[4] Far the best whale to eat is the Seihvale Balænoptera Borealis.
[5] We picked up a dead whale two days later and we hope it was the whale
we lost.
[6] In the South Shetlands Captain Sorrensen, referred to previously,
killed ten whales in one day, one was ninety feet in length, and probably
weighed ninety tons.
[7] This snatch block hangs on a wire rope that passes over a sheaf and
leads down to the hold, where it is attached to an enormously strong
steel spiral spring. This makes a give-and-take action when hauling
up the dead whale from the depths to counteract the jar on line and
donkey-engine that comes from the rise and fall of the steamer on the sea.
[8] In these waters a small shrimp called a “krill” colours the water a
rusty red for miles.
[9] Later we learned that three S.S. of several thousand tons were hove
to during this hurricane. Bravo, St Ebba! sixty-nine tons, one hundred
and ten feet, and the safest boat in the world.
[10] Only a few of our men have done bottle-nose whaling, but that is the
same thing on a small scale.
[11] Ambergris. See Appendix.
[12] These carros are the cabs of Funchal, like four-poster beds,
brilliantly painted, with chintz hangings, and sledge runners instead of
wheels. Their progress is like that of a crab—neither fast nor certain.
[13] Don José and Don Luis Gongolez Herrero.
[14] Don Luis Herrero Velasquez.
[15] Seal oil is manufactured into olive oil in Paris and the patent
leather is made at Dundee.
[16] Not proved. The smaller 250 bore and higher velocity seemed to us
all to be most effective and stopping.
[17] I have learned since that five vessels came to grief in the year
1913. Of one trip (Stefansen’s) only one man has survived.
INDEX
A
Accounts, difficulties in the, 43
Aften-mad, 72
Alexandra Whaling Station, 63, 67
Allan, Miss Sheila, 108
Ambergris, 22, 159, 314
Ammunition, 40
Anatomy of a whale, 159
Anchor, accident to our, 46
Arctic and Antarctic compared, 187, 189
Arctic Fox, 278
Arctic grouse, 278
Ardnamurchan, 107
Azores, the, 165
B
Balæna, the, 51, 104
Balæna Mysticetus, 21, 312
Balænoptera Borealis, 69
Balænoptera musculus, 17
Balænoptera Sibbaldii, the, 17
Baleen or whalebone, 313
Balkan, Mrs, 31
Balta Sound, 14
Bear and cubs, 258
Bear-hunting, accidents in, 225
Bear yams, 216
Bearded seal, 269
Bears, stalking, 193;
dangers, 194, 196;
size and weight, 198;
stalking, 199, 200;
lassoing, 210, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 224, 227, 241, 247
Belfast, 116
Birthday celebration, a, 105
Blowing up, 87
Blue seal, 269
Blue sharks, 162
Bottle-nose whale, 282
Bowhead or Right whale, 21
Bressay Light, 55
Britannia Club, the, 31
Bruce, Dr W. S., 179
Bull-fight on deck, 262
Bull versus bear, 285
C
Cabins, 28
Cachalot, 18
Cachés, 215
Calving bergs, 271
Caribou and whale, colours of the, 94
Carros, 166
Case or forehead, 160
Casperg, Captain, 89
Chanteys, 102
Christiania Fiord, 27
Clarence Island, 31
Clothes, darned and patched, 73
Cod liver oil, 208
Colla Firth, 18
Colours in Arctic regions, 192
Colours of the sea, 77
Colours of the whale, 93
Cormorants and gulls, 60
Cormorants, on cooking, 65
“Cruise of the Cachalot,” the, 22
Cubs, lassoing, 264
Customs officers, 58
Cutting up a whale, 159
Cuttlefish and whales, 254
D
Dangers of whaling, 89, 260
De Gisbert, F. A., 180
Dolphins, 127
Dreams, 227
Drimnin, 108
Dundee whalers, 21
E
Embryos of whale, 94
Engine troubles, 50, 148
Explosive bombs, 23
F
Factories, shore and floating, 313
Falkland Islands, 24, 314
Finners, 312
Flippers of seal, 240
Fogs, Arctic, 279
Fonix, the, 180, 181
Food of the whale, 254
Football, 219
Foyn, his wife and a whale, 232;
diplomatic steward, 233
Fuel, oil, 28
Fulmar petrels, 212
Funchal, 165
G
Gear for raising dead whale, 87
Geraniums, 165
Gisbert and the bear, 216
Graham’s Land, 23
Grampuses, 148
Greenland, 267
Greenland whales, 24
Greenland Right whale fishing, 21, 312
Guano, 24, 84, 313
Gun, the harpoon, 29
Gun and harpoon, old style, 231
Gun, loading the, 88
Guns, light versus heavy, 222
H
Haldane family, stories of the, 66
Haldane, R. C., 64
Haldane, the, 17
Hamilton, C. A., 180
Hansen and the bear, 217
Harp seals, 258, 275
Harpoons, 29, 312
Hawsers for big whales, 24
Head of whale, 90
Heavy seas, 122
Henriksen, 18, 19, 29, 32, 119
Henriksen, Harold, 29
Herring-hog or springer, 69
Hospitality, Norwegian, 34
Hydrangeas, 139
I
Ice colours, 201
Ice floes, 248
Icebergs, 187
Ivory gull, 182-212
J
Jackaranda, the, 165
Japanese whaling grounds, 18, 57
Jensen’s store, 33
K
Killer, A, 47
Knarberg, 39
L
_Lagopus hemilencurus_ or Arctic grouse, 278
Lancing a whale, 93
Larsen, Captain, 41, 316
Lasso practice, 250
Lassoing a bear, 210, 285
Leigh Smith, 215
Lerwick, 54, 55
Lifeboat, an extravagant, 51
Lighthouses, 106
Lochend, 18, 65
M
Mackerel, killing, 72
Madeira, flowers, 165;
tunny-fishing, 166;
sunrise, 168;
boats, 169
Magazine ship, 24
Magnus Andersen, 60
Mainmast, our, 41
Meals on a whaler, 71
Measurement of bears, 238
Meat meal, whale, 313
Mess-room and galley, 28, 49
Middag-mad, 71
Mishnish Hotel, the, 113
“Modern Whales,” 22, 24
Monaco, Prince of, 94
Motor versus steam-engine, 106
Motor whaler, a, 19
N
Narwhal-fishing, dangers of, 238
Narwhals, 204, 228, 229, 234, 237
Natural colours and surroundings, 200
New Bedford sailing ships, 21
Nordcapper, the, 26
Norse sporting guns, 121
Norwegian ladies, 30
Norwegian pilot-boats, 18
O
Oban, 110
Oil and coal, 117
Oil, value of, 83, 84
Oil, whale, 24
“Old man Henriksen,” 43
Orca gladiator, the, 47
P
Partings, 45
Pet bear, a, 257
Pilot-fish, 162
Pine trunk, a drifting, 220
Phosphorescent sea, a, 124
Photography, 245
Physeter Macrocephalus, 69
Plankton, 253
Pod or herd, 92
“Polar Research,” Bruce’s, 192
Ponta Delgada, arcade, 132;
boats, 133;
fish, 135;
Robert’s café, 136;
a wreck, 135;
hydrangeas, 139;
shops, 140;
the Atlantico, 140;
dress, 141;
whales, 142;
the sea, 143;
the Seven Cities, 151
Port and starboard bears, our, 265
Protective colouring, 192, 276
Pussy finger, 209
R
Ramna Stacks, the, 100
Red-tape entanglements, 60
Registration bothers, 60
Restrictions, 83
Richardson’s skua, 212
Right whale, 21
Robertson, Captain T., 25
Romance of the sea, 129
Rorquals, 19, 312
Runners, 119
Ryvingen Light, the, 47
S
Saga, Jansen’s, 34
St Ebba, the, 19, 27, 35, 38, 48, 97
St Abb’s Whaling Limited, 315
San Miguel, 130
Scoresby, 179
Sea legs, 157
Sea-sick crew, a, 48
Seal-hunting, 208
Sealers, 183
Seals, Arctic and Antarctic, 188
Seals, Vitulina, 191;
Phoca Barbata, 197;
Cystophora Cristata, 203;
blue, 269;
Barbata, 269;
harp, 275
Seven Cities, the, 151
Seychelles, the, 176, 315
She-cook, our, 206
Sharks, 159, 207, 208
Shetlands in pawn, the, 60
Shoppie, a, 125
Shore stations, 24
Sing-song, a, 99
Sorrensen, the brothers, 31
South Georgia, 31
South Shetlands, the, 31
Spanish National Polar Expedition, 180
Sperm or Cachalot whale, 22, 312
Spitzbergen ice, 287
Sports on the ice, 279
Spotted mackerel, 169
Spy, a, 113
Squalus Borealis, 207
Stalking and being stalked, 199
Starboard bear, the, 263
Strength of the bear, 245
Sumburgh Head, 55
Sunday observance, 125
Sven Foyn’s harpoons, 23, 312
Svendsen, 180
T
Tackle for whaling, 232
“Tail up,” 88
Tail of a whale, the, 87
Tanks, 28
Teeth of seals, 269
Tobermory, 108
Tongue of the whale, 254
Tonsberg, 19, 21, 27, 30, 33;
whaling industry, 233
Torp, Captain, death of, 89
Trammel net, a, 134
Trolle, Captain, 179
Trouble with captive bears, 248
Tunny, 164, 166
U
Ulstermen and Scots, 118
Union Jack, our, 110
Urmston, 110
V
Viking ship, 21
_Vulpes lagopus_, or Arctic fox, 278
W
Wading stockings, advantages of, 209
Weddel Sea, the, 23
Whale cooker, our, 161
Whale flesh, 83, 91
Whale’s food, 101
Whale gun, the, 69
Whale lines, 28, 33, 87
Whale products and their prices, 83
Whale steak, 72
Whalebone, 21, 24, 83
Whales, Balænoptera Sibbaldii, 17;
Balænoptera musculus, 17;
Balænoptera Vaga, 69;
Right whale, 18, 21, 58, 232, 254;
Cachalot, 18, 21;
Sperm, 18, 22, 155;
Finners, 19, 22, 69;
Balæna mysticetus, 21, 58;
Biscayensis, 25, 58, 69, 83;
Orca gladiator, 47;
blue, 69;
Seihvale, 69, 83;
_Ziphius novæ Zealandicæ_, 144;
narwhals, 204;
_Hyperoodon diodon_, 282
Whales and cuttle-fish, 158
Whales, habits of, 156
Whales, harpooning, 77, 81, 86, 92, 155, 157, 176
Whales, size of, 84
Whales and trout, 76
Whaling, old and modern, 21, 314
Winch, the, 28
Wives at sea, 111
Wounded seals, 260
Wreck, a, 136
Y
Yacht club, Tonsberg, 30
Yell Sound, 69
Yule, 108
Yusako, 32
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
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