IRLF 
 
 SB E3 flhD 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
: - : !< 
 
SEASONS WITH THE SEA-HORSES; 
 
 Oil, 
 
 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 
 
 BY JAMES LAMONT, ESQ., F.G.S. 
 
 There we hunted the walrus, the narwal, and the seal. 
 
 Aha ! twas a noble game, 
 
 And like the lightning s name 
 
 Flew our harpoons of steel." LONGFELLOW. 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUOH STREET. 
 
 1861. 
 
 The right of Translation is reserved. 
 
TO 
 
 SIR CHAELES LTELL, F.E.S. F.G.S. &c. 
 
 MY DEAR Sm CHARLES, 
 
 A copy of your delightful Principles of Geology has been 
 my unvarying and instructive companion during ten years of 
 adventurous wanderings, during which everything I have seen 
 seems to me entirely confirmatory of your Geological views, 
 
 I therefore dedicate this little book to you ; and I shall 
 esteem myself fortunate if any of the observations contained in 
 it shall be the means of rivetting or strengthening a link in 
 the beautiful chain of evidence by which you have in such a 
 masterly manner demonstrated the perfect adequacy of present 
 causes to remodel the surface of the earth. And with sincere 
 respect, 
 
 I remain, 
 
 My dear SIR CHARLES, 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 JAMES LAMONT, F.G.S. 
 
 KNOCKDOW, AEGTLESHIEE. 
 
G-780 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 First Trip to Spitzbergen in 1858. Find Schooner Yacht 
 and light Gigs unsuitable. Determine to go again in 
 1859. Hire a suitable Vessel and Crew, and build two 
 Boats. Lord David Kennedy agrees to accompany me. 
 
 Contested Election delays our starting. Result of 
 Poll unfortunate alike for Walruses and Constituency. 
 Preliminary Trip to Guernsey. Sail from Leith. 
 Steamer a little out in her Reckoning. Dreadful Famine 
 in Lerwick. Gale. Namsen Fiord and River. Salmon 
 Fishing. Terry s Breech-loading Rifles . . Page 1 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 Hammerfest. The " Anna Louisa." Dr. de Jongh. 
 Norwegian Grouse. Sail for Spitzbergen. Shark Fishery. 
 
 Bear or Cherie Island. Multitudes of Sea-fowl. 
 Sight Spitzbergen. Post Office. Wybe Jan s Water. 
 Meet the Ice. Brig Nordby. Captain Ericson. Dis 
 astrous Spring-fishing. Empress of India. Loss of a 
 Telescope, and a Man s Life Boy-walrus. Thick Ice. 
 Meet the Sloop, and sail in company to the East. Shift 
 our Flag, and send the Yacht to Bell Sound . . .12 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 Preparations. Description of a Walrus-boat, and Im 
 plements used. Harpoons. Lances. The Haak- 
 
 M810007 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 pick, or Seal-hook. Axes. Knives. Ice-anchors. 
 Compass Page 31 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 Crow s-nest. Look-out. First Walrus seen. Find them 
 very shy. Great Ice-pack. Two Walruses shot. Lay- 
 to in a dense Fog. Wreck of a Sloop in the Ice. Cure 
 for frost-bitten Feet. Sketch of the Spitzbergen Wal 
 rus Hunter. Profits of the Trade. Truck System. 
 Cold. Chilblains. Seal-shooting on the Ice. Method 
 of hunting the Great Seal. Dimensions of Great Seal. 
 Seal-shooting in the Water . . . . .42 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 Hunting the Walrus. Windfall. Maternal Affection of 
 Walrus. Seal s Dinner. Molluscs. Whale s Food. 
 Herd of Walruses. Four killed. Escape of a fine 
 Bull. Cutting up the Blubber. Walrus Hide and 
 Blubber. Accommodations of " Anna Louisa." " Whit 
 tling" a great Eesource. Vast Herds of Sea-horses. 
 "Jaging" them. Exciting Sport. Man killed by a 
 Walrus. Spitzbergen Gazette of June 16th. Walrus 
 Veal or Foal 61 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 Sabbath Observance. Rewarded for ditto. Our first Bear 
 seen. Kill him. Lose the Sloop. Quantities of Eggs. 
 
 Driftwood. Comes from Siberia. Cannot be in situ. 
 Geology of Thousand Islands. Eed Snow. Caused by 
 Mute of Alca Alle. Bear Battue and its Consequences. 
 
 Deplorable Effects of smelling Brandy . .82 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 North-east Gale. Bears -grease. Errors in the Charts. 
 Geology. Limestone. Coal. Creation of subalpine 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 Flats. Deeva Bay. "Fast" Ice. Bear s Mode of 
 catching Seals. Whale s Bones. Glen-Turritt. Large 
 Extent of fixed Ice. Many Seals shot. Become my own 
 Harpooner. Glacier with detached Moraine . Page 98 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Large Bear shot. Adventures of an Opera -glass. Size 
 and Weight of Polar Bear. Stories of Bears. She 
 Bear and Cubs. Break up of the Fast-Ice. Kill the 
 old Bear, and catch the Cubs alive. Shocking Case of 
 filial Ingratitude . . . . . . .117 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 
 The Ice disperses. Lose a Bear and Cub. Pot 600 Ibs. 
 of Bears -grease. Skins. Slow going. Seals at 
 tracted by Whistling. Glaciers on the Coast. Noises 
 from them. Submarine Bank. Shooting Walruses. 
 Walruses fighting. Walrus Tusks. Awkward Cus 
 tomer. Ivory. Story of Mermaids. Osteological 
 Peculiarity. Cook loses his Watch. Shoot a Bear. 
 Cold Bath 132 
 
 CHAP. X, 
 
 Boat-race. Visit. Ingenious Harpoon. Hippopotamus. 
 Phoca Vitulina, or little Seal. Phoca Hispida, or Jan 
 May en Seal. Dreadful Smell of Cargo. Ferocity of 
 young Bear. Drift-ice. Stones and Clay on Icebergs. 
 Warm Day. Beautiful Caverns in the Ice. Upset of an 
 Iceberg. Young Ice. Noises from Glacier. Crimping 
 a Walrus. Ivory Gulls. See a Bear. Curious De 
 lusion. Gulf-stream and Arctic Current. Danger 
 of getting embayed. Narrow Escape . . . 150 
 
 CHAP. XI. 
 
 Dense and sudden Fog. Our Hours and Habits. 
 Supplies run short. Meet the Yacht. Their bad 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 Success in Sport, Novel Bullet-mould. Geological 
 Specimens. Part Company again. Medical Treatment 
 of Sick Men. Water up. News. Old Acquaintance. 
 
 Gradual Extinction of the Walrus. They are receding 
 further North. Nova Zembla. Illness of young Bear. 
 
 Attempt to escape. Aged Bull- Walrus. His pro 
 bable Eeminiscences. Coal and Fossils. Commander 
 Gillies Land. North-east Spitzbergen. Bear Shot from 
 the Deck of the Sloop . . Page 1G7 
 
 CHAP. XII. 
 
 Walruses leave the Banks, and go upon Land. Vast 
 Herds ashore. Frightful Massacre. Just Retribution. 
 
 Cargo of Bones. Beautiful Day and Sudden Change. 
 
 Early Northern Voyagers. Scoresby s Opinion. Open 
 Polar Basin a mere Chimera. Dr. Kane. North Pole. 
 Scheme for reaching the Pole. Parry s Sledge Expedi 
 tion ; and why it failed. Alexei Markhoff s Expedition ; 
 and his difficult Return 184 
 
 CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Whales Bones. Rapid Elevation of the Land. Early 
 Whale Fishery. Shallowing of the Sea. Trench ploughed 
 by an Iceberg. Last Day at the Sea-horses. Successful 
 Stalk and double Shot. Lose two Harpoons. Very bad 
 
 Luck. Difficulty of shooting Walruses. Gale. Wrecks 
 
 in Spitzbergen. Insurance. Kill a White Whale. 
 Description of the same. Sail to the Rendezvous . 199 
 
 CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Smeerenberg, or Blubber Town. Agrements of ditto. 
 Discovery of Spitzbergen. Barentz. Whale Fishery. 
 
 Attempts to colonise the Country, and to make a 
 
 penal Settlement. They fail. The West Indies versus 
 Spitzbergen. Russian Robinson Crusoes. Wintering 
 Establishment. How conducted. Awful Mortality. 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 Final Tragedy. Death of eighteen Men from Scurvy 
 and Hunger. Ingenious Counter-irritant. Eussian 
 Bath. Cricket. Boats sewed together. Post Office. 
 Signs of Deer. Kill three Geese with Ball. Find the 
 " Ginevra," and change into her. Nautical Nimrods. 
 Amusing Walrus-hunt. Gun bursts . . Page 217 
 
 
 
 CHAP. XV. 
 
 Bitter Cold. Eeindeer- shooting. Three right and left 
 Shots. Delight of the Sailors.. Black Fox. Ponche & 
 la Spitzberg. Description of the Reindeer. High Con 
 dition he attains. Excellence of his Flesh. His Igno 
 rance of Man. Anecdotes. Fine Valley. Unexplored 
 Channel. Near Heinlopen Straits. Unjust Attack. 
 Marrow-Bones. Ice-borne Boulders. Good " Bag." 
 
 Two Singular Mountains. Thymen s Straits. Meri 
 torious Deer. Receipt for Kabobs. Splendid Deer Forest. 
 Rejoin the Sloop ... .237 
 
 CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Dead Walrus found. Bears nearly escape, but are caught. 
 
 Gale and Ice. Mynherr Holmengreen. Presents 
 more Kaffirorum. Send home the Sloop. Result of 
 Ericson s eight Months Voyage. South Cape. Sugar- 
 loaf Mountain. " Right Whales." Parasitical Gulls. 
 Practical Joke. Arctic Fauna. Chain of Subsist 
 ence. Divergence of White Bear from original Stock. 
 Origin of the Walrus ; and of the Seal. Of the Ceta 
 ceans. Changes in the South African Antelopes, caused 
 by Desiccation of that country . . . . .260 
 
 CHAP. XVII. 
 
 Horn and Bell Sounds Ice Fiord. Pickled Reindeers 
 
 Tongues. Arctic Foxes. Geology. Raised Beaches. 
 Fossil Cannon-balls. Awful Avalanche. Begins to get 
 
 a 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 dark at Night. Reach Hammerfest. Sell our Cargo. 
 Take Leave of our Crew. Sail Home. Equinoctial Gales. 
 Leith. Glut of Bears in the British Market. Conclu 
 sion. Game List ...... Page 286 
 
 APPENDIX . .299 
 
ILLFSTKATIONS. 
 
 1. Chase of the Walrus .... Frontispiece 
 
 2. The Author s Yacht, the " Ginevra " . . Vignette 
 
 3. View on the Eiver Namsen . . .to face page 9 
 
 4. Walruses on the Ice .... 66 
 
 5. Seal-shooting ..... ,,113 
 
 6. She-Bear and Cubs .... ,,129 
 
 7. Eeindeer-shooting .... 239 
 
 8. Group of Keindeer .... 287 
 
 MAP OF AUTHOR S ROUTE 312 
 
SPOKTING ADVENTFEES 
 
 IN THE 
 
 NORTHERN SEAS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 First Trip to Spitzbergen in 1858. Find Schooner Yacht 
 and light Grigs unsuitable. Determine to go again in 
 1859. Hire a suitable Vessel and Crew, and build two 
 Eoats. Lord David Kennedy agrees to accompany me. 
 Contested Election delays our starting. Result of 
 Poll unfortunate alike for Walruses and Constituency. 
 Preliminary Trip to Guernsey. Sail ,from Leith. 
 Steamer a little out in her Reckoning. Dreadful Famine 
 in Lerwick. Gale. Namsen Fiord and River. Salmon 
 Fishing. Terry s Breech-loading Rifles. 
 
 IN August, 1858, while cruising in my yacht 
 the " Ginevra," of 142 tons, on the coast of 
 Norway, I was induced, by the accounts I re 
 ceived of reindeer and other game to be met 
 with in Spitzbergen, to make a trip across from 
 Hammerfest to that country. It being late in 
 
 B 
 
2 FIRST TRIP TO SPITZBERGEN IN 1858. 
 
 the season before we got there, our stay was 
 very short, and our sport was limited to killing 
 a few reindeer, seals, and Brent geese, and to 
 assisting in the harpooning of one or two 
 walruses, in the boats of a sealing brig, which 
 we fell in with amongst the ice. I however 
 saw enough of Spitzbergen to convince me that 
 wonderful sport, and of a most original descrip 
 tion, was to be obtained there by anyone who 
 would go at the proper season, with a suitably 
 equipped vessel and proper boats, manned by 
 a crew of men accustomed to the ice and to 
 the pursuit of the walrus and the seal. 
 
 Although I have the honour to append the 
 letters P.G.S. to my name, I make no preten 
 sions to the character of a scientific geologist, 
 but I was also very much impressed with the 
 interesting field Spitzbergen affords to a votary 
 of that noble science, and particularly with 
 the strong evidence to be met with in support 
 of the theory of the gradual upheaval of the 
 land in that remote part of the world, and I 
 was anxious to investigate further this interest 
 ing phenomenon. 
 
 I perceived on this occasion that nothing 
 could be more utterly inapplicable for ice- 
 navigation than a long fore-and-aft rigged 
 
TO GO AGAIN. 6 
 
 schooner yacht, as in threading the intricate 
 mazes of the ice there was no possibility of 
 stopping her "way" to avoid collisions, as is 
 done by backing the topsails of a square-rigged 
 vessel, and her frail planking and thin copper 
 were exposed to constant destruction from the 
 ice. The dandified "ultramarine blue " painted 
 gigs were also totally unsuited for the rough 
 work of pushing in amongst the ice in pursuit 
 of the seal and the walrus ; indeed, it was very 
 fortunate for us that we did not succeed in 
 harpooning one of the latter mighty amphibia? 
 from the yacht s boats, for my subsequent ex 
 perience of the strength and ferocity of these 
 animals leads me to believe that he would 
 infallibly have pulled us all to the bottom of 
 the sea. 
 
 In the spring of 1859, therefore, I made up 
 my mind to have another trip to Spitzbergen, 
 and to go about it in a more systematic way; 
 so early in the season I wrote to a gentleman 
 in Hammerfest, who had been good enough to 
 accompany me on my previous trip as an 
 amateur pilot, requesting him to hire for me a 
 small, stout " jagt,"* suitably planked, and pro- 
 
 * A small sloop without a topmast ; a rig very general 
 amongst the Scandinavian coasters. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 AND TH-ATvE PKEPARATIOXS. 
 
 vided with a square topsail and everything 
 requisite for a summer s campaign against the 
 ferae nature of the arctic regions; and including 
 casks to stow their blubber in, as I expected 
 to be reimbursed for at least a part of the 
 heavy outlay these preparations entailed, by 
 the proceeds of skins and oil. I also ordered 
 two suitable whale- (or rather walrus-) boats 
 to be constructed in Hanimerfest, of a size 
 slightly larger than those commonly used, so 
 as to admit of an amateur sitting comfortably 
 in the stern without his having necessarily to 
 act as one of the boat s crew ; and, finally, I 
 desired niv a^ent to enrao e two skilful har- 
 
 / o 
 
 pooners, and men enough to man the boats 
 and navigate the " jagt" English sailors being 
 almost as useless as the boats for this descrip 
 tion of work. 
 
 On mentioning my projected expedition to a 
 friend, renowned as a sportsman with the rifle 
 and the spear on the plains of India, and 
 telling him of the sport I expected amongst 
 the icebergs of the North, he at once agreed to 
 join me, and entered with heart and purse into 
 the arrangements ; and here let me state that, 
 during ten years I have spent in travelling in 
 different parts of the world, I have never fallen 
 
CONTESTED ELECTION DELAYS OUR START. O 
 
 in with a pleasanter and more unselfish com 
 panion, or a keener and a braver sportsman, 
 than Lord David Kennedy. 
 
 TVhen we were nearly ready to start, and I 
 was superintending the outfitting of my yacht 
 at Southampton, I was most unexpectedly 
 requested by the Liberal party of a Scottish 
 county to become their candidate in the 
 general election about to take place ; so deem 
 ing it my duty to sacrifice my amusement to 
 my country s good, I stayed the preparations 
 for sea, and for the ten following days I was 
 en^a^ed in all the excitement of an electoral 
 
 o o 
 
 contest. The result, by a very narrow majority, 
 proved unfortunate for the walruses, although 
 perhaps the cynical reader may be disposed to 
 add, "fortunate for the constituency," and I 
 was once more at liberty to proceed on my 
 intended voyage. 
 
 After a visit to Guernsey, for the purpose of 
 laying in a supply of cold-repelling fluids, &c., 
 I sent the yacht round to Leith, while I 
 travelled north by land, as I am not the least 
 ashamed to confess that I have a strong pre 
 ference for land travelling, when it is practic 
 able. 
 
 On May 31st the yacht arrived in Leith 
 
 B 3 
 
STEAMER OUT IN HER RECKONING. 
 
 Koads, bnt a violent gale of east wind pre 
 vented us from sailing for several days ; how 
 ever, we got under way at daylight on the 6th 
 of June, but the day being calm we were only 
 off the village of Elie, at the mouth of the 
 Firth of Forth, at seven in the evening, so I 
 landed to pay a visit to some relations living 
 there whom I had not seen for several years, 
 and to procure some small stores which the 
 steward had forgotten, and which he declared 
 were " indispensable." 
 
 On the 8th, during a dense fog, we were off 
 Aberdeen by our dead-reckoning, and were 
 nearly run down by a tug steamer, from the 
 deck of which a voice hailed in a strong North 
 umbrian dialect, requesting to know "how 
 far they might be from Shields ? " I never 
 saw any people look more surprised than they 
 did on being told " about 240 miles," as they 
 had lost their way in the fog for two or three 
 days, and imagined themselves to be still only 
 a few miles from the mouth of the Tyne. 
 
 We beat through the middle of the Orkney 
 Islands on the 9th, and on the llth, finding 
 the wind still desperately ahead with a heavy 
 sea, we thought it would entail no great loss 
 of time to put into Lerwick, to replenish our 
 
FAMINE IN LEEWICK. 7 
 
 stock of fresh meat and vegetables, which, as 
 well as fish and butter, we imagined, in the 
 innocence of our hearts, must abound here; 
 but to our great surprise and disgust we found 
 there was no market, and scarcely anything 
 eatable to be bought. Will it be believed that 
 in a seaport-town of 3000 inhabitants, and so 
 far advanced in civilisation as to be lighted by 
 gas, there was actually not a joint of fresh 
 meat, a pound of fresh butter, nor even 
 any fresh fish to be purchased ? After much 
 foraging we did succeed in obtaining some 
 milk, some indifferent bread, and some stale 
 eggs. I went into a chemist s shop to pur 
 chase some photographic chemicals, and upon 
 my remarking to the worthy proprietor that 
 Lerwick appeared to be suffering from famine 
 at present, he replied, " Oh yes, Sir, this time 
 of year is what we call the starvation months 
 here." 
 
 As I was unwilling to sacrifice a whole day 
 by waiting until sheep could be got from the 
 country, we went on board and prepared to set 
 sail, when just as the anchor was atrip, two 
 boats pushed off from the shore in hot haste : 
 one of these conveyed some fisher-boys, who 
 had just taken a miraculous draught of eight 
 
 B 4 
 
8 GALE. NAMSEN FIOKD. 
 
 herrings, the first of the season, as they told 
 us. The other coble conveyed a hungry- 
 looking two-year-old Leicester sheep, in 
 custody of his proprietor, a neighbouring 
 farmer who had heard of our necessities. 
 
 The purchase of the sheep and the eight 
 herrings was negotiated in a very few minutes, 
 and then, "shaking the dust from our feet" 
 on this wretched, poverty-stricken village, we 
 renewed our hammering against the N.E. wind 
 outside. The wind hung in this direction, i. e. 
 straight in our teeth, until the 15th, when it 
 increased to a gale, against which we could 
 make no progress at all. We were by this 
 time off the coast of Norway, and recognising 
 the mountains as being those lying about the 
 mouth of the Namsen Piord, I determined to 
 get inside for shelter until the gale should 
 abate ; and I thought that as we appeared 
 likely to have the Nor-Easter all the way, we 
 might as well take the opportunity of re 
 plenishing our fresh water and fuel. We ac 
 cordingly ran up this noble fiord, and at 8 A.M. 
 on the 16th cast anchor in a beautiful little 
 bay, opposite to the gloomy precipices forming 
 the island of Otteroe. Most extraordinary 
 labyrinthian clusters of islands and rocks lay 
 
SALMON-PISHING. 9 
 
 on each side of the entrance to this fiord, hut 
 the passage is wide and clear, and being 
 plainly laid down in the excellent Norwegian 
 Government chart, we had no difficulty about 
 finding our way in. I set the crew to gather 
 firewood and fill the water tanks, while we 
 took a walk to the top of a neighbouring pine- 
 clad mountain. The Norwegian summer was 
 just commencing, and everything looked ex 
 tremely fresh and beautiful. 
 
 The celebrated Namsen River runs into the 
 head of this fiord. This queen of rivers is well 
 known to anglers as being the finest salmon 
 stream in Norway, or perhaps in the world. 
 In bygone days I had myself passed two 
 summers (one of them in company with a dear 
 friend now gathered to his fathers) in salmon 
 fishing in that splendid river, and recollections 
 came thick upon me now of the pleasant hours 
 passed in his society, and of the thirty and 
 forty pounders which we hooked and cap 
 tured in the gigantic pools and the magni 
 ficent rushing streams of the Namsen.* The 
 
 * To show the wonderful sport to be met with on this 
 river, I may state, that in the summer of 1854 I killed to 
 my own rod, in thirty days fishing, 83 salmon, weighing in 
 all 1350 Ibs.; and the best sixty averaging 20 Ibs. each. 
 
10 FISKUM POSS. 
 
 good fishing water is a considerable way up, 
 and only extends for about twelve miles of the 
 river, when the salmon are stopped by one of 
 the finest waterfalls in the world, called by 
 the natives " Piskum Poss," (Anglice, " the 
 Salmon s Pall. 53 ) This twelve miles of water 
 belongs to many small proprietors, and is 
 divided into six fishing-stations, which for 
 several years back have been regularly let on 
 lease to British sportsmen. 
 
 While the crew were engaged in wooding 
 and watering, we employed ourselves in trying 
 some breech-loading rifles, known as " Terry s 
 patent," but although I shot a " loom " (a large 
 species of diver) at 100 yards distance with 
 one of these, we both came to the conviction, 
 that as sporting weapons they were nearly 
 worthless, and were infinitely more trouble 
 some and difficult, both to load and to clean, 
 than the common muzzle-loader. "While 
 looking at these rifles in the shop of the 
 inventor and patentee, I had formed a high 
 opinion of them, and the result only showed 
 how difficult it is to form an accurate opinion 
 
 And even this has been far exceeded by others, and parti 
 cularly by the late Sir Charles Blois, who fished this river 
 for many years. 
 
TERRY S BREECH-LOADING RIFLES. 11 
 
 of any fire-arms without the test of actual 
 practice in the field. I may add, that the prin 
 ciple seems to me to be still more inapplicable 
 to military weapons than to sporting ones, as 
 the mechanism is far too complicated to stand 
 wear-and-tear and rough usage. I daresay the 
 authorities at the Horse Guards have since 
 found out this for themselves, as I understand 
 a number of these breech-loaders, in the form 
 of rifled carbines, were contracted for, for the 
 cavalry. 
 
 The gale having abated, we sailed again on 
 the morning of the 17th, but the wind con 
 tinuing N.E. we had to beat the whole way 
 north, and did not reach Hammerfest until 
 the 23rd. 
 
12 HAMMEUFEST. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 Hammerfest. The "Anna Louisa." Dr. de Jongh. 
 Norwegian Grouse. Sail for Spit zbergen. Shark Fishery. 
 Bear or Cherie Island. Multitudes of Sea-fowl. 
 Sight Spitzbergen. Post Office. "YVybe Jan s Water. 
 Meet the Ice. Brig Nordby. Captain Ericson. Dis 
 astrous Spring-fishing. Empress of India. Loss of a 
 Telescope, and a Man s Life. Boy -walrus. Thick Ice. 
 Meet the Sloop, and sail in company to the East. Shift 
 our Mag, and send the Yacht to Bell Sound. 
 
 WE dropped anchor opposite the British 
 Vice-Consul s house and had that worthy 
 official on hoard to hreakfast. He informed us 
 that our "jagt" had heen got ready and was 
 waiting for us ; the "boats however still re 
 quired to he finished off and painted. Several 
 small vessels engaged in the seal and walrus 
 fishery had gone to Spitzhergen more than a 
 month ago, hut nothing had heen heard of 
 them since their departure. 
 
 After hreakfast, the gentleman to whom I 
 had written ahout the preparations came on 
 
THE " ANNA LOUISA." 13 
 
 board, and in company with him we went to 
 inspect the " jagt," boats, &c. 
 
 I had hitherto been undecided whether to 
 leave the " Ginevra " at Hammerfest, or to take 
 her also over to Spitzbergen, but the sight 
 and smell of the cabin of the "Anna Louisa" 
 at once decided me to stick to the schooner as 
 long as possible. 
 
 The "Anna Louisa" was an extremely 
 ugly, clumsy little tub of a sloop, of about 30 
 tons British measurement, and was rigged 
 with a particularly ill-fitting mainsail, a stay 
 sail, a jib, and a small square topsail. She was 
 high at the bow and the stern, and round in the 
 bottom, and altogether looked as if the in 
 tention of her builder had been that she 
 should make as much leeway as possible, and 
 upset at the first opportunity. The latter fate 
 I afterwards learned had very nearly overtaken 
 her the summer before, and her subsequent 
 performances in making leeway did not at all 
 belie her appearance. She had been engaged 
 in a Spitzbergen trip the previous summer, 
 and looked and smelt as if she had not been 
 cleaned since, as the stench of the putrid 
 walrus oil, in and all over her, was perfectly 
 sickening. 
 
14 HEE CREW AND OUTFIT. 
 
 Her crew consisted of a " skyppar " or 
 captain, two men rated and paid as harpooners 
 and mates, a cook, and eight other seamen ; 
 the captain, the two harpooners, and two of 
 the others had been many times at Spitzbergen, 
 and were considered good and experienced 
 hands. 
 
 She was fully equipped with harpoons and 
 lines, lances, seal-hooks, axes, blubber-knives, 
 a large bundle of white pine-sticks, in the 
 rough (to be converted into oars and shafts for 
 the lances and harpoons), casks for the blubber; 
 (at present full of water and small coals for 
 ballast) ; salt for the skins ; provisions for the 
 crew, consisting of salt beef and pork, dried 
 fish, butter, rye-bread, peas, molasses, tea 
 and coffee, &c. &c. 
 
 As the " Anna Louisa " had a small walrus 
 boat belonging to her, independently of the 
 two being built for us, we determined that in 
 order to save time she should sail at once ; so 
 after a little difficulty in collecting the crew, 
 who seemed more inclined to the worship of 
 Bacchus than that of Diana, we got her off 
 with a fair wind on the 26th of June. We 
 had previously arranged with the "skyppar," 
 to rendezvous at a little bay on the S.E. corner 
 
MOSQUITOES. 15 
 
 of Spitzbergen ; and if that should be unap 
 proachable from ice, then at Bell Sound on the 
 west coast. 
 
 "We had to wait three days for the boats to 
 be finished and painted, and, as may be sup 
 posed, we soon exhausted the resources of 
 Hammerfest in the way of amusement. I 
 believe the principal fact in connection with 
 it is, that it is the northernmost town in 
 the world, being in lat. 70 42 N., and long. 
 23 35 E., yet from the influence of the 
 Gulf Stream the sea never freezes here. 
 Although great masses of snow still lay 
 on the hills, and even close down to the 
 water s edge, the weather was extremely 
 hot, and the mosquitoes as numerous and 
 annoying as I ever knew them in Africa or 
 America. 
 
 There is a large, ugly, barny-looking, red- 
 tiled, and yellow-ochre painted wooden cathe 
 dral, which looks, and I suppose is, big enough 
 to contain the entire population of the place ; 
 the latter amounts to about 1300, who mostly 
 live in miserable, rotten-looking wooden huts, 
 although the consuls and some few of the 
 principal merchants have excellent and well- 
 built houses. * 
 
16 TRADE OF HAMMERFEST. 
 
 This was quite the busy season here, and a 
 good deal of trade appeared to be going on, as 
 the harbour was full of small .Russian luggers 
 and other coasting craft. This trade consists 
 chiefly in the exportation of dried fish and 
 walrus-skins to Archangel, and the other ports 
 on the White Sea, getting from thence in 
 return rye-meal, salt-beef, tar, hemp and cord 
 age ; they also export seal and walrus-oil, fish- 
 oil, and seal-skins to Newcastle and Hamburg, 
 in return for cutlery, hardware, stoneware, 
 dry goods, &c. 
 
 Hamnierfest, in addition to the honour of 
 being the most northerly town in the world, 
 may assuredly lay claim to another superlative, 
 viz., that of being the most unsavoury place in 
 the universe : the immense quantity of cod, 
 ling, and seythe or coal-fish, which are caught 
 on the coast of Finmarken, are cured without 
 salt, being merely beheaded and gutted, and 
 laid down on the rocks or hung up on hurdles 
 to dry. There were a great many acres of fish 
 undergoing this process in and around Hani- 
 merfest at the time of our visit, and the whole 
 atmosphere was redolent of semi-putrid fish, in 
 consequence. 
 
 There <fcre also several extensive boileries of 
 
DR. DE JONGH. 17 
 
 seal and walrus blubber, and of fish-liver-oil, 
 and I am sure that, if the numerous fair 
 sufferers in Europe and America, who swallow 
 their daily drams of " Pale-brown cod-liver-oil," 
 were only to see the enormous vats full of 
 rotting seythe livers, and to smell the horrific 
 exhalations from these boiling-houses, it would 
 sadly diminish the profits of the far-famed Dr. 
 De Jongh. 
 
 We took several walks in the mountains, and 
 shot a few ducks, ptarmigans, and ripas for the 
 table. I have shot many hundreds of these 
 two last-named birds throughout Norway, and 
 I have not the smallest doubt on my own mind 
 that they are both identical in species with 
 our Scottish ptarmigan and red-grouse, being 
 merely, as Mr. Darwin would say, " strongly 
 marked varieties," altered by geographical con 
 ditions, such as the greater cold and the neces 
 sity for the protection of a plumage more re 
 sembling the country they frequent.* I have 
 very little doubt that, if the dal-ripas were 
 taken to Scotland, or the red-grouse to Norway, 
 a few generations would be sufficient to cause 
 them to resemble exactly the variety existing 
 
 * The ptarmigan is called in Scandinavia the "Field- 
 Eipa " or hill-grouse ; and the grouse the " Dal-ripa," 
 
 C 
 
18 NORWEGIAN GROUSE. 
 
 in the country to which they were trans 
 ferred. 
 
 On the evening of the 28th, we got the new 
 boats on board the yacht, having first deposited 
 her frail Cowes gigs in a warehouse ashore ; 
 and at 1 A.M., on the 29th, I turned the hands 
 up to make sail for Spitzbergen. The wind 
 was very light, and it was long before we got 
 out of sight of the island of Soroen. 
 
 On the 30th we passed a small vessel engaged 
 in the shark-fishery. This singular pursuit is 
 carried on extensively in the seas lying between 
 Einmarken and Bear Island, where the sound 
 ings vary from 100 to 150 fathoms, and the 
 modus operand! is to anchor by long light 
 hempen cables at about that depth, and then 
 
 literally " valley-grouse." The first frequents the high 
 rocky hills, and is nowhere very abundant : it seerns to me 
 exactly the same as the ptarmigan, or white grouse of the 
 Scottish mountains. The dal-ripa inhabits the rocky islands 
 and birch-covered hill-sides in great numbers, and although 
 nearly as grey as the ptarmigan, I have not the slightest 
 doubt of his being the same bird as our Scottish red-grouse, 
 which he exactly resembles in his size, his voice, his flight, 
 his habits, and everything except his colour. 
 
 A species of grouse or ptarmigan is also well known to 
 inhabit Spitzbergen, but I never was fortunate enough to 
 see one, although very anxious to procure a skin, as I 
 believe a specimen does not exist in any of the museums of 
 Europe. 
 
SHARK-FISHERY. 19 
 
 put overboard their lines baited with seal s 
 blubber : when they get a " nibble," they drag 
 their victim de profundis by means of a wind 
 lass, and when he appears at the surface they 
 further secure him with harpoons, and despatch 
 him with spears and axes. The Arctic shark 
 {Sqiialus Groenlandicus or Borealis) is very 
 large, and his liver, which is the sole object of 
 his persecution, affords nearly its own bulk of 
 fine oil, amounting, I am told, sometimes to up 
 wards of a barrel. (Qucere, does Dr. De Jongh 
 know anything of Squalus Groenlandicus ?) 
 
 This little vessel appeared to have been 
 pretty successful, as her sides were quite white 
 and silvery from, the sharks being dragged 
 against them ; and I confess the sight made us 
 regret that my yacht s ground-tackle was 
 neither long enough nor light enough to 
 admit of our participating in the amusement. 
 
 "When these men kill a shark, they have a 
 curious practice of inflating its stomach with a 
 bellows and tying the gullet, in order to make 
 the carcase float, as, if it sank to the bottom, all 
 the other sharks would devote their attentions 
 to their defunct friend, to the neglect of the 
 seal s blubber. 
 
 About 2 A.M. on the 1st of July we passed 
 
 c 2 
 
20 BEAR Oil CHERIE ISLAND. 
 
 Bear or Cherie Island, so called, I presume, on 
 the Incus a non lucendo principle, because 
 it certainly produces neither bears nor cherries 
 at the present day. I believe the real reasons 
 for its nomenclature are, that some of the early 
 Dutch navigators, on their way to China, once 
 saw a bear here, and that an English expedi 
 tion, sent out by Alderman Cherie of London, 
 afterwards erroneously fancied that they were 
 the discoverers of the island, and tried to sup 
 plant its original name by that of their patron. 
 There is said to be plenty of good coal cropping 
 out of a precipice on the island. 
 
 Although this was the third time that I have 
 passed close by Bear Island, I had never yet 
 actually been able to see it, as it is generally 
 shrouded by impenetrable mist. One can, how 
 ever, always tell when you approach it by the 
 enormous quantities of gulls, puffins, guil 
 lemots, razor-bills, divers, &c., which use it 
 as a sort of headquarters and nursery, and 
 afford to the mariner a perfect index to its 
 proximity.* 
 
 The thermometer here fell to 36, and a fresh 
 
 * Bear Island is inaccurately laid down on the charts ; 
 its actual longitude being 19 east from Greenwich, and 
 not 20 east, as the charts make it. 
 
MEET THE ICE. 21 
 
 gale of south-west wind sprang up, and carried 
 us at the rate of 11 knots an hour, until we 
 sighted South Cape, the southernmost promon 
 tory of West Spitzbergen, at 1 A.M. on the 2nd. 
 
 "We had been steering rather to the west, so 
 as to keep clear during the gale of the heavy 
 drift-ice which our pilot expected to be lying 
 off the south-east of the island, and we now had 
 to alter our course to nearly due east, so as to 
 reach the appointed rendezvous. We got there 
 in the evening, and found the little harbour 
 blocked up by heavy ice, which extended all 
 along the coast. There was no appearance of 
 the sloop, so we got out one of the boats and 
 sent the pilot ashore with a letter, enclosed in a 
 bottle, and addressed to Isaac the skyppar, 
 saying, we had been there, and would return in 
 a few days. 
 
 There are some old ruinous E/ussian huts 
 on this promontory, one of which we made use 
 of as a post-office, by hanging the bottle up 
 inside of it. 
 
 It was very difficult to get the boat through 
 the ice along shore, and the whole country was 
 covered with deep slushy snow ; we saw no 
 thing ashore but a few Brent geese and Eider 
 ducks. 
 
 c 3 
 
22 "WYBE JAN S WATER." 
 
 3rd. Thinking the sloop had not yet reached 
 Spitzbergen, I determined to sail up the great 
 gulf or sound called " Stour Fiord" or " Wybe 
 Jan s Water/ to a place called " Thy men s 
 Straits," about forty miles distant, in hopes of 
 getting a few reindeer for provisions, as we 
 were now subsisting on a bull, which, in the 
 absence of anything better, I had purchased in 
 Hammerfest. 
 
 Hitherto the fiord had appeared quite clear 
 of ice, except a little about the shore, but 
 on sailing about twenty miles north, we 
 sighted a long, low, white line of ice, extending 
 like a wall apparently right across the fiord ; 
 we thought at first that this was a sheet of 
 fixed or " fast " ice, but on approaching it we 
 discovered that it was drift ice, mostly in small 
 pieces, and very open. We saw two small 
 vessels, which we made out to be a brig and a 
 sloop, or " jagt," at some distance amongst the 
 ice. Thinking the sloop might either be our 
 own, or be able to give us some intelligence of 
 her, we sent a boat on board her during a calm. 
 They knew nothing of our sloop, and reported 
 an indifferent "fishing" hitherto; no vessel 
 that they knew of had killed more than thirty 
 walruses ; they themselves had twenty, with 
 
SEALS ON THE ICE. 23 
 
 forty great seals and one bear ; they also in 
 formed us that the north coast of Spitzbergen, 
 which is usually considered the best hunting- 
 ground, was this year impracticable, on account 
 of large quantities of ice being jammed against 
 the coast at the north-west promontory, called 
 Hakluyt s Headland. 
 
 On the 4th it was dead calm, and one of the 
 most beautiful, bright, sunny days imaginable ; 
 it even felt quite warm, although the thermo 
 meter was only 50 in the shade. "We got a 
 boat out, and rowed for about six hours 
 amongst the ice, looking for seals, but only 
 saw three, all of whom managed to save their 
 blubber. 
 
 On such a day as this, in these latitudes one 
 can see to immense distances with great dis 
 tinctness, and hills which we know by reckon 
 ing and observation to be forty or fifty miles 
 off, appear to the eye as if they were not more 
 than ten or twelve. This is, doubtless, owing- 
 to a very dry atmosphere, and also to the 
 greater flatness of the globe so near the pole 
 permitting a much larger horizon to be visible. 
 
 In the evening we had drifted close up to 
 the brig beforementioned, and upon hailing her 
 I was pleased to find her the " Nordbye," of 
 
 c 4 
 
24 BRIG " NOBDBYE." 
 
 Tonsberg, the same brig I had met last summer 
 amongst the Thousand Islands, and whose 
 master had initiated me into the exciting sport 
 of harpooning the walrus. I recognised the 
 portly form of Captain Ericson very like a 
 "stour cobbe," or large seal himself on the 
 deck, and requested him to come on board to 
 dinner, an invitation with which he promptly 
 complied. The " Nordbye " had left Tonsberg 
 in the Christiania Fiord in February, for the 
 seal-fishery in the great ice-field in the neigh 
 bourhood of Jan Mayen s Island, and, having 
 been unlucky there, had only lately come to 
 Spit zber gen as a dernier ressort, in hopes of 
 making up a cargo; she is an unwieldy tub 
 of about 200 tons, with five boats and twenty- 
 four men, and is far too small for the north 
 western, fishery, as she is unable to hoist or 
 turn over a dead whale ; while, on the other 
 hand, she is too big for the Spitsbergen seal 
 and walrus fishery, as no one locality is gene 
 rally able to employ five boats at a time, and 
 his crew are consequently only half employed. 
 Ericson told us that the spring fishery at Jan 
 Mayen s had been very unsuccessful and very 
 disastrous; many vessels had gone home 
 "clean;" several Scotch and Norwegian vessels 
 
DISASTROUS SPRING FISHING. 25 
 
 had been much damaged, and two or three 
 totally lost ; amongst others, the " Empress of 
 India," a bran new iron screw whaler, from 
 Peterhead, which had cost 20,000., had gone 
 down bodily, the crew escaping with difficulty 
 into a Norwegian brig, belonging to the same 
 port and same owners as the " Nordbye." 
 Ericson expressed his decided conviction that 
 iron vessels will " never do " for the northern 
 whale-fishery, as the excessive cold renders the 
 iron brittle, and concussions with the ice are 
 apt to start the rivets. 
 
 The " Nordbye " herself had undergone a 
 terrible battering in that inclement season in 
 those stormy seas, and had only captured about 
 300 small Jan Mayen seals whereas 3000 
 would hardly have been remunerative. Poor 
 Ericson was further in great tribulation on 
 account of having broken all his telescopes ; 
 the mate, a fine young fellow of twenty-two, 
 only two days before, had tumbled out of the 
 " crow s-nest " at the maiii-top-gallant-mast- 
 head on to the deck, along with the last 
 telescope, and had broken it to pieces; upon 
 further inquiry I ascertained that he had 
 broken Ms own neck at the same time, and 
 was picked up dead. To do my friend Ericson 
 
26 CAPTAIN ERICSON. 
 
 justice, I must acknowledge that lie seemed to 
 regret the loss of his poor young mate even 
 more than that of the telescope, which he had 
 accompanied in its descent, although the latter 
 was quite invaluahle and indispensable here, 
 and not to be replaced nearer than Hammer- 
 fest for ten times its weight in gold. We had 
 only three telescopes between us ; but after a 
 slight inward struggle I prevailed upon my 
 self to present one of them to Ericson, and I 
 was happy to be able to render such an im 
 portant service to so good and obliging a 
 fellow. 
 
 Before parting company we went on board 
 the "Nordbye, 55 to see a young live walrus (" a 
 leetle boy- walrus, 55 as Ericson in his broken 
 English called it), which they had on board 
 as a pet. This interesting little animal was 
 about the size of a sheep, and was the most 
 comical fac- simile imaginable of an old walrus ; 
 he had been taken alive after the harpooning 
 of his mother, a few weeks ago, and now 
 seemed perfectly healthy, and tame and play 
 ful as a kitten. It was of course a great pet 
 with all on board, and seemed much more in 
 telligent than I could have believed ; the only 
 thing which seemed to destroy its equani- 
 
YOUNG TAME WALRUS. 27 
 
 mity was pulling its whiskers, or pretend 
 ing to use a " rope s end " to it, when it 
 would sneak off, looking over its shoulder, just 
 like a dog when chastised. They said it would 
 eat salt-fish, salt-beef, blubber, or anything 
 offered it, but I strongly advised Ericson to 
 give it, if possible, a mixture of vegetables or 
 sea- weed along with such strong diet. I 
 assured him, that if he succeeded in taking 
 it alive to the Regent s Park or the Jardin- 
 des-Plantes, he could get a long price for it ; 
 but before I left Spitzbergen, in September, 
 I heard with regret that the curious little 
 beast had died. 
 
 Ericson told me he did not think my yacht 
 could penetrate to " Thy men s Straits " at 
 present, as a great deal of ice intervened, and 
 more continued drifting through the straits 
 from the eastward, but as it looked tolerably 
 open, I resolved to try. Upon penetrating a 
 few miles in, however, we found it was impos 
 sible, and we therefore had to make up our 
 minds to a continuance of the bull for the 
 present. 
 
 We sailed down the fiord again on the 5th 
 to look for our consort, or to see if she had left 
 any letters for us at the post-office ; on near- 
 
28 MEET OUR CONSORT, 
 
 ing the Russian huts we saw a small sloop, 
 which hoisted the flag of Norway and Sweden, 
 and which we soon made out to be the " Anna 
 Louisa." She had been driven a good deal to 
 the east during the gale on the 1st and 2nd, 
 and had not met with any great quantity of 
 ice, except amongst the Thousand Islands, but 
 several small vessels were hunting, or, as they 
 call it, " fishing," to the eastward. Our men 
 had only seen two walruses, but they had killed 
 four seals, and these formed the commence 
 ment of a cargo, which afterwards swelled to 
 goodly proportions. 
 
 Our people were of opinion that our best 
 chance of sport lay to the north-east of the 
 Thousand Islands, where there are extensive 
 submarine banks, much affected by the walrus 
 but as we were very reluctant to exchange the 
 comfortable cabins of the " Ginevra " for the 
 narrow and odoriferous bunks of the " Anna 
 Louisa," we decided on keeping in company 
 as long as the ice would permit the former to 
 get through; but although we lowered the 
 " Ginevra s" main-topsail, brailed up the 
 foresail, and tacked up the mainsail, we had 
 still some difficulty in keeping the yacht from 
 running out of sight of her lubberly consort. 
 
AND SHIFT OUR FLAG INTO HEfc. 29 
 
 On the 6th we found the ice getting too 
 thick for the "Ginevra," so we agreed to 
 abandon her altogether, and to shift our flag 
 into the "Anna Louisa" for good; we occu 
 pied ahout one half the day in transferring our 
 guns, bedding, provisions, ammunition, &c., 
 from the yacht to the sloop ; we also took with 
 us the yacht s cook and Lord David s servant 
 James, which made up a total of sixteen souls 
 for the sloop, leaving ten in the yacht ; we took 
 the two new walrus boats with us, and trans 
 ferred the small old one to the yacht; we 
 further gave them a large cask, in which to 
 stow the blubber of any seals they might get. 
 I gave the sailing-master of the yacht instruc 
 tions in writing, " to proceed to Bell Sound, 
 and there to kill as many reindeer as possible ; 
 if no reindeer were procurable, to cross again 
 to Hammerfest for provisions, and in either 
 case to be back without fail at the Russian 
 huts on or before the 6th of August." I also 
 instructed him to employ his personal leisure 
 in collecting and carefully labelling fossils and 
 shells, and also small bags of gravel from 
 diiferent elevations, as well as some specimens 
 of whales bones and drift-wood from the 
 highest elevations he could find them on. 
 
30 AND PAIIT COMPANY. 
 
 I appointed the mate to be mattre de chasse, 
 and entrusted him with one of the Terry s 
 rifles, and a single-barrelled shot-gun, with lots 
 of powder, shot, caps, and cartridges ; we then 
 parted company, and proceeded to make our 
 selves as comfortable as circumstances would 
 admit of on board the sloop. 
 
PREPARATIONS. 31 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 Preparations. Description of a "Walrus-boat, and Im 
 plements used. Harpoons. Lances. The Haak- 
 pick, or Seal-hook. Axes. Knives. Ice-anchors. 
 Compass. 
 
 THE crew are busy in shaping the rough white 
 pine-poles into oars, and shafts for the spears 
 and harpoons, sharpening all the blades to 
 a razor edge on a grindstone mounted on 
 deck for the purpose, and otherwise fitting up 
 the boats for immediate operations against the 
 sea-horses. 
 
 I may as well here proceed to give a general 
 description of the way in which this pursuit is 
 conducted, as well as of the tackle and imple 
 ments made use of, as it will enable the reader 
 more clearly to understand my account of our 
 own personal experiences afterwards. 
 
 A well-constructed and well-appointed walrus- 
 boat for five men is twenty-one feet long by five 
 feet beam, having her main breadth about one- 
 third from the bow. She is bow-shaped at 
 
32 DESCRIPTION OF A WALRUS BOAT. 
 
 both ends, and should be at once strong, light, 
 swift to row, and easily turned on her own 
 centre ; this latter quality is attained by having 
 the keel a good deal depressed in the middle. 
 She is always carvel-built, that construction of 
 boat being much less liable to damage from the 
 ice and the tusks of the walruses than a clinker- 
 built boat, as well as much easier to repair if 
 actually damaged; these boats have a very thick 
 and strong stem-piece and stern-piece, to resist 
 concussions with the ice. Each man rows with 
 a pair of oars hung in grummets to stout single 
 thole-pins : the steersman directs the boat by 
 also rowing a pair of oars, but rowing with his 
 face to the bow ; and as there are six thwarts, 
 each thirty inches apart, he can, if necessary, sit 
 and row like the others. This mode of steer 
 ing a boat has great advantages over either a 
 rudder, or a single steering oar as used by the 
 whalers, for it not only turns the boat much 
 quicker than either, but it economises the entire 
 strength of a man in propelling the boat. The 
 advantage of each man rowing a pair of oars is, 
 that the boat can be turned much quicker, and 
 the oars, being short, are less in the way 
 amongst ice. The harpooner always rows the 
 bow oars, and is, of course, the commander of 
 
AND ITS APPOINTMENTS. 33 
 
 the boat ; he alone uses the weapons and the 
 telescope ; the strongest man in the boat usu 
 ally sits next to the harpooner to hold and haul 
 in the line when a walrus is struck, and it is 
 also his duty to hand the harpoons and lances 
 to the harpooner as required. 
 
 There is a deep notch cut in the centre of 
 the stem-piece, and three others in a piece of 
 hard wood on each side of it ; these are for the 
 lines running through, and great care is requi 
 site to prevent them from slipping further aft 
 on the gunwale than the notches, as if they 
 do, the boat will probably be upset ; it is from 
 this cause that most of the accidents that one 
 occasionally hears of occur. 
 
 There is sometimes also a " bollard," or little 
 upright post in the bow of the boat for making 
 fast the lines to, but many harpooners prefer 
 to dispense with this, using instead the fore 
 most thwart of the boat. 
 
 The boats are invariably painted white out 
 side, in order to make their appearance assimi 
 late as much as possible to that of the ice, and 
 I think it would also be a great advantage to 
 have the crews dressed in caps and jackets of 
 some shiny white material, which would keep 
 its colour in spite of dirt and grease. 
 
 * D 
 
34 THE WALRUS HARPOON, 
 
 Each boat is usually provided with six har 
 poon heads, fitting, three on each side, inside 
 of the Low, into little racks covered with cur 
 tains of painted canvass to protect their sharp 
 points and edges from being blunted or acci 
 dentally wounding the men. These harpoons 
 are used indifferently for the seal and the 
 walrus, and are, with all their apparent sim 
 plicity, the most perfect weapon that can be 
 contrived for the purpose. When the instru 
 ment is thrust into the animal and his struggles 
 draw tight the line, the larger outer barb takes 
 up, as it were, a loop of his gutta-percha-like 
 hide, or the tough reticulated fibres containing 
 his blubber, while the small inner barb, like 
 that of a fish-hook, prevents it from becoming 
 disengaged. The best proof of its excellence is, 
 that when a walrus is once properly harpooned 
 and the line tight, he very rarely escapes. 
 Each of these harpoon heads has gmmmeted 
 round its neck one end of a line of twelve 
 or fifteen fathoms long, each line being neatly 
 coiled up in a separate flat box under the front 
 thwart, and the opposite end secured to some 
 strong part of the boat inside. The lines do not 
 require to be longer, because the walrus is not 
 generally found in water more than fifteen 
 
AND MODE OF USING IT. 35 
 
 fathoms deep, and even if the water should 
 happen to exceed that depth, he is not able to 
 drag the boat under, from inability to exert 
 his full strength when subjected to the pres 
 sure of twelve or fifteen fathoms of water. 
 The lines are made of 2-inch tarred hemp 
 rope, very soft laid, and should be of the 
 very finest materials and best possible work 
 manship. 
 
 There are generally four shafts for the har 
 poons, and it is not customary to keep more 
 than one mounted, unless when walruses are 
 actually in sight : they are made of white 
 pine poles twelve or thirteen feet long, planed 
 down to about an inch and a half or an 
 inch and a quarter in thickness, and are 
 tapered to a point for about four inches at 
 one end to make them fit into the sockets 
 of the heads : after placing a harpoon on a 
 shaft it is fixed by striking the butt end of 
 the shaft smartly against a little block of 
 wood, which is fixed for the purpose between 
 two of the timbers of the boat, about fifteen 
 feet from the bow, and on the starboard 
 side. 
 
 The harpoons are used either for thrusting 
 
 * D 2 
 
36 THE WHITE-FISH HARPOON. 
 
 or darting, and a skilful harpooner will throw 
 them with sufficient force to secure a walrus 
 at four or five fathoms distance; when pos 
 sible, however, they are always thrust or 
 stabbed into the animal, and in that case it 
 is customary to give the weapon a twist 
 or wrench, both for the purpose of withdraw 
 ing the shaft, that it may not be lost or 
 broken, as well as to entangle the barbs more 
 securely in the walrus s skin or blubber ; if 
 this precaution is neglected the harpoon may, 
 perhaps, come out by the cut which it made 
 on entering ; this is more likely to happen 
 if the intended victim be lying with his skin 
 slack. 
 
 "When there is much likelihood of falling in 
 with white whales (Beluga or Balcena al~ 
 Means), it is usual to carry one harpoon of a 
 different construction, and with fifty fathoms 
 of line attached for their especial benefit. 
 The reason for requiring a different harpoon 
 for these cetaceans is, that their skin is not, 
 like that of a walrus, the toughest part 
 of their body ; but the skin of Balcena 
 albicans, on the contrary, is quite tender, 
 gristly, and gelatinous, and the barbed iron, 
 therefore, requires to be driven in until it 
 
THE WALRUS LANCE. 37 
 
 secures good holding in his flesh beneath the 
 blubber. 
 
 Next in the list of the boat s appurtenances 
 come four or five enormous lances with shafts 
 as " large as a weaver s beam," but as neither 
 I myself, nor probably my readers, have any 
 notion of what a " weaver s beam " may be 
 like, I will explain that the shaft is a white 
 pine pole, nine feet long and one and a half 
 inch thick at the handle, increasing upwards to 
 two and a half inches thick, where it goes into 
 the socket of the iron. Formidable as this 
 weapon is, the iron shank is very frequently bent 
 double, or the stout shaft snapped like a twig, 
 by the furious struggles of an impaled walrus ; 
 so, to prevent the head being lost, it is at 
 tached to the shaft by a stout double thong of 
 raw seal-skin tied round the shank and nailed 
 to the shaft for about three feet up. The 
 reason for having the shaft so disproportion 
 ately large is, that there may be buoyancy 
 enough to float the heavy iron spear if it 
 should happen to fall into the water, or if a 
 walrus, as often happens, should succeed in 
 wrenching it out of the operator s hands by 
 the violence of his contortions. I have once 
 or twice had a boat s whole complement of 
 
 * D 3 
 
38 THE HAAK-PICK, AXES, KNIVES. 
 
 lances rendered for the time unserviceable 
 in the despatching of a single walrus. The 
 lances lie on the thwarts, with the blades pro 
 tected in a box, which is attached to the 
 starboard end of the harpooner s, or foremost 
 one. 
 
 The lance is not used for seals, as it is un 
 necessary and spoils the skins, so that the 
 coup-de-grace is administered to them by the 
 " Haak-pick " being struck into the brain. 
 Each boat should have five of these imple 
 ments, which are also indispensable as boat- 
 hooks, for pushing and hooking when the ice 
 is too thick to allow of the oars being used. 
 
 There are then two axes, one a large one, 
 used for decapitating the dead walruses; and 
 the other, a small handy axe, which always 
 lies close to the harpooner, is for cutting 
 the line in case anything goes wrong, or a 
 walrus proves so fierce and mischievous 
 that they may wish to be quit of him on 
 any terms. 
 
 Pive or six large sharp knives are for strip 
 ping the skin and blubber off the animals, or 
 " flensing " them, as it is called in the fisher s 
 parlance. 
 
 An ice-anchor is employed for anchoring 
 
THE ICE-ANCHOE. 39 
 
 the boat to an iceberg, and also to afford a 
 fulcrum by which, with the help of two double- 
 purchase blocks and twenty-four fathoms of 
 rope (also forming part of every boat s ap 
 pointments), five or even four men can drag 
 the biggest walrus on to a moderately flat 
 iceberg for the purpose of flensing him. 
 
 A small compass is indispensable, and ought 
 to be fitted into a box attached below the 
 seat in front of the steersman, after the fashion 
 of a billiard table chalk-box. 
 
 A telescope, a rifle, and plenty of ammuni 
 tion, an iron baling-ladle, also answering as 
 a frying pan, and a small copper kettle for 
 making coffee. 
 
 There is a locker in the fore-peak, and another 
 in the after-peak of the boat, and in these 
 there ought to be always stowed a hammer, a 
 pair of nail nippers, a small bag of nails, a 
 piece of sheet lead for patching the boat if a 
 walrus should put his tusks through her 
 bottom, a bag of spare bullets, a canister of 
 powder and caps, spare grummets, a box of 
 matches and brimstone, a canister of coffee, 
 and twenty or thirty pounds of rye bread. A 
 mast, yard, and sail are taken if a stay of a 
 few hours from the ship is contemplated ; but 
 
 D 4 
 
40 UNCERTAINTY OF THE PURSUIT. 
 
 a boat ought never to leave the ship s side 
 without or even to hang on the davits 
 without the whole of the other foregoing 
 articles being inside of her ; because, if a boat 
 leaves the ship, even if only to kill a seal a 
 quarter of a mile off, you never can be certain 
 that you will not be ten or twenty days absent, 
 nay, you never can be certain that you will 
 ever see the ship again ! You get led on and 
 on insensibly, in the excitement of the chase, 
 from one seal or one troop of walruses to 
 another, and the awful dense fogs or sudden 
 gales of these regions may come on and pre 
 vent your finding your way back. 
 
 In addition to all these absolute necessaries 
 we always had one luxury, consisting of a bag 
 of mackintosh cloth lined with fur, and about 
 seven feet by four, rolled into a tight bundle 
 and strapped under the after thwart of each 
 boat. This was to crawl into in case of being 
 long out in severe weather, and although we 
 very seldom had occasion to make use of 
 them, still the sense of comfort and security 
 they gave one was very great ; because I con 
 sider that they made one quite able to defy 
 any cold that can occur, even in the Arctic 
 regions, in summer. As for provisions, I 
 
SEA-FOWL. 41 
 
 never felt any uneasiness on that score, as 
 even if a seal or a walrus could not be 
 immediately obtained, there were always 
 plenty of eider ducks on the islands and 
 outlying skerries; and the sea everywhere 
 abounded with divers and guillemots, plenty 
 enough and tame enough to be shot with a 
 rifle. If a stay of many hours from the ship 
 was contemplated, I generally took with me 
 a shot-gun and a bag of shot for the purpose 
 of killing fowls for food if necessary. 
 
42 THE LOOK-OUT. 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 Crow s-nest. Look-out. First "Walrus seen. Find them 
 very shy. Great Ice-pack. Two "Walruses shot. Lay- 
 to in a dense Fog. Wreck of a Sloop in the Ice. Cure 
 for frost-bitten Feet. Sketch of the Spitzbergen Wal 
 rus Hunter. Profits of the Trade. Truck System. 
 Cold. Chilblains. Seal-shooting on the Ice. Method 
 of hunting the Great Seal. Dimensions of Great Seal. 
 Seal-shooting in the Water. 
 
 IN a brig like Ericson s there is always a 
 " crow s-nest " (a contrivance in the shape of 
 a cask, large enough for a man to get into, 
 and made either of wood or canvass) fixed at 
 the main-topgallant-masthead ; but in a small 
 vessel, such as we had, the look-out man simply 
 sits on the main-gaff or the topsail-yard. Prom 
 our topsail-yard, with a good telescope, we 
 could see a single seal on white ice in a clear 
 day about four miles off ; and from a crow s- 
 nest as high as Ericson s I believe about double 
 that distance a prodigious advantage for the 
 larger vessel. As may be supposed, it is rather 
 a cold position than otherwise, that on the top- 
 
FIRST WALRUSES SEEN. 43 
 
 sail-yard, and the men, not unnaturally, are 
 apt to neglect this all-important duty ; but in 
 sailing within sight of ice a careful man, with 
 a telescope, ought to be constantly there, be 
 cause, if the ice is rough, even a large herd of 
 walruses may be in sight one minute and con 
 cealed by high intervening icebergs the next : 
 the look-out man of course requires to be re 
 lieved very frequently. 
 
 Shortly after parting with the yacht, our 
 look-out man reported " walruses on the ice," 
 and we had each several chances the same day; 
 but the walruses were all old bulls in small 
 troops of two. three, or four, and so extremely 
 shy that we could not get near enough to 
 harpoon them, and we were advised by the 
 people to refrain from firing at them, as they 
 have a theory that it is almost impossible to 
 shoot a walrus dead, and that it also frightens 
 them and renders them wilder than ever. 
 There is no doubt as to its making them wild, 
 but we soon found out that when a walrus was 
 wild already, the only chance of bringing him 
 to bag was by firing at his head. At first, 
 however, we failed to do much execution, 
 because, at the advice of the harpooners, we 
 waited until all chance of harpooning the 
 
44 UNSUCCESSFUL AT FIRST. 
 
 walruses was at an end ; and then, when they 
 were all scuffling pell-mell into the water, 
 accurate shooting "became next to impossible. 
 Our want of success at first was also partly 
 attributable to not understanding the anatomy 
 of the animal, and hence imagining that his 
 brain lay in what appears to be his head, but 
 which is actually only the bony process support 
 ing the tusks ; the brain in reality lies far back, 
 and the back part of the head is completely 
 buried in the folds of fat or blubber surround 
 ing the neck. 
 
 On the 7th the weather continued foggy, with 
 a cold north-east wind, and we made very little 
 progress against it : we are coasting along the 
 outside of this great ice-pack, which fills up 
 Deeva Bay, and embraces the whole archipelago 
 of the Thousand Islands. This, the east side 
 of the pack, has its edge clear and well-defined, 
 being packed tight by the joint influence of 
 the north-east wind lately prevailing, and the 
 current, which always sets more or less in the 
 same direction. When going in pursuit of the 
 walruses amongst the ice, it is sometimes very 
 difficult to get the boats through the ice at the 
 outer edge of the pack, where it is so closely 
 wedged together, and we generally have to drag 
 
SECURE A COW WALETJS. 45 
 
 them over the ice with great labour for fifty 
 or sixty yards, until we get into opener water 
 inside the pack. This morning Lord David 
 shot a cow-walrus through the head as she was 
 shufEing off the ice. She immediately sank, 
 but floated up again in a few seconds, when 
 she was harpooned and secured. 
 
 In the afternoon I went after another cow, 
 which, with two half-grown young ones, lay 
 apparently asleep on a small outlying patch of 
 icebergs. As usual, we got almost near enough 
 to harpoon them, when the old one got alert, 
 and immediately aroused the two young ones, 
 and, as they seemed unwilling to move, she 
 rolled them one after the other like barrels 
 into the water, and was in the act of following 
 them herself when my rifle bullet penetrated 
 her brain, and she tumbled head foremost off 
 the iceberg, and instantly sank to appear 
 no more. The two young ones came up again 
 and again, as if looking for their dam, but 
 would not allow us to approach them. 
 
 The people say that the walruses about this 
 part must have been very much hunted, as 
 they are so shy; but they encourage us by 
 saying that when we get further to the north 
 east we shall find plenty of more unsophisticated 
 
46 LAY-TO IN A FOG. 
 
 individuals, who will allow themselves to be 
 harpooned. 
 
 On the morning of the 8th we got past the 
 end of the pack, and got a glimpse through 
 the thick fog of " Elack Point/ 5 a gloomy 
 promontory/forming the south-east corner of 
 Edge s Land, as this division of Spitsbergen is 
 called. Nothing was visible ashore but snow, 
 with desolate-looking patches of bare brown 
 earth peeping through it here and there, or the 
 bare rocks on some " wind-loved " peak from 
 which the snow had been blown. 
 
 About mid- day the fog got thicker, and we 
 found ourselves running in amongst some 
 heavy icebergs, so as we did not know what 
 the ice ahead might be like, our prudent 
 skyppar judged it advisable to lay-to and wait 
 for clearer weather. 
 
 The greater part of the eastern coast of 
 Spitzbergen is covered with a succession of 
 enormous glaciers descending down to the 
 water s edge, and even protruding far into it. 
 I imagine that these prodigious masses of ice 
 generate the fogs, which it is notorious are 
 much more prevalent here than on the west 
 side of the country. 
 
 9th* The fog is not quite so thick, but a 
 
MISHAP AMONGST THE ICE. 47 
 
 very cold wind is blowing from the north-east, 
 and the thermometer on deck is just above 
 freezing point. In such weather seals and 
 walruses do not lay on the ice, nor show more 
 than their heads above water occasionally, as 
 if to inquire if the weather above was getting 
 any more favourable for basking. "We pretty 
 much imitate these sensible amphibise in our 
 habits, as we don t show much on deck. 
 
 In the afternoon a small sloop came in sight, 
 and appeared desirous of speaking us, so we 
 hove-to for them. The captain of the sloop 
 then came on board in a boat, and, touching 
 his cap to us, he began a dismal story, which 
 my slight knowledge of Norsk did not enable 
 me to follow, so we had it translated to us by 
 one of our crew, who, from having sailed in an 
 American ship to San Francisco, could speak 
 tolerable English, or rather American. It 
 appeared that about three weeks ago another 
 small sloop, with a crew of six men, had been 
 totally lost amongst the ice near Hope Island. 
 The crew had taken to their boat, and had been 
 rowing and drifting about looking for another 
 vessel until yesterday, when this sloop had 
 picked them up. They were in the last ex 
 tremity from cold and hunger, having had 
 
48 FROST-BITTEN FEET. 
 
 nothing to eat for several days past but the 
 dry seal- skin muffiings of their oars two of 
 them, who were in this boat, looked very thin 
 and pale. The worst of the story was that the 
 captain of the wrecked vessel had got both his 
 feet badly frost-bitten, and the object of this 
 other skyppar in now visiting us was to ask 
 if we were going over to Hammerfest soon, 
 that we might take the poor man with us, or 
 if we had any medicine with us which would 
 cure him. "We had no medicine but a box of 
 pills and one of Seidlitz powders, and doubting 
 the efficacy of these in a case of mortification, 
 I recommended them to take the man over to 
 Norway immediately, or else to amputate the 
 frost-bitten parts of his feet without further 
 delay. The master of the sloop replied that he 
 and his crew could not afford to sacrifice their 
 summer s profits by leaving the ice with their 
 vessel only half full, and were afraid to take 
 upon themselves the responsibility of perform 
 ing the amputation. I then told them that, 
 as we had just come out, and had already the 
 same number of souls on board our smaller 
 vessel as they had, with the addition of the six 
 castaways, we did not feel that it was incumbent 
 upon us either to go over to Norway or to 
 
CURE SUGGESTED. 49 
 
 relieve them of the charge of any of the men. 
 I remembered hearing long ago, in the case of 
 a friend who had shot his arm off, that 
 bandages wet with port wine were applied to 
 keep off mortification, and so, as the nearest 
 approach to that stimulant in our possession, 
 we gave them a couple of bottles of rum, and 
 advised them to apply that either externally 
 or internally, as they might deem most ad 
 visable. 
 
 We heard a few days afterwards, that by 
 great good luck they had fallen in with a small 
 schooner belonging to the same owners as the 
 wrecked sloop, and that this schooner, having 
 her cargo nearly completed, had taken the six 
 men over to Hammerfest; and I afterwards 
 ascertained, upon our return to Norway, that 
 the poor captain s life had been saved, but by 
 the terrible alternative of amputating the 
 greater part of both his feet. 
 
 It is a terribly hard and dangerous life these 
 Spitsbergen walrus-hunters live, and I observe 
 that they all have a restless, weary look about 
 the eyes a look as if contracted by being 
 perpetually in the presence of danger. They 
 are a wild, rough, reckless lot of fellows ; bold, 
 hardy, and enduring of cold, hunger and 
 
 E 
 
50 THE WALRUS-HUNTERS. 
 
 fatigue ; active and energetic while at sea, and 
 nearly always drunk while at home. So many 
 bad accidents have been caused by their having 
 brandy on board, that of late the owners have 
 supplied them with tea and coffee instead, and 
 it is found that men work quite as well, and 
 stand the climate quite as well, upon these as 
 upon spirits; but this enforced temperance 
 seems to cause a sort of reaction whenever 
 they get the opportunity of indulging to excess. 
 Of late years the merchants of Tromsoe and 
 Hammerfest, who fit out these vessels, have 
 adopted the sagacious system of paying their 
 crews by a share of the proceeds in lieu of 
 money wages, and this of course is a very great 
 stimulus to the men to work hard and to lose no 
 opportunity of killing every walrus and seal that 
 they possibly can. The usual system, I believe 
 to be as follows : The owners fit out and pro 
 vision the vessel, and advance to the men on 
 credit what money they require to buy clothing 
 and to provide necessaries for their families 
 during their absence : whatever the cargo 
 obtained may consist of, one-third of the gross 
 proceeds is then set apart for the crew, and 
 divided into shares, of which the captain gets 
 three, each harpooner two, and the other men 
 
THEIR PROFITS. 51 
 
 one each. Thus, if the gross proceeds of a 
 voyage in skins, blubber, and ivory be esti 
 mated at 2000 dollars, and the number of 
 hands amounts to ten, which is the usual 
 number for a vessel with two boats, the shares 
 will be worth 47-J dollars, or about IOL each : 
 Wl. is a much more important sum of money 
 in Norway than it is in Britain; and so 
 (putting aside the exciting nature of the occu 
 pation), it is not surprising that the best 
 seamen and boldest spirits of the north of 
 Norway should be generally found in the 
 Spitzbergen sealers. These are the true des 
 cendants and successors of the gallant Vikings 
 and Berserkars, who of old ravaged and con 
 quered the coasts of Europe from Jutland 
 to Otranto. This pursuit to these men has 
 all the excitement of a lottery, because, 
 in the case of a very successful season, 
 they may make a good deal more than the 
 above-stated amounts, and I dare say a good 
 deal of the spirit of the gambler enters into 
 their calculations. They are always over head 
 and ears in debt to the merchants before they 
 start, and so I believe it is usual for the 
 owners to compound with the crew for the 
 third of the cargo belonging to them, by giving 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE TRUCK SYSTEM. 
 
 them a certain sum per walrus and per seal 
 whenever they arrive, and as the poor ignorant 
 men know nothing of the price-current of seal- 
 oil, &c. in the markets of Hamburg or Bremen, 
 and are naturally anxious to " realise " at once, 
 I am afraid they are generally induced or in 
 timidated into parting with their share of the 
 hard-earned spoil at far below its market value. 
 In fact the " truck system " in all its iniquity 
 prevails. 
 
 Our own crew, having been engaged so late 
 in the summer as to render it unlikely that we 
 should be able to get a full cargo, and also 
 with the view of rendering them more entirely 
 dependent on our wishes, were not engaged 
 on this system, but got instead money wages 
 at double the rate usual in Norway. This 
 double pay was about equal in amount to that 
 of the English sailors in my yacht. 
 
 I shot a large seal in the evening. 
 
 10^, Sunday. Thick, cold, raw fog all day; 
 ropes all encrusted with ice, which falls down 
 clattering on the deck every time anything 
 shakes. I begin to suffer a good deal from 
 chilblains on the feet, an ailment I have not 
 been addicted to since I was a schoolboy, cetat. 
 eleven. This is perhaps not altogether to be 
 
SEALS SHOT. 53 
 
 wondered at, as the thermometer in our cabin 
 ranges between 36 and 44, and we sit in our 
 fur great- coats and fur boots in order to avoid 
 having the stove lighted, for we both think 
 that in such a small confined place any cold 
 is preferable to the heat and unwholesome 
 closeness of a stove. 
 
 The llth was just such another day, and 
 we did not see twenty yards from the deck all 
 day : in the evening a big seal was observed 
 looming through the fog, and looking as large 
 as a walrus in the haze. Lord David shot him 
 dead. "When a single animal is observed from 
 the ship, we take it in turns to go after him, 
 and as we always sleep in our clothes, we are 
 ready at a moment s notice, at any hour of 
 the day or night, whenever the watch on deck 
 report anything in sight. Our crew are di 
 vided into three watches, of four hours each, 
 but all hands are summoned on deck when 
 ever a herd of walruses is seen, and in case 
 of both boats leaving the vessel, Isaac the 
 skyppar and the ship s cook take charge on 
 deck. Isaac himself is a renowned harpooner, 
 and a first-rate man altogether, but unfor 
 tunately he broke his left arm a few weeks 
 before we sailed, so that he is unable to use 
 
 E 3 
 
54 BTK TSE ISLANDS. 
 
 the oar or the harpoon as yet; he makes a 
 most excellent and careful ship-keeper, and we 
 never have any uneasiness about being lost 
 while we know that he is on deck : it must be 
 rather dull work for him, being on deck alone 
 for whole days, with the topsail aback, while 
 the boats are miles out of sight in the ice. 
 We haye ordered him to hoist the flag if he 
 should see a bear or a herd of walruses while 
 we are absent, as, although the boats may 
 not be visible from the deck, we can generally, 
 as long as it is clear, see the sails of the sloop 
 above the horizon. 
 
 It cleared up about midnight for a brief in 
 terval, and enabled us to get a beautiful view 
 of the coast, with its enormous glaciers, sweep 
 ing out into the sea in great semi-circular 
 arcs : there was plenty of ice all round, but 
 in very open order. Ryk Yse Islands were 
 visible to the north, amongst much heavy ice, 
 which seemed to be fixed around them. We 
 saw a small sloop several miles distant, and a 
 large seal asleep on an iceberg, about equi 
 distant from the other sloop and ourselves. 
 Lord David went in pursuit of it, but we 
 perceived from the deck that the steers 
 man had lost the bearings of the sea! 3 and 
 
THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 55 
 
 was steering in a wrong direction ; for fear 
 the other sloop should be before us, we then 
 hastily lowered my boat and rowed straight to 
 the seal. On nearing the phoca, he appeared 
 quite awake, and was looking nervously about 
 him every two or three minutes, so we rowed 
 round so as to get between him and the sun, 
 which, although it was exactly midnight, was 
 high and bright in the heavens ; this dazzled 
 his eyes so completely, that although he was 
 wide awake, and looked straight in our di 
 rection repeatedly, he could see nothing for 
 the glare, and he lay still until the boat ap 
 proached to within about fifty yards, when my 
 bullet perforated his cerebellum, and he sank 
 motionless on the ice. 
 
 The pursuit of the great Spitzbergen seal 
 (Phoca barbata), although it lacks the wild ex 
 citement of the chase of the sea-horse, is a very 
 delightful amusement. The great seal will 
 never allow himself to be " caught napping; " 
 I do not think I ever saw a sleeping seal 
 which did not, about once in every three or 
 four minutes, raise his head from the ice, and 
 look uneasily around, so that he cannot be 
 harpooned in his sleep, like his more lethargic 
 congener the walrus. I imagine this greater 
 
 E 4 
 
56 PHOCA BAHBATA. 
 
 watchfulness on the part of the seals to arise 
 from the greater cause they have to apprehend 
 being " stalked " by the bears, while taking 
 their siesta ; however this may be, recourse 
 must be had to the rifle before the harpoon 
 comes into play, in the case of PJioca barbata, 
 and to make good work with them requires 
 the perfection of rifle-practice, for if a seal be 
 not shot stone dead on the ice, he is almost 
 certain to roll or jerk himself into the water, 
 and sink or escape, and as a seal never lies 
 more than twelve inches from the edge of 
 the ice, the most trifling spark of life is 
 enough. The only part of the huge carcass 
 in which a bullet will cause the requisite 
 amount of " sudden death 5 is the brain, and 
 this, in the biggest seal, is not larger than an 
 orange. A seal will seldom allow the boat to 
 approach nearer than fifty or sixty yards, and 
 a large proportion take the alarm much 
 sooner. Every rifle volunteer and every gun- 
 maker s apprentice who reads this will pro 
 bably exclaim, " Oh, there is no difficulty in 
 that, I can hit an orange every shot at 100 
 yards ! " This may be true, my gallant volun 
 teer or skilful gunmaker, but you have not 
 yet taken into account that the boat is heaving 
 
DIFFICULTY OF KILLING HIM. 57 
 
 more or less from the motion of the waves, 
 and that the slab of ice on which your 
 orange is lying is heaving also ; and this, upon 
 consideration, you will admit, increases the 
 "difficulty" a little; neither Lord David 
 Kennedy nor myself were altogether tyros in 
 the use of the rifle before we began, but 
 we found the difficulty considerable ; however, 
 after a few days we became adepts at it, and 
 rarely missed killing a seal dead. The rifles 
 we both used were elliptical, four-barrelled 
 Lancaster s of 40-gauge. During the last 
 100 or 150 yards of the boat s approach to 
 the seal, the steersman alone propels it by 
 gently paddling it with two oars, one eye on 
 the seal and the other on his oars ; if the 
 seal looks in the direction of the boat, he 
 stops rowing, and great care is requisite on 
 his part to avoid coming against pieces of ice, 
 which make a rasping noise, almost sure to 
 attract the attention of the seal. I need hardly 
 observe that the boat must also keep care 
 fully to leeward, as the seal has an acute 
 sense of smell, and if the advantage of the 
 sun can be obtained, in addition, as in the 
 case above related, the moments of PJioca 
 barbata are probably numbered. I always 
 
58 " MANY A SLIP," ETC. 
 
 knelt in the bow of the boat, and selected my 
 own opportunity to fire, and the moment the 
 rifle was discharged, all the men rowed with 
 their utmost strength to the spot, where, if 
 the seal showed any symptoms of life, I 
 always darted a harpoon into him, but if he 
 seemed quite dead, some one jumped out and 
 struck the haak-pick into his head, and 
 dragged him away from the edge for fear he 
 should come alive again. This is not an un 
 necessary precaution, as I have known a seal 
 apparently stone dead, give a convulsive kick 
 over the brink of the ice, and go to the bottom 
 like a 68-pound shot, while his proprietors, as 
 they delusively considered themselves, were 
 standing within two feet of him. 
 
 "When the seal is fairly dead, all the men 
 except one get on the ice, and with their knives 
 they strip the skin and blubber, in one sheet, 
 off his body in a very few minutes. The car 
 cass, or "krop," is then thrown into the sea, 
 that it may not be mistaken for a live seal at a 
 distance ; the blubber is laid flat in the bottom 
 of the boat, and you proceed in quest of more 
 or return to the ship. 
 
 A full-sized Spitzbergen seal, in good con 
 dition, is about nine and a half or ten feet 
 
SIZE OF P. BAEBATA. 59 
 
 long, by six or six and a half feet in circum 
 ference, and weighs six hundred pounds, or 
 upwards. The skin and fat amount to about 
 one half the total weight. The blubber lies 
 in one layer of two to three inches thick 
 underneath the skin, and yields about one- 
 half of its own weight of fine oil. The value 
 of a seal of course varies with the state of 
 the oil market all over the world, but at the 
 time of which I write, oil being unusually 
 cheap, they only averaged about five or six 
 dollars apiece; but still the fact of the 
 animals being of some use, contributed to 
 render the chase of them much more ex 
 citing, as nothing can be more distasteful or 
 unsatisfactory to the feelings of a true sports 
 man than taking the life of anything which is 
 to be of no use when dead. 
 
 When seals are in the water they are not 
 the least afraid of a boat, but come boldly 
 up quite close to it, first on one side and 
 then on the other, as if impressed with the 
 deepest curiosity to see what the unusual- 
 looking object is. "When they are shot dead 
 in the water, however, they sink so rapidly 
 that it is very difficult to get possession of 
 them. The most approved plan is, not to 
 
60 SHOOTING SEALS IN THE WATER. 
 
 fire unless the boat s head is directed towards 
 the seal and distant not more than thirty 
 yards ; then, if the men all give way instantly 
 and vigorously, you may he in time to thrust 
 or dart the harpoon into the seal before he 
 sinks, but more likely you will only be in 
 time to see him sinking far down in the clear 
 water with his tail downwards. Some people 
 compute that " one-half of the seals shot in 
 the water, even with skilful management, are 
 lost;" others say "two-thirds," and from 
 our own experience, I am inclined to think 
 it is two to one on the seal or thereabouts. 
 I have several times lost six consecutively, 
 and a most tantalising proceeding it was ; 
 but bad luck as that may seem, it is nothing, 
 for our head harpooner, Christian, a very 
 smart fellow, told me that one day he shot 
 dead eighteen immense seals and lost every 
 one of them ! If you merely wound a seal 
 in the water there is a much better chance 
 of getting him than if he is killed outright, as 
 he sometimes flounders on the surface till 
 he is harpooned. I have often thought that 
 it would answer to use small shot when they 
 come so close, and I regret never having made 
 the experiment. 
 
HUNTING THE WALRUS. 61 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 Hunting the Walrus. Windfall. Maternal Affection of 
 Walrus. Seal s Dinner. Mollusc. Whale s Pood. 
 Herd of Walruses. Four killed. Escape of a fine 
 Bull. Cutting up the Blubber. Walrus Hide and 
 Blubber. Accommodations of "Anna Louisa." "Whit 
 tling " a great Eesource. Vast Herds of Sea-horses. 
 "Jaging" them. Exciting Sport. Man killed by a 
 Walrus. Spitzbergen Gazette of June 16th. Walrus 
 Yeal or Foal. 
 
 THE fog was as thick as ever again on the 
 morning of the 12th, and we were tantalised 
 by hearing the snorting and bellowing of a 
 great many walruses in the immediate 
 vicinity, although we could not find them 
 for the fog; but it fortunately cleared up 
 for a little in the forenoon and enabled us 
 to see a great herd of walruses reposing on 
 several large flat slabs of ice. We instantly 
 went after them in both boats, and although 
 they were very shy we each succeeded in 
 killing a cow and a calf. The cow killed 
 from my boat had a good harpoon and line 
 
62 WINDFALL. 
 
 sticking in her back : it had not been long in 
 the walrus, and appeared to have been lost 
 by the slipping of the knot at the inner end 
 of the line. According to the laws of the 
 ice, both walrus and tackle even if the 
 former had been dead were a fair prize 
 of the captors, although Christian said he 
 knew very well to whom the harpoon had 
 belonged. 
 
 I never in my life witnessed anything more 
 interesting and more affecting than the 
 wonderful maternal affection displayed by 
 this poor walrus. After she was fast to the 
 harpoon and was dragging the boat furiously 
 amongst the icebergs, I was going to shoot 
 her through the head that we might have 
 time to follow the others ; but Christian called 
 to me not to shoot, as she had a "junger" 
 with her. Although I did not understand 
 his object, I reserved my fire, and upon look 
 ing closely at the walrus when she came up 
 to breathe, I then perceived that she held 
 a very young calf under her right arm, and 
 I saw that he wanted to harpoon it; but 
 whenever he poised the weapon to throw, the 
 old cow seemed to watch the direction of it 
 and interposed her own body, and she seemed 
 
MATERNAL AFFECTION OF WALRUS. 63 
 
 to receive with pleasure several harpoons 
 which were intended for the young one. At 
 last a well-aimed dart struck the calf, and 
 we then shortened up the lines attached to 
 the cow and finished her with the lances. 
 Christian now had time and breath to explain 
 to me why he was so anxious to secure the 
 calf, and he proceeded to give me a practical 
 illustration of his meaning by gently " stir 
 ring up " the unfortunate junger with 
 the butt end of a harpoon shaft. This caused 
 the poor little animal to emit a peculiar, 
 plaintive, grunting cry, eminently expressive 
 of alarm and of a desire for assistance, and 
 Christian said it would bring all the herd 
 round about the boat immediately. Unfor 
 tunately, however, we had been so long in 
 getting hold of our poor little decoy duck, 
 that the others had all gone out of hearing, 
 and they abandoned their young relative to 
 his fate, which quickly overtook him in the 
 shape of a lance thrust from t}ie remorseless 
 Christian. 
 
 I don t think I shall ever forget the faces 
 of the old walrus and her calf as they looked 
 back at the boat ! The countenance of the 
 young one so expressive of abject terror, and 
 
64 ALDERMANIC SEAL. 
 
 yet of confidence in its mother s power of 
 protecting it, as it swam along under her 
 wing; and the old cow s face showing such 
 reckless defiance for all that we could do 
 to herself, and yet such terrible anxiety as 
 to the safety of her calf ! 
 
 This plan of getting hold of a junger 
 and making him grunt to attract the others, 
 is a well known " dodge " amongst the 
 hunters; and although it was not rewarded 
 on this occasion, I have several times seen 
 it meet with the full measure of success due 
 to its humanity and ingenuity. 
 
 I opened the stomach of a seal of alder- 
 manic proportions, who looked as if he had 
 lately been attending a civic feast, and found 
 in it, not turtle, but about a bushel of beau 
 tiful prawns, evidently just swallowed, and 
 so fresh that we might have re-eaten them 
 ourselves, but for an unworthy prejudice. 
 How animal life must swarm in these cold 
 seas to maintain such a multitude of vora 
 cious animals ! The keeper of the " Talk 
 ing Seal" in London told me that they 
 " gave her fifty pounds of fish a day, and that 
 she would eat one hundred pounds if she could 
 get it ; " so we can form some idea of what the 
 
CLIO BOREALIS. 65 
 
 thousands of seals here must devour. The 
 basis of all this gormandising is undoubtedly 
 the Medusa or Jelly-fish, which in places 
 are so numerous, as actually to thicken and 
 discolour the sea ! Conspicuous amongst these 
 are the small black animalcule, popularly 
 known to the Norwegian frequenters of these 
 regions as " Hval-spise " or "Whales food" 
 (Clio borealis). 
 
 This singular mollusc may be briefly 
 described as nearly resembling the body of 
 a tadpole, but instead of the tail of the latter, 
 it is provided with a pair of wings like those 
 of a bird, with which it propels itself through 
 the water by a sort of flying motion. The 
 sea is literally blackened in some places by 
 the swarms of these animalcule to such an 
 extent that I have no difficulty in believing 
 that the huge Mysticetus, with his enormous 
 open mouth and whalebone brushes, may 
 engulph a sufficiency of them to maintain 
 him. I collected a lot of these winged tad 
 poles, intending to preserve them io spirits of 
 wine, but somehow that fluid reduced them 
 in a few days to a sort of opaque pulpy mass : 
 while they were waiting in a tumbler for a 
 pickle-bottle to be cleaned and filled with 
 
66 GREAT HERDS OF SEA-HORSES. 
 
 spirits of wine for their reception, they fought 
 furiously in a sort of indiscriminate melee 
 amongst themselves, and were more particu 
 larly virulent against a small pink Jelly-fish 
 which I put into the tumbler beside them. 
 
 13^. At 3 A.M. this morning we were 
 aroused by the cheering cry of " Hvalruus paa 
 Ysen " (walruses on the ice). We both got 
 up immediately, and from the deck a curious 
 and exciting spectacle met our admiring gaze ! 
 Pour large flat icebergs were so densely packed 
 with walruses that they were sunk almost a- 
 wash with the water, and had the appearance 
 of being solid islands of walrus ! 
 
 The monsters lay with their heads reclining 
 on one another s backs and sterns, just as I 
 have seen rhinoceroses laying asleep in the 
 African forests; or, to use a more familiar 
 simile, like a lot of fat hogs in a British straw- 
 yard. I should think there were about eighty 
 or one hundred on the ice, and many more 
 swam grunting and spouting around, and tried 
 to clamber up amongst their friends, who, like 
 surly people in a full omnibus, grunted at them 
 angrily, as if to say " confound you, don t you 
 see that we are full." There were plenty more 
 good flat icebergs about, but they always seem 
 
NARROW ESCAPE. 67 
 
 to like being packed as closely as possible for 
 mutual warmth. These four islands were 
 several hundred yards apart, and after feasting 
 our eyes for a little on the glorious sight, we 
 resolved to take them in succession, and not 
 to fire at first, but the walruses had not been 
 long enough on the ice to have got properly 
 sleepy, and the discontented individuals in the 
 water gave the rest the alarm, so that we only 
 managed to secure four altogether. 
 
 Solomon, our untried harpooner, acquitted 
 himself pretty tolerably on this his first fair 
 trial, for he killed one out of the first herd, 
 and two at a time out of the second, but on 
 the latter occasion he as nearly as possible 
 iipset the boat by allowing one of the lines to 
 run over the gunwale aft of the notches, at the 
 bow : the boat most certainly would have been 
 upset, had it not been that it was ballasted 
 with the blubber of the one already killed ; as 
 it was, she was half filled with water, and Lord 
 David and the crew were on the point of jump 
 ing out, when fortunately she righted again. 
 
 This herd consisted chiefly of cows and 
 young bulls, and they then dispersed or got 
 out of reach amongst the ice. 
 
 In the forenoon we discovered a huge bull, 
 
 F 2 
 
68 LOSE A FINE BULL. 
 
 with fine tusks, by himself sound asleep on a 
 small sloping piece of ice, and I went in Solo 
 mon s boat to attack him. The shape of the 
 iceberg would not permit us to approach with 
 in stabbing distance of the ball, but as he was 
 not more than five yards from the bow of the 
 boat, I very foolishly did not fire, as I con 
 sidered the harpoon a certainty, but to my 
 utter disgust and astonishment, Solomon threw 
 two harpoons one after the other, and missed 
 the huge animal with both : the walrus awoke 
 at the sound the second harpoon made on the 
 ice, and was into the sea like a shot. The rest 
 of the boat s crew were as much annoyed as 
 myself, and anathematised the unhappy Solo 
 mon in every language spoken in Scandinavia. 
 I believe I added some strongish expressions in 
 English. We made up our minds to disrate 
 Solomon if this occurs again, and to try an 
 other of the crew as harpooner instead of him. 
 \^tli. North-east wind, thick fog, and hard 
 frost, all the rigging encased with icicles. 
 Hitherto all our skins, with the blubber at 
 tached, had been thrown into the hold " in 
 bulk," but they have now accumulated so as 
 to render it necessary that the blubber should 
 be divided from the skins and stowed in the 
 
CUTTING UP THE BLUBBER. 69 
 
 casks ; we therefore take advantage of the fog 
 to-day to perform this necessary, but unplea 
 sant process ; which is conducted as follows. 
 
 There is set up across the deck, immediately 
 aft the hatchway, a sort of frame or stage of 
 stout planks, about four feet high, and sloping 
 down at an angle of about 60, with the deck 
 at the forward side : it is perpendicular aft, and 
 at that side of it the two men who are to act as 
 " Specksioneers " (blubber-cutters) take their 
 stand, clad in oil- skin from top to toe, and 
 armed with large knives, sharp as razors, and 
 curved on the edge. The skins are then 
 hoisted out of the hold and hung across the 
 frame, two at a time, with the blubber side 
 upmost; it is an operation requiring great 
 dexterity to separate the fat from the skin, so 
 as to remove the whole of it, and not to cut or 
 shave the skin itself, but by a sort of mowing 
 motion of the knife, which is held in both 
 hands, from left to right, these men do it with 
 great rapidity and neatness. As the blubber is 
 peeled off it is divided into slabs of twenty or 
 thirty pounds weight each and thrown down 
 the hatchway, where two men are ready to 
 receive it and to slip it into the square bung 
 holes of the casks ; from its oleaginousness it 
 
 v 3 
 
70 ECONOMICAL USES OF 
 
 soon finds its own level in the casks, and when 
 full these are fastened up. I ought to haye 
 mentioned that the skins of full grown wal 
 ruses are always taken off the animal in two 
 halves, being divided longitudinally down the 
 back and the belly ; the skins of calf walruses 
 and seals are always left entire. Walrus hide is 
 a valuable commodity, and sells for from two to 
 four dollars per half skin, calves only counting 
 for a half; it is principally exported to Russia 
 and Sweden, where it is used to manufacture 
 harness and sole leather ; it is also twisted into 
 tiller ropes, and is used for protecting the 
 rigging of ships from chafing. In former 
 times nearly all the rigging of vessels on the 
 north coasts of Norway and Russia used to be 
 composed of walrus skin. 
 
 When there is a superfluity of the article in 
 the market I believe it is boiled into glue. It 
 is from an inch to an inch and a half thick, 
 very pliable in its green state, but slightly 
 spongy, so that I should doubt the quality of 
 the leather made from it. 
 
 The seal- skins mostly find their way to 
 Scotland, where, I believe, they are made into 
 what are known in the hosiers 5 shops as " dog 
 skin " and " Dundee kid " gloves. Their value 
 
WALRUS HIDE AND BLUBBER. 71 
 
 in Hammerfest is from one to two dollars a 
 skin. 
 
 The walrus has not nearly so much blubber, 
 in proportion to his size, as the seal ; thus a 
 seal of 600 Ibs. will carry 200 or 250 Ibs. of 
 fat ; an ordinary walrus may weight 2000 Ibs., 
 but his fat will not exceed that of the seal ; a 
 full sized old bull walrus must weigh, at least, 
 3000 Ibs., and such a walrus will produce, if 
 very fat, 650 Ibs. of blubber, but seldom more 
 than 500 Ibs., which latter was, I think, about 
 the maximum quantity yielded by the most 
 obese of our victims. Neither does the fat of 
 the walrus afford so fine an oil as that of the 
 seal, but it is usual to mix them indiscrimi 
 nately together, and the compound is always 
 exported into Southern Europe under the 
 name of seal-oil. 
 
 We begin to find some of these long, dreary, 
 foggy days intolerably irksome, as our cabin is 
 singularly ill-adapted for passing much idle time 
 in ; it is literally almost impossible either to sit, 
 stand up, or lie down in it ; it is only five feet 
 high, except where a small dingy sky-light three 
 feet square gives us the advantage of another 
 foot ; there is a " bunk " on each side of about 
 5^x 2J and one can hardly be said to be lying 
 
72 AGREMENS OF THE " ANNA LOUISA." 
 
 down in five and a half feet length ; each bunk 
 has a locker in front of it nine inches broad, 
 and any one unfortunate enough to have to 
 try, will find that any posture is preferable to 
 sitting long on a locker nine inches in breadth,, 
 with a perpendicular back. The cabin from 
 end to end between these lockers is about 
 7*4, but nearly half of this length is occupied 
 by the angular projections forming the counter 
 of the vessel, over which is the table, so that 
 the space available for moving about, washing, 
 and dressing, &c., is exactly four feet square. 
 Behind the after end of each bunk is a small 
 open space filled by a barrel of biscuits, jar of 
 butter, canisters of tea, coffee, and sugar, 
 magazine of powder, bags of shot, &c. &c. 
 Our guns, pouches, and spare clothes hang 011 
 nails inside the bed places and in the corners. 
 Aft amidships, in a slip of leather nailed to the 
 wall, hangs a bottle of brandy the sole stimu 
 lant we indulge in ; and side by side with the 
 more generous fluid is a bottle of chloride of 
 lime with the cork out, for the purpose of mol 
 lifying, in some measure, the awful efiiuvium 
 caused by the commingling of putrid walrus oil 
 and bilge water vain hope ! Add to these 
 little agremens the fact that the thermometer 
 
" WHITTLING " A GREAT RESOURCE. 73 
 
 averages 40 in the cabin, and I think it will 
 be generally conceded that we are paying 
 pretty dear for the pleasure of hunting wal 
 ruses in the Arctic seas. I must not omit to 
 mention that the cabin has two redeeming 
 points, viz. there are no vermin, and the wood 
 of which the beams and boarding is composed 
 is of a very light and soft description, emi 
 nently adapted for " whittling " and engraving, 
 and in these intellectual and scientific occupa 
 tions we find a great resource. As for reading, 
 it is next to impossible, for I defy anybody to 
 read long sitting on a locker nine inches broad ; 
 also the bunks are too dark, and if we try to 
 read in them, we generally go to sleep. 
 
 15^. Wind round to the south-west, and 
 mild. Summoned on deck at 5 A.M., a large 
 herd of walruses being reported from the mast 
 head. They were a long distance off, and were 
 not visible from the deck ; but, as it was dead 
 calm, Isaac said we had better go up to them 
 in the boats for fear of fog coming on again, 
 or some other boats being before us ; so we had 
 our breakfast first, and then started with both 
 boats full-manned. We had a pleasant row of 
 four or five miles over calm water quite free of 
 ice, and were cheered for the latter half of the 
 
74 VAST NUMBER OF WALRUSES. 
 
 distance by the sonorous bellowing and trum 
 peting of a vast number of walruses. "We 
 soon came in sight of a long line of low flat 
 icebergs crowded with sea-horses. There were 
 at least ten of these bergs so packed with the 
 walruses that in some places they lay two- deep 
 on the ice ! There cannot have been less than 
 300 in sight at once ; but they were very shy 
 and restless, and, although we tried every troop 
 in succession as carefully as possible, we did 
 not succeed in getting within harpooning 
 distance of a single walrus. Many of them 
 were asleep ; but there were always some 
 moving about, who gave the alarm to their 
 sleeping comrades by flapping them with their 
 fore-feet, and one troop after another managed 
 to scuffle into the sea always just a second or 
 so in time to avoid the deadly harpoon. When 
 there are so many together there is always a 
 pretty fair chance of securing some by " j aging " 
 them in the water, that is to say by perse- 
 veringiy rowing after them as hard as possible, 
 and keeping on in the same direction they 
 appear to take when they dive ; if there are 
 calves in the herd they cannot go much 
 faster than the boat, if so fast ; also the calves 
 must come up to breathe much more frequently 
 
EXCITING SPORT. 75 
 
 than the old ones, and the whole herd generally 
 accommodate their pace to that of the old cows 
 with young ones. In all my sporting expe 
 rience I never saw anything to equal the wild 
 excitement of these hunts. Five pair of oars, 
 pulled with utmost strength, make the boat 
 seem to fly through the water, while, perhaps, 
 a hundred walruses roaring, bellowing, blowing, 
 snorting, and splashing, make an acre of the 
 sea all in a foam before and around her. The 
 harpooner stands with one foot on the thwart 
 and the other on the front locker, with the line 
 coiled in his right hand, and the long weapon 
 in both hands ready balanced for a dart, while 
 he shouts to the crew which direction to take, 
 as he frequently, from standing upright in the 
 boat, can see the walruses under water. 
 
 The herd generally keep close together, and 
 the simultaneousness with which they dive and 
 reappear again is remarkable one moment you 
 see a hundred grisly heads and long gleaming 
 white tusks above the waves, they give one spout 
 from their blow-holes, take one breath of fresh 
 air, and the next moment you see a hundred 
 brown hemispherical backs, the next a hundred 
 pair of hind-flippers flourishing, and then they 
 are all down. On, on, goes -the boat as hard as 
 
76 SECURE A "JUNGEB." 
 
 ever we can pull tlie oars ; up come tlie sea 
 horses again, pretty close this time, and before 
 they can draw breath the boat rushes into the 
 midst of them : whisk ! goes the harpoon : 
 birr ! goes the line over the gunwale : and a 
 luckless junger on whom Christian has kept 
 his eye, is " fast ! " : his bereaved mother 
 charges the boat instantly with flashing eyes 
 and snorting with rage ; she quickly receives a 
 harpoon in the back and a bullet in the brains, 
 and she hangs lifeless on the line : now the 
 junger begins to utter his plaintive grunting 
 bark, and fifty furious walruses are close 
 round the boat in a few seconds, rearing up 
 breast high in the water and snorting and 
 blowing as if they would tear us all to pieces ! 
 Two of these auxiliaries are speedily harpooned 
 in their turn, and the rest hang back a little, 
 when as bad luck would have it, the junger 
 gave up the ghost owing to the severity of his 
 harpooning, and the others, no longer attracted 
 by his cries, retire to a more prudent distance. 
 But for the " untoward " and premature decease 
 of the junger, the men tell me we should 
 have had more walruses on our hands than 
 we could manage. We now devote our atten 
 tion to "polishing off" the two live walruses 
 
AN AECTIC TEAM. 77 
 
 well-sized young bulls who are still towing 
 the heavy boat with their two dead comrades 
 attached as if she was behind a steam-tug, and 
 struggling madly to drag us under the icebergs : 
 a vigorous application of the lances -soon settles 
 the business, and we now with some difficulty 
 tow our four dead victims to the nearest flat 
 iceberg and fix the ice-anchor, by which, with 
 the powerful aid of block-and-tackle, we haul 
 them one by one on the ice and divest them of 
 their spoils. Meantime Lord David s boat is 
 carried past us at eight miles an hour in full 
 tow of two enormous bulls, with his Lordship 
 sitting in the stern like Neptune in his car, 
 but holding in his hand, instead of the trident 
 of the marine god, a much more effective 
 weapon in the shape of a four-barrelled rifle. 
 While we were engaged in cutting up these 
 walruses, there were at least fifty more surround 
 ing the iceberg, snorting and bellowing, and 
 rearing up in the water as if smelling the blood 
 of their slaughtered friends and curious to see 
 what we were doing to them now : they were 
 so close that I might have shot a dozen of 
 them, but as they would have been sure to 
 sink before the boat could get to them, I was 
 not so cruel as wantonly to take their lives. 
 
78 BEAES AND WALEUSES. 
 
 When the walruses were all skinned we 
 followed the herd again with success, and 
 when we left off, in consequence of dense fog 
 suddenly coming on, we had secured nine 
 altogether a very fair morning s bag we 
 thought. 
 
 The sloop by this time had got a breeze, and 
 sailed up within fifty yards of us, which saved 
 us a long row with our fatigued crews and 
 heavy-laden boats. During this morning s pro 
 ceedings, I realised the immense advantage of 
 striking a junger first when practicable : this 
 curious clannish practice of coming to assist 
 a calf in distress, arises from their being in the 
 habit of combining to resist the attacks of the 
 Polar bear, which is said often to succeed in 
 killing the walrus : if, however, Bruin, pressed 
 by hunger and a tempting opportunity, is so 
 ill-advised as to snap a calf, the whole herd 
 come upon him, drag him under water, and 
 tear him to pieces with their long sharp tusks. 
 I am told this has been seen to occur, and I 
 quite believe it. 
 
 The walrus is an inoffensive beast if let 
 alone, but hunting them is far from being 
 child s play, as the following sad story will 
 show. 
 
MAN KILLED BY A WALKTJS. 79 
 
 About ten days after the exciting chasse 
 which I have just described, the skyppar of a 
 small schooner, which was in sight, came on 
 board to ask us for the loan of a gun, as he had 
 broken all his, and he told us that a boat be 
 longing to a sloop from Tromsoe had been 
 upset two or three days before in our im 
 mediate vicinity, and one of the crew killed by 
 a walrus. It seemed that the walrus, a large 
 old bull, charged the boat, and the harpooner 
 as usual received him with his lance full in the 
 chest, but the shaft of the lance broke all to 
 shivers, and the walrus, getting inside of it, 
 threw himself on the gunwale of the boat and 
 overset it in an instant. While the men were 
 floundering in the water amongst their oars 
 and tackle, the infuriated animal rushed in 
 amongst them, and selecting the unlucky 
 harpooner, who, I fancy had fallen next him, 
 he tore him nearly into two halves with his 
 tusks. The rest of the men saved themselves 
 by clambering on to the ice until the other 
 boat came to their assistance. 
 
 Upon another occasion, I made the ac 
 quaintance of the skyppar of a sloop, who had 
 been seized by a bereaved cow- walrus, and by 
 her dragged twice to the bottom of the sea ; 
 
80 DISRATE SOLOMON. 
 
 but without receiving any injury beyond being 
 nearly drowned and having a deep scar ploughed 
 in each side of his forehead by the tusks of the 
 animal, which he thought did not wish to hurt 
 him, but mistook him for her calf, as he 
 floundered in the water. 
 
 Owing to the great coolness and expertness 
 of the men following this pursuit, such mishaps 
 are not of very frequent occurrence, but still a 
 season seldom passes without two or three lives 
 being lost one way or another. 
 
 16th. Mem. " Johann " alias " Jack" to 
 be second harpooner on trial, vice Solomon, 
 superseded for incapacity : the latter bears his 
 degradation with philosophy and equanimity 
 worthy of his great namesake, and descends to 
 the much less honourable position of line- 
 holder ; probably he is somewhat consoled for 
 his loss of position by knowing that it will not 
 affect his emoluments having signed articles 
 as harpooner at 20 dollars per mensem. To be 
 a good harpooner requires great courage, 
 activity, and presence of mind, and it is a 
 common remark, that "not one man in a 
 hundred is capable of ever becoming a good 
 one." Jack has been six voyages to Spitz- 
 bergen, but has never acted as harpooner 
 
WALRUS VEAL OK FOAL. 81 
 
 before; but being a cool, active, and energetic 
 fellow, I think there is the making of one in 
 him. Solomon never will be one as long as he 
 lives. 
 
 Beautiful bright morning with west wind. 
 We have beat back to the Thousand Islands 
 during the night, as our people suppose that 
 the great herds of walruses we saw have gone 
 there. Ice very much dispersed since we were 
 here before. 
 
 Dined upon stewed walrus veal very good 
 meat, and without the disagreeable fishy 
 flavour of seal, but slightly insipid. 
 
 Saw no game all day, but one walrus in the 
 water. Calm in the evening. 
 
 G 
 
82 SABBATH OBSERVANCE, 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 Sabbath Observance. Rewarded for ditto. Our first Bear 
 seen. Kill him. Lose the Sloop. Quantities of Eggs. 
 Driftwood. Comes from Siberia. Cannot be in situ, 
 Geology of Thousand Islands. Red Snow. Caused 
 by Mute of Alca Alle. Bear Battue And its Conse 
 quences. Deplorable Effects of smelling Brandy. 
 
 SUNDAY the 17th was calm, with heavy banks 
 of fog hanging about. We got an occasional 
 glimpse of the precipitous rocky promontory 
 of Black Point, distant four or five miles. Did 
 not leave the ship, but read Morning Service 
 in the cabin. "We never hunt on Sundays, 
 although sometimes the appearance of a fat 
 seal or a troop of walruses floating past is 
 eminently tantalising, and severely tries our 
 respect for the Fourth Commandment. I am 
 sorry to state that the greater part of the seal 
 ing vessels make little or no distinction be 
 tween the seventh day and the rest of the 
 week, although some of them compromise with 
 their consciences by refraining from searching 
 for animals with the boats, merely attacking 
 
AND ITS REWARD. 83 
 
 those which come within sight of the vessel. 
 I must leave to theologians to decide how far 
 these men are justified by the peculiar nature 
 of their occupation in this entire or partial 
 desecration of the Sabbath ; but of one thing 
 I am certain, and that is, that they are no 
 gainers by it in the long run, for, whether it 
 was attributable to our energies mental and 
 bodily being recruited by a day of rest, or 
 to the fact of the animals, the objects of pur 
 suit, having time to settle during twenty-four 
 hours respite from bullets and harpoons, some 
 how Monday always was with us the most suc 
 cessful day of the week. 
 
 Verily a day of rest once a week is of essen 
 tial importance to man and beast, even if on no 
 other grounds than those of physical require 
 ments. 
 
 "We always considered Sunday to terminate 
 punctually at midnight ; in these regions it is 
 just as light in July at midnight as midday, 
 and it was a singular circumstance (might I 
 not venture, without being deemed presump 
 tuous, to suggest that this might be more 
 than merely accidental ?) that we saw our first 
 bear a few minutes after this Sunday had ex 
 pired. 
 
84 SEE OUU FIRST BEAE. 
 
 "We were smoking our pipes on deck at mid 
 night, and looking at a low black rocky island, 
 distant three or three and a half miles, when 
 Christian said, "There might be a bear on 
 that island ; " he took up his telescope in an 
 uninterested sort of way, and looking for a 
 little at the island, exclaimed, " There is a bear 
 on it ! " "We instantly directed our telescopes 
 also upon the island, but could see nothing. 
 Christian, however, stoutly maintained that he 
 had seen a bear, and that the reason we could 
 not make him out was, that he was now walk 
 ing across one of several large patches of snow 
 on the island ; after waiting a little we did per 
 ceive a minute white speck moving on the 
 black part of the island ; it was undoubtedly 
 " Gamle Eric " * himself, and we lost no time 
 in preparing for an immediate onslaught upon 
 him. Visions of white rugs trimmed with 
 nicked red cloth took possession of our brains, 
 to the temporary exclusion of pairs of walrus 
 tusks of fabulous length and thickness ! We 
 
 * The people in most parts of Norway have a singular 
 prejudice against alluding to a bear by his name " Biorn ; " 
 but they generally prefer mentioning him by some sobri 
 quet, as " old Eric ; " or in some roundabout way, as " the 
 party in the brown jacket," "the old gentleman in the fur 
 cloak," &c. 
 
BEAR FOND OF EGGS. 85 
 
 started for the island in one boat, but shortly 
 after we left the sloop, Isaac sent the other 
 boat after us, in order to take the opportunity 
 of getting some dry drift-wood for fuel; we 
 carefully took the bearings of the island by 
 compass, and rowed hard, as fog appeared likely 
 to come on again : after about an hour s rowing 
 we got pretty close to the island, and observed 
 our " friend in white " quietly pottering about 
 evidently in search of something " gather 
 ing eggs," Christian explained to us. Multi 
 tudes of gulls, fulmars, eider-ducks, and 
 "alcas" hovered about the island, screaming 
 and chattering, and evidently in a state of 
 great perturbation at Bruin s oological re 
 searches. We got a small cliff between us 
 and the bear without his perceiving us, and 
 jumped ashore with our rifles, in expectation of 
 getting a shot at him from the rocks : but on 
 gaining the top of the cliff, to our great dis 
 may we saw the bear a good hundred yards at 
 sea, and making great play for a neighbouring 
 island about half a mile distant ! He had 
 evidently winded us, or heard us trampling on 
 the hard snow : he was about 200 yards from 
 us, but we both sat down on the snow, and 
 both fired a shot at his head as he swam ; the 
 
 a 3 
 
86 
 
 KILL THE BEAR. 
 
 bullets ricochetted on the water close past Ms 
 ears, and feeling that we must get to closer 
 quarters, we ran for the boat, jumped in, and 
 pursued him with the oars : we overhauled him 
 much sooner than I expected, and on getting 
 within about forty yards we both fired again, 
 and one bullet going through his jaw, and the 
 other through his brains, poor Bruin floated 
 dead upon the water. We put the noose of a 
 sea-horse line round his neck, and towed him 
 ashore to divest him of the "white ru-." 
 
 -rr-r 
 
 "While so satisfactorily engaged on the rocks, 
 two bull walruses hove in sight floating 
 rapidly by, asleep, on a cake of ice. Lord 
 David went after them in one boat, while I 
 walked up to reconnoitre the island, thinking 
 there might perhaps be another bear about the 
 rocks : there was none, but I saw to my great 
 uneasiness that a dense fog had come on, and 
 the sloop was nowhere visible: the current 
 was carrying the ice past the island at the rate 
 of five miles an hour from north-east to south 
 west, so that looking for the sloop was per 
 fectly hopeless, and it appeared as if we should 
 have to bivouac for a day or two on the island. 
 The fat or grease of Ursus maritimus had 
 not looked particularly appetising, so I began 
 
MULTITUDES OF SEA-FOWL. 87 
 
 to inspect the culinary resources of our insular 
 prison : the island actually swarmed with 
 birds, and there were thousands of eggs of the 
 eider-duck, the fulmar, several kinds of gulls, 
 and the little awk (Alca alle), particularly the 
 latter. Bruin s ravages were quite perceptible, 
 as freshly broken shells and spilt eggs were 
 strewed about in numbers, but unfortunately 
 every one which I opened contained a well de 
 veloped and odoriferous chick, and although 
 this may have suited the palate of U. Mari- 
 timus, we were not quite so hungry as that 
 yet. Lord David came ashore, having been 
 unsuccessful with the walruses, and we began 
 to prepare for passing some time on the island ; 
 first we dragged the two boats into a sheltered 
 little creek, and anchored them securely to the 
 rocks ; then we killed a lot of eider-ducks and 
 fulmars, by knocking them off their nests with 
 sticks and stones, which, they were actually 
 tame and foolish enough to allow. 
 
 We next gathered a quantity of dry drift 
 wood, which is strewn in prodigious quantities 
 on all the coasts and outlying islands of Spits 
 bergen. While gathering wood, I found a 
 very good walrus harpoon lying amongst the 
 sand near some old bones of sea-horses. It had 
 
PINE DRIFT-WOOD. 
 
 evidently been deeply implanted in some poor 
 walrus who had come here to die of his wound : 
 it was somewhat lighter than those we had in 
 use, so we ground it sharp, and afterwards 
 used it at the capture of many walruses. I 
 found a very large pine-tree (I think Abies 
 excelsci), with the roots on, hut much water- 
 worn and worm-eaten, as if long at sea ; this 
 tree, as well as thousands of others I have seen, 
 lay far above high-water mark. 
 
 Lord Dufferin, in his clever and delightful 
 " Letters from High Latitudes," states that this 
 drift-wood is " brought to Spitzbergen by the 
 Gulf Stream ; " but I think his Lordship must 
 have inserted this remark without due consider 
 ation, for, although a feeble remnant of the 
 tail of the Gulf Stream undoubtedly prevails 
 over the polar current during the three summer 
 months, so far as to exercise considerable 
 influence on the south and west coasts of 
 Spitzbergen, still it is impossible that it can 
 bring pine wood with it, as the debris of the pine 
 forests of North America cannot come within 
 the influence of the Gulf Stream. There are 
 certainly pine forests on the south of Cuba and 
 in Florida, the refuse of which might possibly, 
 by the course of the currents, be directed 
 
ITS DERIVATION. 89 
 
 towards Spitzbergen ; but it is obviously 
 not from these comparatively limited areas 
 that the vast quantity of pine drift-wood found 
 on the shores of Spitzbergen is derived. I 
 once found on the beach, near Hammerfest, 
 a large piece of mahogany much water-washed, 
 and drilled as full of worm-holes as it could be 
 without falling to pieces in fact, perfectly 
 honeycombed. This had unmistakably come 
 from the West Indies by the Gulf Stream, and 
 if all the drift-wood in Spitzbergen consisted of 
 mahogany also, I should imagine no doubt 
 could exist as to its derivation ; but consisting, as 
 it does, entirely of pine, (with the sole exception 
 of some few pieces of oak, &c. which have formed 
 parts of wrecked vessels,) I think it is equally 
 clear that it has come from the continent of 
 Siberia. This is the explanation which all the 
 frequenters of Spitzbergen give of its history, 
 and I think, upon reflection, that it is the most 
 feasible one. 
 
 I presume that the spring floods in such 
 mighty rivers as the Obi, the Yenisei, and the 
 Lena, for a great part of their course draining 
 a pine-clad country, must carry down enormous 
 quantities of drift-wood, partly loose and partly 
 imbedded in ice ; and that this is carried out to 
 
90 NOT IN SITU. 
 
 sea until it gets within the influence of the polar 
 current, or of some storm, which drives it on the 
 coasts of Spitzbergen. It has been suggested 
 to me that this wood might possibly be in situ, 
 i. e. might have composed part of great forests 
 at one time growing in Spitzbergen itself; but 
 although I do not at all wish to give any 
 opinion upon the very doubtful and debatable 
 subject of whether or not there once existed a 
 milder climate in the Arctic regions, still I 
 think there are strong reasons for believing 
 that this wood is not in situ, because 
 
 1. Nineteen-twentieths at least of the visible 
 wood in Spitzbergen lies actually on the shore, 
 just above the reach of the waves. 
 
 2. A great quantity of it is on the Thousand 
 Islands, and other outlying reefs and skerries, 
 which are composed entirely of bare trap rocks 
 without a particle of soil, and which could not, 
 in their present state of barrenness, have borne 
 trees even in a temperate climate. 
 
 3. It is all much water- worn, as if from long 
 exposure in the sea and rolling on the beach ; 
 also a great deal of it is worm-eaten, and I do 
 not believe that worms that bore wood exist in 
 Spitzbergen: even the wood found here and 
 
GEOLOGY OF THOUSAND ISLANDS. 91 
 
 there, far inland, and high, above the sea, is 
 water-worn. 
 
 4. Entire logs, with the roots on them, are 
 very rare either on the shore or inland. 
 
 5. Many of these larger pieces bear marks of 
 the axe of ancient date.* 
 
 6. Wherever drift-wood is found inland, or 
 above the level of the sea, it is generally 
 associated with the bones of whales ; so that I 
 think all these facts taken together make up a 
 pretty conclusive case against the in situ 
 suggestion. 
 
 This island, as well as all the other off-lying 
 inlets and skerries on the south south-east and 
 south-west of Spitzbergen (I do not include 
 Hope Island), is composed of a rough coarse 
 grained trap rock, which in places imperfectly 
 assumes the columnar shape. These columns 
 seem very much shaken, as if ready to fall to 
 pieces, and the tops of the columns, as well as 
 all corners and protuberances, are much worn 
 and rounded, as if they had been half made 
 into boulders already. They, no doubt, are so, 
 for thousands of boulders, quite smooth and 
 rounded, and formed of the same rock, half 
 
 * This might have been done since it came to Spitz 
 bergen, and so I do not lay much stress on this argument. 
 
92 TRAVELLED BOULDEES. 
 
 cover the islands. These are mostly of an ave 
 rage size of about a cubic foot, and very seldom 
 exceed two feet and a half in diameter. They 
 are curiously packed and levelled in some places, 
 as if they had been roughly made into a cause 
 way for walking on by human agency. This 
 singular appearance I conceive to have been 
 given to them by enormous icebergs grazing 
 over and resting on the islands, ere yet they 
 became dry land, and acting to the boulders 
 like a roller on a gravel walk. Amongst these 
 native boulders I was a little surprised to find 
 a few very round and smooth boulders of red 
 granite of about one cubic foot downwards in 
 size, as there is no granite nearer than the 
 inaccessible peaks of the primitive ridges in the 
 centre of Spitsbergen, distant forty or fifty 
 miles. There were also some boulders of a hard 
 reddish stone like porphyry ; and some small 
 weather-worn blocks of a very hard white lime 
 stone of a description different from any lime 
 stone rock which I have anywhere seen in situ 
 in Spitzbergen. It seems to me that all these 
 interlopers must have travelled either from the 
 north-east part of Spitzbergen, or from some 
 unknown country in that direction, as it is clear 
 that they do not belong to this part of the 
 
HED SNOW. 93 
 
 country, and they are evidently travelled and 
 ice-borne blocks. 
 
 I saw for the first time on this island the 
 singular appearance called " red snow," a 
 description of which is familiar to all readers 
 of arctic voyages. With deference to some of 
 these distinguished observers, who appear to 
 me to have gone out of their way to look for 
 some abstruse reasons (such as " the growth of 
 minute reddish fungi on the snow," &c.) to 
 account for this appearance, I may state that 
 all the red snow which has come under my 
 observation has been simply caused by the 
 colouring matter contained in the droppings 
 of millions of little awks; these birds feed 
 almost entirely on shrimps, and consequently 
 void a substance bearing a strong resemblance 
 to anchovy sauce. It may be that "minute 
 reddish fungi " afterwards grow on the 
 droppings, but I totally disbelieve in fungi 
 growing on the snow per se. 
 
 To return to our position on the island. 
 About eight o clock in the morning we fancied 
 that we heard several cannon-shots in the 
 offing, and the fog having cleared a little, we 
 determined to make an effort to regain the 
 sloop. "We therefore rowed out for about three 
 
94 ACCIDENTS FROM FOG. 
 
 miles, when, not being able to find her, and 
 being afraid of losing the island ourselves, we 
 rowed back again, and had made a large fire 
 and were about to breakfast upon bear-steaks 
 and eider-ducks, when the sloop appeared in 
 sight, about three miles off, and in a totally 
 different direction to that in which we thought 
 we had heard the signal-shots. 
 
 We got on board before noon on the 18th ; 
 and after a breakfast of hot brandy-and- water, 
 cold beef and biscuit, we turned in for a few r 
 hours sleep. 
 
 Many poor people have been left to perish 
 miserably on these bleak and desert islands by 
 accidents arising from fog, ice, currents, and 
 brandy. One notable case of a somewhat 
 ludicrous nature, but which might have ended 
 very tragically, took place five years ago, the 
 scene being an island, which I afterwards 
 visited, about thirty miles to the south-west 
 of this one. A great many walruses had been 
 killed on this island the previous season, and a 
 small sloop from Hammerfest came to the 
 island for the chance of finding bears feeding 
 on the carcases ; they found a perfect flock of 
 bears upwards of fifty congregated on the 
 island, holding a sort of carnival on the 
 
BEAR BATTUE. 95 
 
 remains of the walruses. The crew of the 
 vessel consisted, as is usual, of ten men, of 
 whom the skyppar and seven others landed 
 to attack the bears, after having anchored 
 their sloop, securely as they thought, to a 
 large grounded iceberg close to the island, and 
 given the two men left on board strict injunc 
 tions to keep a good look-out. 
 
 They had a most successful " battue," and 
 killed twenty-two or twenty-three of the bears, 
 the rest making good their escape to sea ; but 
 this chase occupied many hours, and mean 
 while the two ship-keepers took advantage of 
 the captain s absence to institute a search for a 
 cask of brandy, which was kept in his cabin 
 merely with the harmless intention of smelling 
 it, of course ; but from smelling they not un 
 naturally got to tasting, and from tasting they 
 soon became helplessly drunk. "While they were 
 in this happy state of oblivion to bears, ice 
 bergs, and things in general, one of the sudden 
 dense fogs of the north came on, the tide 
 rose, the iceberg floated, and in a few minutes 
 it, and the sloop along with it, were out of sight 
 of the island and drifting away in the fog. The 
 hunting party had thought nothing of the fog, 
 as they imagined the iceberg to be " fast ; " so 
 
HAZARDOUS BOAT VOYAGE. 
 
 when they had flensed all their hears they 
 rowed round to where they had left the sloop, 
 and were mightily disconcerted at seeing 
 neither sloop nor iceberg. They shouted, 
 and fired signal- shots, and rowed out to sea, 
 and rowed all around, until they got so 
 bewildered that they lost the island them 
 selves. However, after a great deal of trouble 
 they found the island again, and waited upon 
 it for several days, expecting, of course, that 
 when the weather cleared the sloop would 
 return. The weather cleared, but no sloop 
 appearing, there stared them in the face the 
 alternatives of passing a winter of starvation 
 and almost certain death on the island, or of 
 attempting to cross the stormy 480 miles of 
 sea which divided them from Norway, in a 
 small open boat ! 
 
 Like bold fellows, they chose the latter 
 chance for their lives, and abandoning * one 
 of their boats on the island, the whole eight 
 got into the other one, with as much bear- 
 meat as they could stow, and rowed for dear 
 life to the south ; four rowed while the other 
 
 * I saw this boat myself on the island, turned bottom up, 
 with all her oars, lances, harpoons, &c. just as they had 
 been left five years before. 
 
THEY REACH NORWAY. 97 
 
 four lay down in the bottom of the boat, and 
 being providentially blessed with fine weather, 
 they actually succeeded in reaching the coast 
 of Fimarken in about eight days time, but 
 half-dead with hunger, thirst, and fatigue, as 
 may be supposed. The two jolly fellows in 
 the sloop kept themselves gloriously drunk, and 
 floated about at the mercy of the winds and 
 the ice for many days ; but instead of going to 
 the bottom as they deserved, they had the 
 good luck to fall in with one of the other 
 sealers, which, observing the helpless condition 
 of the sloop, and imagining her to be aban 
 doned, sent a boat on board to take possession ; 
 but finding the two worthies asleep in close 
 proximity to their beloved cask, they were 
 cruel and hardhearted enough to throw the 
 latter overboard, and then lent them a mate 
 and two men to assist them to navigate the 
 vessel to Hammerfest, where we may form 
 some idea of the kind of reception they met 
 with from their justly exasperated comrades 
 and the owners of the vessel. 
 
 ii 
 
98 NORTH-EASTERLY GALE. 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 North-east Grale. Bears Grease.- Errors in the Charts. 
 
 Geology. Limestone. Coal. Creation of subalpine 
 Flats. Deeva Bay. "East" Ice. Bear s Mode of 
 catching Seals. Whale s Bones. Glen-Turritt. Large 
 Extent of fixed Ice. Many Seals shot. Become my own 
 Harpooner. Glacier with detached Moraine. 
 
 WE now attempted to beat to the N.E. against 
 both wind and current, with the intention of 
 resuming -our cruising ground near Ryk Yse 
 Islands; hut in the afternoon the wind increased 
 a good deal, and the barometer gaye indications 
 of an approaching gale, so our people advised 
 that we should remain amongst the islands, as 
 they said the gale of ]S T .E. wind, which was 
 evidently coming on, would bring down plenty of 
 ice to where we were. We accordingly changed 
 our course, and ran before the wind to another 
 group of islands about twenty-five miles dis 
 tant, where we anchored under the lee of the 
 islands, and rode out the gale in tolerable com 
 fort. It blew very hard during the night. 
 
BEARS GREASE. 99 
 
 . The storm continues with, unabated 
 force, and we haye some difficulty in keeping 
 the sloop from being dragged from her anchor 
 by the heavy pieces of ice which are driven 
 against her by the wind and current. It is 
 much too stormy for boat work, so we set the 
 hands to cut up the blubber of the bear and 
 the nine walruses last killed. The skin of the 
 Polar bear is very thin, and it is consequently 
 very difficult to divide it from the fat without 
 slicing or injuring the skin : the fat or blubber 
 lies in a layer precisely like that of the seal 
 and the walrus ; it is about intermediate in 
 quality between the two latter, and is put into 
 the casks amongst the rest. This bear was 
 neither very large nor very fat, and only yielded 
 about one hundred pounds of blubber ; but an 
 old male bear in high condition sometimes 
 affords upwards of fourtimes that quantity. 
 
 I believe the fat of Ursus maritimus is not 
 suitable for the manufacture of " bears 
 grease; " probably it has a tendency to turn 
 the hair white. 
 
 A heavy fall of snow commenced in the 
 evening, and continued during the night. 
 
 . Gale a good deal moderated, and clear. 
 Got out both boats and coasted about the lee 
 
 H2 
 
100 THE THOUSAND ISLANDS. 
 
 sides of the islands ; landed on several, but saw 
 nothing except one or two seals in the water ; 
 gathered a lot of excellent drift-wood for fuel. 
 Thirteen years ago four Norwegian sailors had 
 to winter on this island, their vessel having 
 been driven away by a storm and ice; they 
 constructed a hut (the remains of which still 
 exist) of mud, moss, and drift-wood, and three 
 of the four contrived to survive the winter ; the 
 fourth died. 
 
 This cluster of islands is exactly of the same 
 formation and appearance as the one which I 
 have already described trap rocks, imperfect 
 columns, thousands of rounded boulders of the 
 same, and a few occasional small ones of 
 granite and limestone ; one of the latter con 
 taining fossil pectens and other shells. 
 
 No ice to speak of has been driven to this 
 direction by the gale, and as plenty of floating 
 ice is indispensable for the success of our 
 operations against both the seal and the walrus, 
 we got the anchor up in the afternoon, and 
 proceeded to beat to the N.E. again in hopes of 
 meeting it, but wind and current being against 
 us, our progress was very slow. 
 
 These islands are most absurdly misnamed 
 " The Thousand/ for there are not in reality 
 
HOPE ISLAND. 101 
 
 nearly one hundred of them; they are also 
 very incorrectly laid down in the charts as 
 being all about equally distant from one 
 another, whereas there are never more than 
 five or six in one group, and each group is 
 generally many miles distant from another. 
 
 Hope Island is placed in the charts as lying 
 due south from the middle of the Thousand 
 Islands, but its actual position is about forty- 
 five miles due east from Black Point, or nearly 
 one hundrd miles further to the N.E. than the 
 charts make it. This latter grave error is 
 notorious amongst all the sealers, and I satisfied 
 myself, by actual observation, that the position 
 of the island is as I have stated it. 
 
 Black Point and Whalefish Point are the 
 two promontories terminating the chains of 
 mountains which enclose Deeva Bay, and 
 stretch out like a pair of compasses to embrace 
 the archipelago of the Thousand Islands. The 
 seaward sides of both these mountainous pro 
 montories are curiously scarped away, so as to 
 form very steep precipitous faces of bare rock ; 
 and at places where it has room to lie, there is 
 an extensive talus of muddy and shaly detritus 
 brought down from the sides of the mountains 
 by the action of frost and avalanches ; these 
 
 H 3 
 
102 GEOLOGY OF BLACK POINT. 
 
 mountains are each about twelve hundred feet 
 in height, and this may be stated as about the 
 average height of the lower ranges on both 
 sides of East Spitzbergen. The granitic peaks 
 of the central range are much higher, but they 
 are everywhere quite inaccessible, and are only 
 to be seen here and there peeping out from 
 amongst the glaciers. Black Point is composed 
 of a dark-grey or mud-coloured limestone and 
 sandstone of a soft and shaly description, which 
 is stratified very numerously or minutely, and 
 with almost exact parallelism to the sea ; only 
 in one or two small places did I observe slight 
 bends or deflections from the horizontally of 
 the stratification; in the lower part of the 
 precipice there is, amongst the sandstone, 
 an irregular-looking band of dark-brown or 
 brownish-black coal, but this for the greater 
 part is concealed by the talus before men 
 tioned. The limestone contains a great num 
 ber of fossils, many of which I collected. 
 
 Black Point and Whalefish Point are both 
 very deeply furrowed from top to bottom, and 
 these furrows being generally full of snow, 
 while the dark-grey ridges between them are 
 bare, give the mountains a sort of ribbed 
 appearance, which renders them very conspi- 
 
HILLS OF EAST SPITZBEBGEN. 103 
 
 cuous objects, and visible from an immense 
 distance. 
 
 All the lower hills of East Spitzbergen are 
 much of the same shape and contour, and they 
 all appear to be composed of the same shaly 
 secondary limestone and sandstone, containing 
 here and there a band of coal; but on the 
 shores of the great bays called Stour Fiord and 
 Deeva Bay, where the sea is not exposed to the 
 violence of the current and gales from the 
 N.E.j the detritus brought down from the 
 mountains, instead of being perpetually washed 
 away from the base of the cliffs, is allowed to 
 accumulate ; and flowing each year, or each 
 flood, over the top of the layer already de 
 posited, it gradually encroaches on the sea and 
 forms a muddy flat, which slopes at a gradually 
 increasing angle from the almost perpendicular 
 limestone cliffs to a nearly dead level. This 
 plain gets, by slow degrees, covered with 
 mosses, but is for a long time liable to be 
 deluged again with mud and shale from the 
 mountains, until the slopes of the latter get so 
 much reduced by this process, that they as 
 sume a more permanent shape. These plains 
 are in some places three to four miles broad, 
 and although their surface may not have 
 
 H 4 
 
104 FORMATION OF SUBALPINE FLATS, 
 
 undergone any of these natural top dressings 
 for ages, they are generally so very soft and 
 slushy, that in walking you go up to the knees 
 at every step. The brief Arctic summer is 
 evidently insufficient to dry the ground from 
 the enormous quantity of water with which it 
 is saturated by the winter s snow. The water 
 in these bays is generally very muddy, from 
 being so heavily charged with sediment washed 
 off the hills by the melting snow, and they 
 are unquestionably becoming shallowed very 
 rapidly. This is a process which, no doubt, is 
 taking place more or less all over the world, and 
 by which all subalpine flats and valleys have 
 been formed already ; but there is no country 
 which I have ever visited, or of which I have 
 ever read, in which it can be observed to be 
 actually happening so conspicuously and so 
 rapidly as in Spitzbergen, and more particularly 
 around the two gulfs of Stour Eiord and Deeva 
 Bay : the actual creation of flats and valleys by 
 the processes of denudation of the mountains, 
 and deposition of the sediment, is there laid 
 bare to the beholder so plainly, that " he who 
 runs may read." If there still exists any one 
 who doubts the power of present causes to re 
 model the surface of the earth, I should 
 
DEEVA BAY. 105 
 
 strongly recommend him to take a trip to 
 Deeva Bay, and he may rest assured he will 
 come hack a wiser man. 
 
 On the 21st we were hecalmed off Black 
 Point, and leaving the sloop there, we took 
 to the hoats and rowed for ahout seven miles 
 up Deeva Bay, to where two good-sized islands 
 stretch several miles into the hay, the eastern 
 end of one of them being only separated 
 from a projecting point of the main shore 
 by a strait about fifty yards broad. To the 
 N. and N.E. these islands were connected 
 with the shore by several square miles of 
 "fast"* ice, of one winter s growth. Great 
 numbers of seals lay upon this sheet of ice, 
 taking advantage of a beautifully bright sunny 
 day to bask, but we found it next to im 
 possible to shoot them : we tried a great many 
 times, but never could get nearer than about 
 300 yards. I do not think the seals saw us 
 or smelt us, because we tried going to leeward, 
 and we tried giving them the sun in their 
 eyes, and we walked and crept as quietly as 
 possible. I am convinced that the well-known 
 difficulty of getting within shot of a seal on 
 
 * Ice attached to the shore is so called. 
 
106 BEAU S MODE OF CATCHING SEALS. 
 
 " fast " ice, arises from the sound or vibra 
 tion made by one s feet being communicated 
 to him along or through the ice ; we did 
 succeed in making two or three successful 
 long shots, but as each individual villain lay 
 within six inches of his hole, they all contrived 
 to roll in before we got up to them. 
 
 The white bear, as is well known, subsists 
 principally on seals, and he kills many of 
 them on these sheets of " fast " ice, but how 
 he manages to get within arm s length of them 
 there, is beyond what I can understand. "When 
 the seals are floating about on loose drift ice, 
 Bruin s little game is obvious enough; he 
 "first finds his seal," by eyes or nose, in 
 the use of both of which organs U. mari- 
 timus is unsurpassed by any wild animal 
 whose acquaintance I have ever made, and 
 then slipping into the water half a mile or so 
 to leeward of his prey, he swims slowly 
 and silently towards him, keeping very little 
 of his head above water : on approaching the 
 ice on which the seal is lying, the bear slips 
 along unseen under the edge of it *, until he is 
 
 * I have been told the bear will dive to avoid being seen 
 by the seal, and as we once saw a bear dive ourselves, I can 
 quite easily credit the fact. 
 
THE SEAL OFTEN ESCAPES. 107 
 
 close under the hapless seal, when one jump up, 
 and one blow of his tremendous paw, generally 
 settles the business. The seal cannot go fast 
 enough to escape by crossing to the other 
 side of the iceberg ; if he jumps down when 
 the bear is close to him he does the best 
 he can for his life, for if he does not jump 
 actually into the arms of his foe, and gets 
 into the water, he is very likely to escape, 
 the bear having no chance whatever when 
 the seal is once fairly afloat. It cannot be 
 very easy even for an animal of such prodi 
 gious strength as the Polar bear, to keep 
 hold of a six-hundredweight seal during the 
 first contortions of the latter, and a furious 
 struggle must often take place. That the 
 seals often escape from the grasp of the bear 
 is certain, for we ourselves shot at least half 
 a dozen of large seals which were deeply 
 gashed and scored by the claws of bears. It 
 is evidently fear of the bear which makes 
 the seals so uneasy and restless when they 
 are on the ice, as very many of these seals 
 in all probability never saw a man or a boat 
 in all their lives. 
 
 When there are bears in the neighbourhood, 
 the seals are always much more difficult of 
 
WHALE S BONES. 
 
 access; and the hunters consequently enter 
 tain a deep antipathy to " Gamle Eric," and 
 never omit an opportunity of putting a bullet 
 into him, even if in circumstances where 
 they cannot get possession, or make use, of 
 him when dead. 
 
 We hunted round all the open sides of these 
 islands in the boats, then landed and walked 
 up on to the highest part of the islands 
 to see if there was any ice farther up the 
 bay : none was visible from the rocks. 
 
 On the top of one island I found part of a 
 whale s skeleton at an elevation of forty feet 
 or upwards above the sea. The bones were 
 a good deal decayed, and were partly over 
 grown with moss, as if they had lain there 
 for very many years. 
 
 I shot a small seal, which sank in water 
 about fifteen feet deep, but it being quite 
 clear I managed to fish him up from the 
 bottom by tying the shafts of two harpoons 
 together. Lord David disturbed a bear 
 amongst the rocks, which took to the water 
 without his seeing it; but the man in 
 charge of the boat saw him and called to 
 his Lordship, who then ran back to the boat, 
 pursued the bear, and killed him in the water. 
 
EXPLORE DEEVA BAY. 109 
 
 Deeva Bay is marked in the charts as 
 being unexplored at the further end, and as if 
 it ran a long way up into the country ; so, as 
 it seemed quite clear of ice at present, and 
 the sloop was still becalmed, I thought this a 
 favourable opportunity for continuing the ex 
 ploration of it to the end. I left the sloop 
 at four in the morning on the 22nd, and rowed 
 up the west side of the bay. 
 
 These lower hills bordering the fiords of 
 Spitzbergen have a very strong resemblance 
 to the long dreary ranges of limestone hills 
 which hem in on both sides the valley of the Nile 
 from Cairo to Syene ; and this resemblance 
 exists both in their size, shape, slope, and 
 general aspect (ice and snow aside), as well 
 as in the solitude and almost total absence 
 of life and vegetation which characterises 
 them. 
 
 About half way up this side is a glacier 
 almost extending into the water, and push 
 ing before it a huge moraine of mud and 
 debris, the base of which is washed by the 
 sea, and renders the latter quite shallow and 
 muddy for several miles around. 
 
 It is wonderful to observe how insignificant 
 even mountains of solid rock are compared to 
 
110 MORAINES. 
 
 the enormous power of glacial action ! They 
 appear to melt and crumble into dust and mud, 
 like mole-hills, in the gigantic grasp of the 
 " ice-rivers I " 
 
 I once rented the shootings of Glen-Turritt, 
 in Perthshire, and in that valley I well 
 remember some vast accumulations of earth 
 and gravel, the origin of which completely 
 puzzled me at the time ; but after having seen 
 the numerous glaciers of Spitzbergen, I have 
 no longer any doubt or hesitation in believing 
 that the mounds are the lateral and terminal 
 moraines of ancient glaciers, which filled the 
 glen in times when the climate and appear 
 ance of Scotland must have been very 
 analogous to that of Spitzbergen at the 
 present day; when perhaps the seal and the 
 walrus sunned themselves (fearless of har 
 poons and conical bullets) on fields of ice, 
 drifting about amongst a "wintry archipe 
 lago" of barren islands, and hunted their 
 prey on submarine banks, now fertile land, 
 and rented at 5 an acre. The shells, those 
 insignificant but yet most powerful exponents 
 of the past, show that this is more than mere 
 hypothesis, for most of the shells now in 
 habiting the Arctic seas, although no longer 
 
FAST-ICE. Ill 
 
 found alive in British waters, are dug up in 
 large quantities in the Pleistocene beds in some 
 parts of Scotland, and particularly in my own 
 immediate neighbourhood, at Ballinakilly Bay 
 in the Island of Bute. 
 
 I kept pondering and reflecting on these 
 subjects as we rowed along the sterile shores 
 of this gloomy fiord. After rowing about 
 twelve miles we came to a slight promon 
 tory, and on rounding this we perceived a 
 long low line of flat ice, extending right across 
 the fiord, which was here not more than four 
 miles broad. This was " fast " ice of last 
 winter s growth, and was the outer edge of a 
 sheet which covered the upper end of the fiord 
 for about six miles of its length. This w^as the 
 first large piece of " fast " ice I had seen, and 
 the day being bright, and the ice perfectly 
 smooth and level, its appearance was most 
 beautiful. It was covered with snow of 
 dazzling whiteness, showing off to great advan 
 tage some hundreds of minute black dots, which 
 possessed incomparably greater charms for my 
 bloodthirsty boat s crew than either scenery or 
 geology, for by the aid of our telescopes we soon 
 made them out to be seals, and as the men said 
 that they thought this high part of the bay 
 
112 MANY SEALS SHOT. 
 
 had not been previously hunted this summer, 
 we anticipated a brilliant day s sport. 
 
 There were seven or eight huge fellows all 
 lying close to the outer edge of the ice, and we 
 first opened approaches in form against them. 
 They were very shy, and would not allow the 
 boat to come within shot ; but no sooner had 
 they dived into the sea than their unfortunate 
 habit of curiosity got the better of them, and 
 every one of them came close around the boat, 
 popping up their heads like " Jacks-in-the-box," 
 and flourishing their heels in the air contemp 
 tuously as they dived again. I never enjoyed 
 more exciting sport than I had for a couple of 
 hours or so, for as fast as I could load and fire 
 there was a great round bullet-head standing 
 like a target in the water ready for me, and as 
 the sea was calm nearly every shot was success 
 ful. Without the boat going 100 yards from 
 the spot, I shot dead fifteen seals of the very 
 largest size; but although I took the utmost 
 pains not to fire until the boat s head was 
 directed straight towards the seal and within 
 thirty yards of him, still I had the perverse bad 
 luck to lose twelve out of the fifteen, and gene 
 rally had the additional vexation of seeing 
 them sinking out of reach of the harpoon, just 
 
lllllll I Illlffllilllll 
 
HARPOON THEM MYSELF. 113 
 
 a second of time too late. We managed to get 
 hold of three immense fellows. My harpooner 
 most culpably missed his stroke at another, 
 as the boat shot past him while he lay floating 
 on the surface, and the iron " drew" out of a 
 fifth after he was fairly struck ; three of them 
 sank in water so shallow that we easily felt 
 the bottom with the harpoon, but it was so 
 muddy that we groped for them unavailingly 
 for some time. 
 
 This was very annoying, and I felt so vexed 
 and disgusted at thus uselessly butchering 
 these poor animals, and strewing the muddy 
 bottom of Deeva Eay with their obese car 
 cases, that I was on the point of giving it up, 
 when Christian suggested that if I would take 
 in hand to harpoon as w T ell as shoot, and let him 
 add his strength to the rowing power, we 
 might do better, as the boat was so heavy that 
 it took the remaining men three or four 
 vigorous tugs before they got " way " on her. 
 This change was attended with the happiest 
 effects, the additional pair of oars made the 
 boat start much more readily, and I harpooned 
 and secured every seal four in number - 
 which I shot, after we adopted the new 
 arrangement. I found it much easier to use 
 
 I 
 
114 GLACIER. 
 
 tlie harpoon than I had expected, and hence 
 forward I always harpooned seals for myself. 
 
 A breeze sprung up about noon, and we got 
 the sail up and sailed along the edge of the 
 fixed ice to the opposite side of the fiord, the 
 edge of this ice was singularly straight and 
 even, as if cut with a line and a saw, from one 
 side to the other. On reaching the east side 
 we landed, and boiled some coffee and ate 
 biscuits. 
 
 The spot where we landed was on an im 
 mense muddy terminal moraine of a great 
 glacier, the top of which was lost in the clouds 
 and distance. "While the men were resting, I 
 waded through sticky mud nearly up to my 
 knees, to the top of the moraine, and looked 
 around with my glass, and while doing so I 
 observed that this glacier had the peculiarity 
 which I never saw in any other of the Spitz- 
 bergen glaciers of being separated from its 
 terminal moraine by about two miles of water ; 
 this water was mostly covered with ice, partly 
 "fast " and partly detached and moving with 
 the tide, but the slope and appearance of 
 the glacier blended so gently and insensibly 
 into the sea-ice, that at first I thought it was 
 all glacier down to the moraine, until at last 
 
SINGULAR MORAINE. 115 
 
 with my glass I discovered that some of the 
 loose pieces were in motion, and observed 
 several seals lying on them and diving into 
 the interstices. The moraine was of mud 
 entirely, and was tolerably consolidated at the 
 top, so as to form good walking ; it extended 
 along the entire front of the glacier (which 
 was confined by a limestone hill on each side) 
 in two parts, and was of a total length of 
 about three and a half miles, by 200 to 400 
 yards broad, and 20 to 30 feet high, the 
 entrance between the two portions of the 
 moraine was not more than 300 or 400 yards 
 in width. 
 
 How I wished for an hour of Professor 
 James Forbes to elucidate the mystery to me 
 of this glacier being so far distant from the 
 moraine, the existence of which had so evi 
 dently been caused by great immediate pres 
 sure from the glacier. There appeared not to 
 have been any contact between them for a long 
 period, as mosses and other little arctic plants 
 were growing on the moraine. I also picked 
 up specimens of several kinds of shells on the 
 moraine. 
 
 In cutting up these large seals, I found 
 the stomachs of several of them containing 
 
 * 12 
 
116 SCARCITY OF FISH. 
 
 a bushel or so apiece of small fish about 
 five or six inches long and resembling young 
 cod. 
 
 I believe there are no fish of any size in the 
 Spitsbergen seas, for we tried often with hook 
 and line and never caught a single one. 
 
SEE AN IMMENSE BEAR. 117 
 
 CHAP. VIIL 
 
 Large Bear shot. Adventures of an Opera-glass. Size 
 and Weight of Polar Bear. Stories of Bears. She- 
 Bear and Cubs. Break-up of the East-Ice. Kill the 
 Old Bear, and catch the Cubs alive. Shocking Case 
 of filial Ingratitude. 
 
 IN the afternoon we rowed back along the edge 
 of the "fast" ice, in hopes that more seals 
 might have come out of the covered part. 
 
 I was sitting in the bow of the boat, and on 
 approaching the west side of the fiord again, I 
 saw a dull white object on the shore, and by 
 applying the glass, I made it out to be a large 
 bear, evidently snuffing his way up the wind 
 to the carcases of the three seals which I had 
 shot first in the morning, and had left on the 
 ice near the western side of the fiord : the 
 bear when we first saw him was about a mile 
 distant, and the carcases lay about half way 
 between him and the boat. I was somewhat 
 at a loss at first how to proceed, because close 
 to the bear there was a large extent of flat 
 
 I 3 
 
118 WAIT FOU HIM ON THE ICE. 
 
 mud and " fast " ice, with several wide valleys 
 beyond, and it was clear that if we attacked 
 him openly in front, he would take to his heels 
 over the flat, and soon run us all to a stand 
 still, as the bear will easily outrun any man. 
 I then thought I would lay down beside the 
 carcases to wait for his approach, but it had 
 now got so bitterly cold that I was afraid I 
 would be half frozen before he came ; so, after 
 a minute s consultation with Christian, we de 
 cided on a middle course, which he said he 
 thought would do equally as well as if I lay 
 down on the ice. We rowed as fast as we 
 could towards the carcases, and pushed the 
 boat into a little creek, which fortunately 
 existed in the edge of the ice exactly eighty 
 yards on our side of the carcases. The bear 
 was still snuffing about on the land, and had 
 not perceived us yet, and the boat being quite 
 white like the ice, it was not likely he would 
 do so now if we kept still. I made all the 
 men crouch down in the bottom of the boat, 
 while I alone watched the motions of Bruin, 
 by peeping over the gunwale through a large 
 double-barrelled opera-glass, which I generally 
 carry in preference to a telescope for sporting 
 purposes, on account of its greater quickness. 
 
ADVENTURES OE AN OPEHA-GLASS. 119 
 
 Strange sights has that large, old, "battered 
 opera-glass seen in its day, for, besides its legi 
 timate occupation of gazing at the beauties in 
 the opera-houses of London, Paris, [Florence, 
 Naples, Havana, and New York, it has seen 
 great races at Epsom ; great reviews in the 
 Champ-de-Mars ; great bull-fights in the am 
 phitheatre at Seville. It has stalked red-deer 
 on the hills of the highlands, scaly crocodiles 
 on the sandbanks of the Nile, and read the 
 hieroglyphics on the tops of the awful temples 
 and monuments of Thebes and Karnak. It 
 has peered through the loopholes of the ad 
 vanced trenches at the frowning, dust-coloured 
 batteries of the Redan and the Malakoif. It has 
 gazed over the splendid cane-fields of the West 
 Indies, from the tops of the forest clad moun 
 tain-peaks of Trinidad and Martinique ; over 
 the Palls of Niagara ; over the Bay of Naples 
 from the top of Vesuvius ; over Cairo from the 
 tops of the pyramids ; over the holy city of 
 Jerusalem from the top of Mount Calvary; 
 and now it was occupied in quietly scanning 
 the colossal proportions of a polar bear, amid 
 the icebergs of the frozen north. 
 
 The bear walked slowly and deliberately for 
 some 200 or 300 yards on the ice, as if un- 
 
 I 4, 
 
120 SEALS CHAFFING THE BEAR. 
 
 certain whether he should go up to the dead 
 seals or not. How earnestly I prayed that he 
 might not have had his dinner ! Shortly he 
 appeared to make up his mind that a seal 
 supper would be exactly the thing for him, and 
 sliding stern-foremost into the water, he swam 
 steadily and quietly along close under the edge 
 of the ice towards the carcases. 
 
 I perceived half a dozen of live seals caper 
 ing around the bear in the water, as if they 
 were making fun of their great enemy, or 
 " chaffing" him, now that he was in their 
 peculiar element; like small birds following 
 and teasing a hawk when they are sure he can t 
 catch them. 
 
 When the bear came close opposite to the 
 dead seals, he peeped cautiously up over the 
 edge of the ice, and then perceiving that they 
 were not live seals, he scrambled out quite 
 coolly, and began to shake the wet from his 
 shaggy coat like a Newfoundland dog; the 
 instant he concluded this operation, I fired, 
 and smashed the joint of one of his shoulders. 
 He fell on his face on the ice growling savagely 
 and biting at the wound. According to a 
 preconcerted arrangement, I instantly sprang 
 out on the ice and ran towards the bear, while 
 
KILL THE BEAR. 121 
 
 the boat started to meet him in case he should 
 take to the water: while I was running the 
 bear got to his feet, and, at first, seemed in 
 clined to fight it out, as he advanced a few 
 steps to meet me, growling most horribly and 
 showing his teeth, but on my approaching a 
 little nearer he seemed to think discretion the 
 better part of valour, for he fairly lost heart 
 and scuffled precipitately into the sea. I then 
 shot him through the brains as he swam away, 
 and the boat coming up immediately, they got 
 a noose round his neck and towed him up to 
 the ice. He was so large and heavy that we 
 had to fix the ice-anchor and drag him up with 
 block-and-tackle, as if he had been a walrus. 
 This was an enormous old male bear, and 
 measured upwards of eight feet in length, 
 almost as much in circumference, and 4^ feet 
 high at the shoulder; his forepaws were 34 
 inches in circumference, and had very long, 
 sharp, and powerful nails ; his hair was beauti 
 fully thick, long, and white, and hung several 
 inches over his feet. He was in very high 
 condition and produced nearly 400 Ibs. of fat ; 
 his skin weighed upwards of 100 Ibs., and the 
 entire carcass of the animal cannot have been 
 less than 1200 Ibs. 
 
122 TJRSUS MAHITIMTJS. 
 
 When lie was skinned, his neck and shoulders 
 were like those of a bull, and his whole appear 
 ance indicated prodigious strength. The people 
 tell me that an old bear like this will kill the 
 biggest bull- walrus, although nearly three times 
 his own weight, by suddenly springing on him 
 from behind some projecting ice, seizing him 
 by the back of the neck with his teeth and 
 battering in his skull with repeated blows of 
 his enormous fore-paw ; and after seeing the 
 size and muscular development of this in 
 dividual, I can quite easily believe it. 
 
 One can form no idea of the enormous size 
 and strength of the polar bear by seeing the 
 feeble representatives of his species in the 
 Zoological Gardens, as the specimens there 
 must have been caught at a very early age, and 
 captivity, as well as the unsuitable warmth of 
 the climate, prevent them from attaining to 
 half their proper size, 
 
 I believe Ursus maritimus in a state of 
 nature to be the largest and strongest carni 
 vorous animal in the world, but like all other 
 wild animals (with the exception of rare occa 
 sional cases) he will never face a man if he can 
 help it; and I believe the stories of their 
 extraordinary courage and ferocity, which one 
 
INGENIOUS IMPLEMENT. 123 
 
 reads in the accounts of the early navigators of 
 the polar seas, to be the grossest exaggerations, 
 if not purely imaginary. Even at the present 
 day, many ridiculous fables respecting them 
 are current; for instance, before I went to 
 Spitzbergen, I recollect an Englishman, who 
 had passed many summers in Norway and 
 could speak the language thoroughly, telling 
 me gravely the following story. He heard 
 from the people who went to Spitzbergen that 
 the white bear was a most dangerous and 
 ferocious animal, and always charged right at 
 a man whenever he saw him. " Other wild 
 animals," said my informant, "might charge 
 occasionally, but the white bear invariably did 
 so, and the plan universally adopted for killing 
 him was based upon this well-known habit of 
 the animal, and consisted in having a spear 
 made with a cross-piece about two feet from 
 the point, and when the bear, according to his 
 usual practice, charged, the operator presented 
 this ingenious implement towards him; the 
 bear then seized it by the cross, and in his 
 efforts to drag it away from the man he pulled 
 the blade right into his own body, and so killed 
 himself ! ! ! " Upon my venturing to express 
 some slight doubts as to whether bears really 
 
STORY OF A BEAR. 
 
 were so infatuated as to make a regular practice 
 of so obligingly committing suicide after the 
 manner of the ancient Romans, my friend re 
 plied rather indignantly, " Oh ! there is no 
 doubt about it, for I have seen lots of the 
 weapons they use myself! ! ! " Of course I 
 could not civilly express any further doubt of 
 the entire veracity of the story; but I must 
 confess that my subsequent experience in Spitz- 
 bergen has no way tended to confirm my belief 
 in this very remarkable statement. 
 
 Scoresby relates an amusing case of a bear 
 climbing into a boat and sitting coolly inside of 
 it, while the crew whom he had ejected hung 
 on outside until another boat s crew came up 
 and despatched him as he sat inoffensively 
 in the stern. This story I have no doubt is 
 true enough, but upon the whole I must say 
 that I think the polar bear affords less sport, 
 and may be killed with less danger, than 
 almost any large wild animal with which I am 
 acquainted. He is generally found either in the 
 water, or amongst loose ice, and as he cannot 
 swim nearly so fast as a boat can be rowed, he 
 is completely at your mercy, and you have only 
 to select your own distance and shoot him 
 through the head. Even if attacked on land, 
 
HIS FEROCITY EXAGGERATED. 125 
 
 I conceive that a cool fellow with a gun runs 
 very little risk, because, although the bear s 
 speed far exceeds that of a man, still he is so 
 heavy in his motions that he ought to be killed 
 or disabled by the first shot at close quarters. 
 They are sometimes killed with the lance in 
 the water, but it is as well to make use of fire 
 arms, if they are at hand, as I have heard of 
 accidents happening while attacking bears with 
 the spear. 
 
 I have read many accounts of the same 
 nature as the above absurdity relating to the 
 awful courage, ferocity, and invulnerability of 
 the grizzly bear of the Rocky Mountains, but 
 without having seen the latter animal at all, 
 I feel perfectly certain that he is not a bit 
 more courageous, ferocious, or invulnerable, 
 than the polar bear, or than most other large 
 carnivorous wild animals; and not nearly so 
 much so as either the black rhinoceros or the 
 African buffalo. 
 
 It was late before I returned to the sloop, 
 which had sailed several miles up the fiord to 
 meet us. Lord David had also just come on 
 board, and after talking over the day s adven 
 tures as usual, we turned in for the night. 
 
 . "We had only been in bed two hours, 
 
126 SHE-BEAU AND CUBS. 
 
 when the watch on deck aroused us, and said 
 they had seen three bears going along the 
 western shore of the fiord. Tired and sleepy as 
 we were, this report brought us all on deck 
 immediately ; the bears by this time, however, 
 had got out of sight to the north, or towards 
 where I had killed the bear yesterday. The 
 watch said they appeared through the glass to 
 be an old bear with two young ones, and from 
 the direction in which they were proceeding, I 
 imagined they had " winded " my carrion of 
 yesterday, and were scenting their way up to 
 it like the unlucky individual of their race who 
 had fallen a victim to his fondness for seal- 
 meat a few hours before. 
 
 A bitterly cold north wind was now blowing, 
 and a very strong tide was running down the 
 fiord, which, by carrying the sloop before it, 
 was the reason of our losing sight of the bears 
 so soon; as we felt sure, however, that they 
 would follow the shore, we had no doubt of 
 falling in with them speedily, and we accord 
 ingly manned a boat (only one, on account 
 of the men being fatigued) and pushed off 
 in pursuit. 
 
 During the three or four hours since I had 
 left the edge of the "fast" ice, it had all 
 
BREAK-UP OP THE FAST-ICE. 127 
 
 become loose, and was floating down the fiord 
 with the tide nearly entire at least sixteen or 
 twenty square miles of ice in one almost un 
 broken sheet ; but as the fiord increased in 
 width towards its outer end, there was plenty 
 of room for the boat to pass up between the 
 shore and the sheet of ice. The tide was 
 running down this passage very hard indeed. 
 A narrow strip of " fast " ice still remained 
 attached to the shore all along where the 
 shallowness of the water had prevented it from 
 floating. "We had a row of several miles along 
 the shore before we overtook the bears, and at 
 last discovered them seated on this strip of 
 land-ice. Lord David, then agreed to get out, 
 and by running try to cut them off from the 
 hills, while I should continue in the boat and 
 row as fast as possible up the edge of this ice 
 in case they should take to the sea. We got 
 to within about 500 yards of the bears before 
 they perceived us. The old one stood up on 
 her hind legs like a dancing bear, to have a 
 good look at the boat, and a moment s in 
 spection seemed to convince her that it was 
 time to be off. She set off at the top of her 
 speed with the two cubs at her heels along the 
 smooth surface of the ice. Lord David, although 
 
128 MATERNAL AFFECTION. 
 
 an excellent runner, could not keep up with 
 them, so he got into the boat again, and we 
 rowed with might and main to keep in sight of 
 the bears, but they got far ahead of us, and 
 the weather being rather thick they had got 
 nearly out of sight, and we began to think they 
 would beat us, when luckily they got to the 
 end of the strip of smooth "fast" ice, and 
 before them lay a great expanse of soft mud 
 intersected with numerous little channels of 
 water and with much rough ice left by the tide 
 aground amongst it. This seemed to embarrass 
 them very much, as the cubs could not jump 
 over the channels, and the old bear appeared to 
 be getting very anxious and uneasy ; but she 
 showed great patience and forbearance with 
 her cubs, always waiting after she had jumped 
 over a channel until they swam across, and 
 affectionately assisting them to clamber up the 
 steep sides of the icy places ; nevertheless, the 
 mixture of sticky mud with rough ice and 
 half-frozen water soon reduced the unhappy 
 "jungers" to a pitiable state of distress, and 
 we heard them growling plaintively as if they 
 were upbraiding their mother for dragging 
 them through such a disagreeable place. 
 
 We had got the boat into a long, narrow 
 
.Ni Mm 
 
CAPTURE TWO LIVE BEARS. 129 
 
 channel amongst the niud, which contained 
 water enough to float her, and we were now 
 rapidly gaining on the bears, when all on a 
 sudden the boat ran hard aground, and not an 
 inch further would she go. This seemed as if it 
 would turn the fate of the day in favour of the 
 bears, as we did not think it possible to over 
 take them on foot amongst the mud ; but there 
 still remained the chances of a long shot, as the 
 boat had grounded within about two hundred 
 yards from the bears. Lord David fired and 
 struck the old bear in the back, completely 
 paralysing her ; we then scrambled through the 
 icy mud up to where she lay, and despatched her. 
 The cubs, quite black with mud, and shivering 
 with cold, lay upon the body of their mother 
 growling viciously, and would not allow us 
 to touch them, until the men, bringing a couple 
 of the walrus-lines from the boat, threw nooses 
 over their heads and secured them tightly, 
 coupling them together like a brace of dogs. 
 They were about the size of colley-dogs, and no 
 sooner did they feel themselves fast, than, quite 
 regardless of our presence, they began a furious 
 combat with one another, and rolled about 
 amongst the mud, biting, struggling, and 
 roaring, until they were quite exhausted. 
 
130 FILIAL INGRATITUDE. 
 
 I before mentioned a strong instance of 
 maternal affection on the part of a walrus, and 
 this old bear had also sacrificed her life to her 
 cubs, as she could have escaped without dif 
 ficulty if she had not so magnanimously re 
 mained with them ; but I am sorry now to have 
 to record the most horrible case of filial ingra 
 titude that ever came under my observation. 
 When we proceeded to open the old bear for 
 the purpose of skinning her, the two young 
 demons of cubs having now, by a good 
 mutual worrying, settled their differences with 
 one another began to devour their unfor 
 tunate and too-devoted parent, and actually 
 made a hearty meal off her smoking entrails ! 
 
 When we finished skinning her, the cubs sat 
 down upon the skin and resolutely refused to 
 leave it, so we dragged the skin with the cubs 
 sitting on it like a sledge to the boat, and after 
 another tussle with them, in the course of which 
 they severely bit and scratched some of the 
 men, we got them tied down under the thwarts 
 of the boat and conveyed them on board the 
 sloop. On deck there lay the skin of the bear 
 I had shot the day before, and the two cubs on 
 being hoisted up seemed at once to recognise in 
 it the jacket of an acquaintance perhaps their 
 
SECURE THE PRISONERS. 131 
 
 papa s and settling themselves quietly down 
 upon it, they went to sleep immediately. In 
 the course of the day we got a sort of crib made 
 for them on deck out of some spare spars and 
 pieces of drift-wood, and while they were being 
 thrust into it, they resisted so furiously that 
 one could almost imagine they knew they were 
 bidding adieu for ever to the fresh breezes and 
 the icy waters of Spitzbergen. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE ICE DISPERSES. 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 
 The Ice disperses. Lose a Bear and Cub. Pot 600 Ibs. 
 of Bears -grease. Skins. Slow going. Seals at 
 tracted by "Whistling. Glaciers on the Coast. Noises 
 from them. Submarine Bank. Shooting "Walruses. 
 "Walruses fighting. "Walrus Tusks. Awkward Cus 
 tomer. Ivory. Story of Mermaids. Osteological 
 Peculiarity. Cook loses his "Watch. Shoot a Bear. 
 Cold Bath. 
 
 WHILE this bear cfiasse was going on, the sloop 
 had been carried several miles down the bay, 
 before the immense sheet of ice which I men 
 tioned as having become detached from the 
 land. As soon as this ice got fairly afloat it 
 began to star and open in all directions, and 
 it gradually broke into smaller and smaller 
 pieces and dispersed; so that by 12 o clock 
 there was not one piece as large as an acre 
 remaining visible. It is almost inconceivable 
 how rapidly a mass of loose ice appears or 
 disappears in these seas, 
 
 We attempted to follow the main body of the 
 ice in the sloop as long as any quantity of the 
 
LOSE A BEAR AND CUB. 133 
 
 pieces kept together, in the expectation that 
 the number of seals frequenting it while it was 
 fixed would not forsake it. During the day 
 Kennedy shot a fine bull- walrus and two large 
 seals upon some of the fragments. I lost 
 nearly the whole day following another bear 
 with one cub, which we marked into the cluster 
 of rocky islands on the east side of the bay, 
 but without success. Although I placed a 
 man armed with a lance as a marker on the 
 fast-ice adhering to the north side of the islands, 
 and caused the boat to row along the open 
 side, while I beat the islands, like a pointer, 
 myself, still we could not discover them, and 
 I got on board the sloop near Black Point at 
 midnight, rather knocked up, and disgusted at 
 my want of success ; for, as we had hitherto 
 bagged every bear we had seen, we had begun 
 to look upon seeing one as pretty nearly tanta 
 mount to killing him. I only brought in one 
 seal ; but might have shot four or five, which 
 I did not fire at for fear of disturbing the 
 bears. 
 
 Sunday, the 24^, was a fine day, but dead 
 calm, and we are still drifting about close to 
 Black Point. Some ice appears to be coming 
 down from the north-east at last, so that 
 
 K 3 
 
134 POT 600 LBS. OP BEARS -GREASE. 
 
 we may hope to fall in with walruses to 
 morrow. 
 
 25^. South-east wind and thick fog in the 
 morning. "We saw four old bull-walruses on 
 the ice, but the sloop had run so close to them 
 in the mist that it disturbed them, and they 
 did not wait for a boat to be lowered. 
 
 Taking advantage of the fog all hands are 
 busy flensing and packing blubber. This is a 
 horribly wet, dirty, cold, and greasy operation, 
 and is generally held on the part of the crew 
 as constituting a claim to a bottle of rum. 
 There is only one teetotaller amongst them, and 
 I think he is about the hardest fellow of the 
 lot Abraham, the steersman of my boat. 
 
 The old she-bear is very lean and poor ; but 
 the three last killed, including her, yield alto 
 gether about 600 Ibs. of fat. Corpo di Bacco ! 
 what a thousand pities it is not worth 3s. 6d. 
 a-pot, as in the Burlington Arcade ! 
 
 It is impossible to dry skins here, so the bear 
 skins are thickly sprinkled inside with salt and 
 wood ashes, and then rolled up into bundles 
 and tightly corded. The seal and walrus hides 
 are stowed loosely on the top of the casks in 
 the hold. 
 
 We attempted to get through the passage 
 
SEALS ATTRACTED BY WHISTLING. 135 
 
 between Halmanne (Half-moon) Island and 
 the mainland, but finding the passage jammed 
 with ice, we were obliged to lose half the day 
 going round outside the island. 
 
 26th. Going on a wind under favourable 
 circumstances, the " Anna Louise" seems to 
 gain about half a mile an hour, or twelve miles 
 a day ; with an adverse current, or if there is 
 too much or too little wind, she gains nothing, 
 or perhaps goes a little to leeward. The way 
 in which the beastly tub makes leeway is per 
 fectly incredible. 
 
 When I went on deck before breakfast, 
 there were four very large seals swimming 
 about, not far from the sloop. Lowered a 
 boat and went after them; shot two of them 
 dead, but lost them both by sinking. When 
 a seal is under water near the boat, it is cus 
 tomary to whistle, or make a noise by rapping 
 gently on the gunwale of the boat with a 
 tholepin, or any oth er smallbit of stick, for 
 the purpose of attracting him to come to the 
 surface. I was sceptical about this at first, 
 but was at last compelled to admit that "there 
 was something it ; " of course it is not always 
 successful, but the practice is so universally 
 followed by the seal-hunters, and so thoroughly 
 
136 ENOEMOUS GLACIER. 
 
 believed by them to attract the seals, that even 
 if I had never seen it succeed myself, I should 
 not consider myself at liberty to doubt it. 
 
 We are still only a few miles north of Black 
 Point, and opposite a glacier extending into 
 the sea. Like all the other coast glaciers, 
 with few exceptions, it is only an arm or 
 branch of that vast body of solid ice which 
 occupies all the interior of the country, and 
 which, like an enormous centipede, extends its 
 hundred legs down nearly every valley to the 
 sea on both sides of the islands. 
 
 There are threa glaciers on this part of 
 the coast between Black Point and Ryk-Yse 
 Islands. The two southmost ones are not 
 of any great size or in any way remarkable ; 
 they each have a sea-front of about three 
 miles, and protrude into the water for one and 
 a half or two miles in regular semicircular 
 arcs. 
 
 The third or northmost of these three 
 glaciers is one of the largest and most remark 
 able in Spitzbergen, or perhaps in all the world. 
 It has a seaward face of thirty or thirty-two 
 English miles, and protrudes in three great 
 sweeping arcs, for at least five miles beyond 
 
STONES AND MUD ON ICEBERGS. 137 
 
 the coast line. It has a precipitous and in 
 accessible cliff of ice all along its face, varying 
 from twenty to one hundred feet in height; 
 pieces from the size of a church downwards 
 are constantly becoming detached from this 
 icy precipice, and tumble into the sea with a 
 terrific roar and splash, and of course render it 
 highly dangerous to go near the base in a 
 boat. The surrounding sea is always filled 
 with these fragments of all sizes and shapes, 
 and many of them I have observed carrying 
 large quantities of clay and stones embedded 
 in them. 
 
 This great glacier is in three divisions ; the 
 northern and southern divisions are each quite 
 smooth and glassy ; but the piece in the centre 
 is broken up, and rough, and jagged to a 
 degree that is perfectly indescribable ; at a 
 little distance it exactly resembles a great 
 forest of pine trees thickly covered with 
 snow. 
 
 This part of the glacier must have under 
 gone some great disturbance, arising either 
 from its sliding over a rocky bed, or from its 
 being forced through a narrow ravine in the 
 underlying hills. "Whatever the disturbing 
 
 * K 5 
 
138 NOISES FHOH GLACIERS. 
 
 cause may be, it is actively at work still, 
 because we frequently saw enormous slices of 
 the smooth division split up and cave in 
 towards the disrupted part ; and there is a 
 constant succession of tremendous booming 
 reports, exactly resembling loud and prolonged 
 thunder, proceeding from these cracks and from 
 the whole of the rough part of the glacier in 
 general. 
 
 I have questioned men who have frequented 
 the Spitzbergen seas for as many as twenty 
 summers, and they all say that this glacier 
 has always presented the same appearance 
 since they first saw it. 
 
 Of course this glacier has no visible ter 
 minal moraine above water, but it may pos 
 sibly have some connection with an extensive 
 submarine bank, which lies opposite the whole 
 length of the front of the glacier, and ex 
 tends for fifteen or twenty miles to sea. The 
 soundings on this bank may average fifteen 
 fathoms, with a bottom of bluish clay ; it is a 
 very favourite resort of the seal and the walrus, 
 particularly the latter; for which I am led 
 to suppose that the bank produces, in un 
 usual numbers, the molluscs on which they 
 feed. 
 
WALKUSES. 139 
 
 About eight in the evening we came up 
 within two or three miles of a small schooner, 
 and observing one of her boats to be "fast " 
 to a walrus and her signal flag flying to 
 indicate to their shipmates that more boats 
 were wanted, we took the hint (although 
 far from being intended for our benefit), 
 and pushed off. immediately in both boats. 
 "When we reached the opposition boat we 
 found them still in tow of their walrus, and 
 many scores of others plunging in the water 
 around. They had kept hold of their victim 
 so long in the hope that he would attract some 
 of his friends to come within reach of their 
 harpoons also, but as none of them appeared 
 to care about sharing his fate, they killed him 
 just as we came up. 
 
 "We had hitherto lost so many walruses by 
 abstaining from firing and always trying to 
 harpoon them, that of late we had adopted the 
 plan of firing whenever we got a fair chance, 
 and we found that by using double charges of 
 powder and by hardening the lead for the 
 bullets by an admixture of zinc, that we could 
 penetrate the hard crania of the walruses easily 
 enough when struck in the right place. It 
 was a beautiful sunny night, and we had a 
 
140 KILL EIGHT. 
 
 most agreeable and exciting cliasse : the water 
 swarmed with walruses, and in about three 
 hours we had secured eight, besides two which 
 sank. All of these were either shot dead or 
 so stupefied with shots on the head that they 
 allowed the harpooners to strike them. One 
 I killed by firing up his nostrils as he faced the 
 boat, at about eight yards distance. 
 
 This herd were mostly cows and indifferent 
 young bulls ; but amongst them I noticed one 
 enormous old grey bull, who looked as thick 
 as a sugar hogshead, and was by far the largest 
 walrus I had yet seen ; this monster came up 
 snorting several times within nine or ten yards 
 while we were fast to two others, but he was 
 too wary to allow himself to be harpooned, and 
 if I had shot him at that time, he would 
 certainly have sunk before we could have got 
 hold of him. These old bulls are always very 
 light coloured, from being nearly devoid of 
 hair ; their skins are rough and rugose, like 
 that of a rhinoceros, and they are generally 
 quite covered with scars and wounds, inflicted 
 by harpoons, lances, and bullets, which they 
 have escaped from, as well as by the tusks of 
 one another in fights amongst themselves. I 
 have frequently observed them fighting with 
 
WALRUSES FIGHTING. 141 
 
 great ferocity on the ice. They use their tusks 
 against one another very much in the manner 
 that gamecocks use their beaks. Prom the 
 animal s unwieldy appearance and the position 
 of his tusks, one is apt to fancy that the latter 
 can only be used in a stroke downwards, but, 
 on the contrary, they can turn their necks with 
 great facility and quickness, and can strike 
 either upwards, downwards, or sideways, with 
 equal dexterity. I have little doubt but that 
 in the amatory season these conflicts are often 
 fatal. 
 
 Old bulls very frequently have one or both 
 of their tusks broken, which may arise either 
 from fighting or from using them to assist in 
 clambering up the ice and rocks. These broken 
 tusks soon get worn and sharpened to a point 
 again by the action of the sand, as the walrus 
 uses his tusks like the elephant and the boar 
 for ploughing his food out of the ground, with 
 this difference, that the operations of the sea- 
 elephant, as he ought to be called, instead of 
 sea-horse, are carried on at the bottom of the 
 sea. 
 
 I have frequently opened the stomachs of 
 walruses and found their food to consist of 
 quantities of sandworms, starfish, shrimps, and 
 
142 FOOD OF THE WALBTJS. 
 
 the shells Tridacnse and Cardia, vulgarly called 
 clains and cockles : I believe they also eat 
 submarine alga3 or seaweeds, and Scoresby 
 mentions having found the remains of young 
 seals in their stomachs ; but I imagine the 
 latter case to be an unusual one, as the seal is 
 a much more active animal in the water than 
 the walrus, and I have never met with any one 
 else who had observed it. 
 
 The tusks of the walrus are not an extra 
 pair of teeth, but simply an enlargement and 
 modification of the eyeteeth, produced, as I 
 believe, by the necessity the animal has for 
 long tusks, in order to obtain his food in the 
 way he does. 
 
 They are very firmly and strongly embedded 
 for about six or seven inches of their length in 
 a mass of very hard and solid bone, forming 
 the front of the animal s head; this bony pro 
 tuberance is the size of a man s skull, and 
 through it runs the passage by which the 
 walrus breathes, the blow holes lying between 
 the roots of the tusks. The part of the tusks 
 which is embedded in the head is hollow, but 
 is mostly filled up with a cellular bony sub 
 stance containing much oil; the remainder 
 of the tusk is hard and solid throughout. 
 
WALRUS TUSKS. 143 
 
 The calf has no tusks the first year, but the 
 second year, when he has attained to about 
 the size of a large seal, he has a pair about as 
 large as the canine teeth of a lion ; the third 
 year they are about six inches long. 
 
 Tusks vary very much in size and shape, 
 according to the age and sex of the animal. 
 A good pair of bull s tusks may be stated as 
 twenty-four inches long, and four pounds apiece 
 in weight ; but we obtained several pairs 
 above these dimensions, and in particular one 
 pair, which measured thirty- one inches in 
 length when taken out of the head, and weigh 
 eight pounds each. Such a pair of tusks, how 
 ever, is extremely rare, and I never, to the 
 best of my belief, saw a pair nearly equal 
 to them amongst more than one thousand 
 walruses, although we took the utmost pains 
 to secure the best, and always inspected the 
 tusks carefully with the glass, before we fired 
 a shot or threw a harpoon. 
 
 Cows tusks will average fully as long as 
 bulls , from their being less liable to be 
 broken, but they are seldom more than twenty 
 inches long, and three pounds each in weight. 
 They are generally set much closer together 
 than the bull s tusks, sometimes even over- 
 
144 FEROCITY OF WALRUS. 
 
 lapping one another at the points, as is the 
 case with the stuffed specimen in the British 
 Museum. The tusks of old bulls, on the con 
 trary, generally diverge from, one another, 
 being sometimes as much as fifteen inches 
 apart at the points. It is a common belief 
 amongst the hunters, that those walruses 
 which have wide-set tusks are the most savage 
 and dangerous, and more particularly if the 
 tusks diverge from one another in curves, as 
 is sometimes, though rarely, the case. I can 
 easily conceive that this opinion is well- 
 founded, because it is evident that a walrus 
 with his tusks diverging at the points must 
 be much handier in the use of them than if they 
 stick straight down, or curve inwards or to 
 wards his breast. I remember once going on 
 board another small sloop, and seeing the skull 
 of an old walrus with remarkably wide- 
 set tusks lying on deck; my harpooner re 
 marked to the captain of the sloop, " That 
 must have been a troublesome customer." " I 
 believe you," said the skyppar ; " he put. his 
 tusks through the boat, and nearly upset us. 
 Look here," he continued, pointing to the 
 bottom of a boat hanging on the davits, " and 
 see what the scoundrel did." A piece had 
 
USES OF THE IVORY. 145 
 
 been torn out of one of the planks, and the 
 hole was patched with sheet-lead. 
 
 Walrus-tusks are composed of very hard, 
 dense, and white ivory. Their small size ren 
 dering them inapplicable for many ivory manu 
 factures, they do not command nearly the 
 price of elephant ivory, but they are in high 
 repute for the manufacture of false teeth, 
 and are also made into chessmen, umbrella- 
 handles, whistles, and other small articles. 
 
 The upper lip of the walrus is thickly set 
 with strong, transparent, bristly hairs, about 
 six inches long, and as thick as a crow-quill ; 
 and this terrific moustache, together with his 
 long white tusks, and fierce-looking, blood 
 shot eyes, gives Rosmarus tricJiecus altoge 
 ther a most unearthly and demoniacal appear 
 ance as he rears his head above the waves. 
 I think it not unlikely that the old fable of the 
 mermaid may have been originated by their 
 grim resemblance to the head of a human 
 being when in this position. 
 
 There is one very striking peculiarity con 
 nected with the osteological structure of the 
 walrus, which I do not recollect to have ob 
 served a mention of in any of the printed 
 accounts of the animal. I dare not amplify 
 
 L 
 
146 OSTEOLOGY OF WALHTJS. 
 
 this allusion, but I fancied that I should be 
 the first to direct the attention of scientific men 
 to the circumstance. On mentioning it, how 
 ever, to my friend Professor M , I found 
 
 that he was quite aware of the peculiarity in 
 question, and that it is well known to the 
 students of comparative anatomy. 
 
 27^. The cook went out this morning to 
 officiate as harpooner pro tempore, and while 
 darting the harpoon at a seal which Lord 
 David had wounded, he threw his watch into 
 the sea along with the weapon. The " Doctor " 
 was so thunderstruck by this overwhelming 
 misfortune, that he stood on the ice gazing 
 into the depths of the sea, as if he expected 
 the watch to float up again. The seal came 
 up again (although the watch did not), and 
 the cook so far recovered his presence of mind 
 as to spit him this time, and then, to the great 
 amusement of Lord David and the crew, he 
 began to bewail the loss of his watch, which 
 had been " such a good one, and had cost him 
 no less than six dollars ; " nor was he to be 
 comforted, until Kennedy consoled him by the 
 promise of another of equal value. 
 
 There is plenty of fine ice in sight to-day, 
 but we have unknowingly drifted too far from 
 
GET NEAR HOPE ISLAND. 147 
 
 the coast, where the water is too deep for 
 walruses ; as these animals cannot descend in 
 more than about twenty-five fathoms, and they 
 prefer fifteen or even ten fathoms. We dis 
 covered our mistake by getting a glimpse of 
 the mountains of Hope Island, and imme 
 diately stood in to the westward towards the 
 shore of Spitzbergen, now distant about twenty- 
 five miles. 
 
 In the afternoon we put off in both boats to 
 hunt amongst the ice. I had shot two seals, be 
 sides another which, although shot dead, rolled 
 off the ice in his dying convulsions and sank, 
 when suddenly we descried a bear standing on 
 an iceberg at some distance oif, and the ice being 
 tolerably open, it soon became obvious that his 
 minutes were numbered, and that we were sure 
 of him. He stood on the iceberg coolly look 
 ing at us for some time, and at last he slid deli 
 berately backwards into the water, and began 
 swimming away from us as fast as he could. 
 The boat speedily overhauled him, and when 
 we got about fifty yards from him, he turned 
 round and swam straight at the boat. I called 
 to the men to lay on their oars, and I waited 
 until the bear, roaring and showing his teeth, 
 swam up to about ten yards from the boat, 
 
 L 2 
 
148 SHOOT A BEAR. 
 
 when I shot him through the front of the head 
 and killed him. 
 
 This was a large male bear, and I was a 
 little surprised at finding him so far from land, 
 although I have read and heard of their being 
 found at much greater distances. Indeed there 
 are instances on record of bears swimming 
 across and landing on the shores of Einmarken, 
 although I have always imagined that those 
 individuals must have got out of their reckon 
 ing, or been drifted across in storms. 
 
 I had intended to try to kill this bear with 
 the lance, but he looked so fierce and so 
 formidable as he came at the boat, that I 
 thought letter of it, and stuck to my trusty 
 rifle, instead of trying any experiments of that 
 sort. 
 
 While flensing the bear, one of my boat s 
 crew was standing incautiously on the brink 
 of the iceberg on which we all were, when 
 suddenly several feet of it gave way under 
 neath him, and he went over head and ears 
 into the water, to the great merriment of his 
 fellows, but very much to his own discom 
 fiture, and I should think discomfort, foras 
 much as the temperature was just about freez 
 ing point, and we did not reach the vessel for 
 
COLD BATH. 149 
 
 several hours afterwards. This is an accident 
 of very frequent occurrence to a novice ; an old 
 hand always takes the precaution of smash 
 ing down the hollow or undermined edges of 
 the ice with a haak-pick, or the butt of a 
 lance before he ventures to stand upon it. 
 
150 A RACE FOR A WALRUS. 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 Boat-race. Visit. Ingenious Harpoon. Hippopotamus. 
 Phoca Yitulina, or Little Seal. Phoca Hispida, or Jan 
 Mayen Seal. Dreadful Smell of Cargo. Ferocity of 
 young Bear. Drift-ice. Stones and Clay on Icebergs. 
 "Warm Day. Beautiful Caverns in the Ice. Upset 
 of an Iceberg. Young Ice. Noises from Glacier. 
 Crimping a "Walrus. Ivory Gulls. See a Bear. 
 Curious Delusion. Gulf-stream and Arctic Current. 
 Danger of getting embayed. Narrow Escape. 
 
 28th. FOG in the morning confined us to the 
 sloop during the early part of the day. 
 
 When it cleared, a schooner was in sight 
 not far off, and a herd of walruses on the ice, 
 about equidistant from the two vessels. We 
 lowered a boat with all despatch ; but the 
 schooner s people, seeing us do so, lowered 
 away also, and we had a rather exciting race 
 up to the walruses. The rival boat, being 
 rather lighter than ours, got a length or two 
 ahead of us, and we lay on our oars, so 
 as not to spoil the chance for them ; but the 
 walruses took the alarm, and neither of us 
 got any. 
 
MORNING CALL. 151 
 
 The skyppar of the schooner came on board 
 in the afternoon to try to beg, borrow, or buy 
 a rifle from us, as he had been so unlucky as 
 to break or lose all the four belonging to 
 his vessel. We expressed our regret at being 
 unable to oblige him, but as he seemed a very 
 decent fellow, and spoke tolerable English, we 
 invited him below, "liquored him up, 5 and 
 then proceeded to extract all the information 
 and news we could from him. He was very 
 communicative, and gave us, first, the story 
 (to which I have before alluded) of the poor 
 man being killed by the walrus. 
 
 Secondly. Three vessels for Hammerfest, and 
 one for Tromsoe, had gone home full, one of 
 them conveying the frost-bitten skyppar and 
 his five companions. All four vessels intended 
 returning immediately, to try to get another 
 cargo if possible, as August, which is usually 
 the best hunting month of the whole summer, 
 is still before us. 
 
 Thirdly. All the ice and all the vessels had 
 left Stour-Piord ; four were hereabouts, and 
 four more to the north and east of Ryk-Yse 
 Islands. 
 
 Fourthly. His schooner was provided with 
 whale-lines and tackle, and he described to me a 
 
 L 4 
 
152 INGENIOUS HARPOON. 
 
 new harpoon which he had on board. I did not 
 see it, but from his description it seemed to be 
 a most ingenious implement, and was invented 
 and constructed by the blacksmith in Hammer- 
 fest. It seems the harpoon is intended to be 
 struck into the whale with the barbs only 
 very little exposed ; but the slightest pull or 
 strain upon the line explodes some fulminating 
 mercury in the weapon, and this throws out 
 two barbs much larger than can be readily 
 driven into the animal by hand ; and it is thus 
 expected that the chance of losing a fish by 
 the harpoon " drawing " would be very much 
 lessened. The skyppar seemed to have a good 
 deal of confidence in it, but he had not as yet 
 had any opportunity of testing it. 
 
 Fifthly. He had killed ten walruses last night, 
 and all by "j aging " them in the water, as they 
 have been so much persecuted lately on this 
 part of the coast that they will hardly sit 
 on the ice at all. He strongly condemns, in 
 theory, the practice of shooting at walruses, but 
 admits that he is at a great disadvantage from 
 the want of a gun, as everybody else is shoot 
 ing ; and he says that when one ship shoots, all 
 the others in the vicinity are partially compelled 
 to follow suit, but that many more walruses 
 
DISINTERESTED ADVICE. 153 
 
 would be killed on the whole if nobody were 
 to fire. 
 
 This may be all very true in theory, but 
 practically I find that everybody shoots when 
 ever they find that they cannot get within 
 harpooning distance, although they all strenu 
 ously exhort us not to do it, and seem very 
 jealous of our doing so, which I attribute to 
 the fact of our being much more successful with 
 the rifle than any of these regular professionals. 
 This is easily accounted for, as our rifles, 
 charged with five drachms of powder, and a bul 
 let hardened by an admixture of tin, generally 
 smash the walruses skulls to pieces ; whereas 
 the rifles these men use, being mostly light, 
 old-fashioned ones, on the polygrooved prin 
 ciple, charged with a spherical bullet of soft 
 lead, propelled by a small charge of indifferent 
 powder, do little or no harm to a walrus, un 
 less they hit him on the back of the head, 
 just as the occiput is exposed at the moment 
 the animal is commencing to dive. I have 
 found many of their bullets embedded in the 
 heads of walruses, and flattened out like bits 
 of putty, without having even reached the 
 bone. 
 
 A walrus swimming in the water is not 
 
154 PHOCA VITULINA. 
 
 unlike a hippopotamus * ; but lie dives in the 
 manner of a whale, turning up first his back, 
 in a sort of fat brown hemisphere, and then 
 giving a final flourish with his hind-flippers as 
 he disappears. 
 
 It is almost impossible to shoot a walrus 
 (with any gun), in any of those positions, ex 
 cept, as I have stated, at the moment when he is 
 beginning to dive, and exposes the back of his 
 head; but when they are alarmed or excited 
 by a boat, they sometimes rear their whole 
 heads and necks above water, and give a fair 
 opportunity for a quick shot. 
 
 The great Arctic seal dives in exactly the 
 same manner as the walrus, I mean by 
 making a semi-revolution, whale-fashion, as 
 he goes down; but, singularly enough, the 
 small seal of Spitzbergen (Phoca Vitulwa), 
 called by the hunters the " Stein-Cobbe," 
 from his habit of occasionally lying on the 
 
 * The Kaffirs in some parts of tropical South Africa have 
 a mode of hunting the hippopotamus with harpoons, very 
 much in the same way as the walrus -hunting is now con 
 ducted : and this practice in Africa is evidently of vast 
 antiquity, as on the walls of the tombs in the bowels of the 
 silent limestone hills of the Thebaid, I have seen drawings 
 descriptive of hunting the hippopotamus with harpoon and 
 line, as practised by the ancient Egyptians thousands of 
 years ago. 
 
PHOCA HISPIDA, 155 
 
 rocks*, dives by suddenly dropping himself 
 under water, his nose being the last part of 
 him which disappears, instead of his tail, as 
 with his great congeners Phoca barbata and 
 the walrus. 
 
 The small seal has a very fine spotted skin, 
 and is about sixty or seventy pounds in weight ; 
 he is much fatter, in proportion to his size, 
 than Phoca barbata^ and his carcase, in con 
 sequence, having less specific gravity in pro 
 portion to its bulk, he floats much longer after 
 he is killed in the water, so that they are sel 
 dom lost after being shot. I have frequently 
 shot these small seals from the deck of the 
 vessel while under easy sail, and have had 
 time to lower a boat from the davits, row back 
 to the seal, and lift him up by the flipper. 
 
 There is also a third variety of seal found 
 in the Spitzbergen seas (Phoca hispida .?), the 
 springer or Jan Mayen seal, as he is called by 
 the hunters. This is the seal which we read of 
 being killed in the spring months in such pro 
 digious numbers by the whalers amongst the 
 vast ice-fields around Jan May en s Island, far 
 to the west of Spitzbergen. 
 
 * The great Spitzbergen seal is never known to lie on 
 the rocks or land. 
 
156 OR JAN MAYEN SEAL. 
 
 These seals, although existing in such enor 
 mous numbers to the west, are not nearly 
 so numerous in Spitzbergen as the great, or 
 even as the much less abundant little seal. 
 They are gregarious, which neither of the other 
 varieties are, and generally go in bands of fifty 
 to five hundred together ; they are extremely 
 difficult to kill, as during the summer months 
 (at Spitzbergen at any rate) they never go upon 
 the ice ; they do not seem to be prompted by 
 the same laudable curiosity as the other seals, 
 and they go at such a rapid pace through the 
 water as to defy pursuit from a boat. "When 
 they come up to breathe, these seals do not, 
 like the others, take a deliberate breath and 
 look round about them, but the whole troop 
 merely take a sort of simultaneous flying leap 
 through the air like a shoal of porpoises as 
 they go along, and they reappear again at an 
 incredible distance from their last breathing- 
 place, whence the name of " springers " ap 
 plied to them by the sealers. 
 
 The Jan Mayen seal is 200 to 300 pounds 
 in weight, and is the fattest and most buoyant 
 of all the Arctic phoccs. 
 
 Lord David shot two of these seals on the 
 29th ; but we generally regard it as a bad omen 
 
HORRIBLE SMELL OF THE CARGO. 157 
 
 to see many of them, as whenever they are in 
 numbers the walrus and the large seal seem 
 to disappear. 
 
 One of our men says, that some years ago 
 the ship s company to which he at the time 
 belonged, killed 400 of these " springers " in 
 a single afternoon, by the simple process of 
 knocking them on the head with the "haak- 
 picks " as they lay on the ice near South Cape. 
 Crew cutting up blubber and scraping and 
 cleaning skulls of bears and walruses all the 
 afternoon. The latter process is a decidedly 
 unpopular occupation, which is not to be 
 wondered at, as it is very cold and tedious 
 work, and they are so averse to begin that 
 they generally leave the skulls until they are 
 in a state which certainly cannot add to the 
 pleasure of the operator. 
 
 Our cargo altogether is beginning to get 
 so exceedingly high, that the chloride of lime 
 is quite overpowered or extinguished by the 
 effluvium, and we are compelled to have re 
 course to the refinement of burning pastilles 
 in the cabin before we lay down to sleep. 
 Fancy pastilles in a sealing vessel ! 
 
 3Qth. Our young white bears have now 
 become brown, and are in a fair way to be- 
 
158 FEROCITY OF YOUNG BEAR. 
 
 come black with dirt, and tar, and grease, so 
 we took them out to-day, and tying the end of 
 a rope round their middles, we gave them each 
 a swim, or, to speak more correctly, a tow 
 behind the vessel, to clean them ; one of them, 
 the female, is quiet and peaceable enough, but 
 the other is the most ferocious and irreclaim 
 able young demon I ever saw in my life. He 
 was so savage and tyrannical towards his 
 sister, that we built a sort of partition in 
 their crib, and since that he has devoted his 
 entire energies, with hardly any intermission, 
 by day or by night, to roaring and growling, 
 while he bites and scratches at the rotten drift 
 wood composing the cage in an equally perse 
 vering manner ; we found to-day that he had 
 very nearly eaten his way out, so we patched up 
 the breaches with the pieces of a stove not at 
 present in use. Although they get as much 
 seal, and walrus-beef, and blubber as they like, 
 they do not eat very much of it, but drink 
 enormous quantities of water. They are visibly 
 getting larger and fatter. 
 
 31st, Sunday. It having been dead calm 
 during the night, we have made little or no 
 progress. Very little ice to the S. and W., 
 and too much to the N. and E., where it is 
 
WARM DAY. 159 
 
 also jammed too tightly together for boats 
 readily to penetrate amongst it. The vast ac 
 cumulation of drift-ice in the Spitsbergen seas 
 consists partly of flat tabular slabs of all sizes, 
 from, that of an acre downwards, which have 
 composed part of the winter s growth on the 
 shallow bays and gulfs of the coast, and partly 
 of rough irregular masses which have become 
 detached from the ice-cliffs of the glaciers. 
 Some of these latter pieces I have observed to 
 be carrying large stones, which, by the way, 
 I have frequently mistaken for seals, and very 
 many of them are charged with such quan 
 tities of dark-coloured mud or clay, that the 
 sea is in places sometimes discoloured for 
 many miles around by their washings. 
 
 This was one of the finest and warmest days 
 I ever knew in Spit zber gen, the thermometer 
 was 55 in the cabin, and in the sun it was 
 actually hot. The summer s warmth has had 
 a perceptible effect upon the ice, much of 
 which we observe to be undermined and honey 
 combed, or " rotten," as the sailors call it ; it 
 always seems to decay fastest " between wind 
 and water," so that enormous caverns get 
 excavated in the sides of the bergs. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the beauty of these 
 
160 UPSET OF AN ICEBERG. 
 
 crystal vaults, which sometimes appear of a 
 deep ultramarine blue, and at others of an 
 emerald green colour; they look as if they 
 were the fitting abodes of mermaids and 
 all sorts of sea-monsters, but practically no 
 animal ever goes into them ; the water dash 
 ing in and out through these icy caves and 
 tunnels makes a sonorous but rather mono 
 tonous and melancholy sound. In moderately 
 calm weather, many of these excavated bergs 
 assume the form of gigantic mushrooms, and 
 all sorts of other fantastic shapes ; but directly 
 a breeze of wind conies they break up into 
 little pieces with great rapidity. 
 
 Christian and myself very nearly got a 
 dangerous ducking yesterday from the sudden 
 break-up of a large iceberg on which we were 
 standing to look out with the telescopes ; a 
 large piece of it suddenly, and without the 
 least warning, became detached under water, 
 and the berg, in consequence, losing its equili 
 brium, began to rock so violently, that we had 
 some difficulty in scrambling down again to 
 the boat ; immediately after we had got off 
 it, the berg capsised altogether with a tre 
 mendous noise and splash, breaking up into 
 half a dozen pieces as it did so. 
 
CRIMPED WALRUS. 161 
 
 August 1st. Although still bright and 
 warm, I first observed young ice forming on 
 the surface to-day ; it was about the thickness 
 of brown paper, and there was much of it 
 along the front of the great glacier, and 
 wherever the sea was protected by icebergs 
 from the wind. 
 
 I rowed for several miles close along the 
 front of the glacier, and killed some seals. 
 
 During the whole day there was a continual 
 succession of loud booming reports from the 
 edges of the smooth glaciers falling in towards 
 the disrupted part ; these explosions seemed to 
 alarm the seals very much, and caused me to 
 lose several which I had marked. 
 
 The sea in-shore swarmed with shrimps, 
 medusa3, and the little black winged tadpoles 
 before mentioned. 
 
 The "flensing" of a seal or walrus is, in 
 one respect, a most horrible sight, for imme 
 diately the skin and blubber is stripped off, 
 the carcass begins to shrink and quiver so 
 violently, as even to seem as if it was strug 
 gling under the hands and knives of the ope 
 rators. This shocking appearance is owing 
 to the contraction of the muscles, caused 
 by the sudden cold; the "subject" is in 
 
 M 
 
162 THE IVORY GTJLL. 
 
 fact, undergoing the well-known process of 
 crimping. 
 
 Whenever a life is taken there is an imme 
 diate assemblage of those vultures of the 
 North, the beautiful ivory gulls (Larus ebur- 
 neus, niveus, glacialis), which seem to be 
 guided to their prey by the same wonderful 
 instinct as the vultures of Africa or the cor- 
 beaux of the West Indies. This is the most 
 beautiful of all the gull tribe, being of a dazzling 
 snowy whiteness, all except his feet and eyes, 
 which are black ; they are perfectly tame and 
 fearless, and flutter impatiently about, or sit 
 on the surrounding ice, and even on the boat, 
 making a harsh disagreeable scream until the 
 flensing is concluded, when they make an 
 immediate onslaught on the carcass ; but so 
 greedy and rapacious are they, that they 
 always commence by fighting and squabbling 
 amongst themselves, as if the huge carcass 
 of a seal or a walrus was not sufficient for 
 them. 
 
 Lord David saw a large bear to-day, but he 
 got the wind of the boat and escaped over the 
 fast ice to the north. There is a large quantity 
 of this fixed ice immediately to the north of the 
 great glacier, and I fancy it is the edge of the 
 
STRONG NORTH EASTERLY CURRENT. 163 
 
 interminable ice-field extending all the way to 
 the Pole. 
 
 Several square miles of this ice became 
 detached, and gradually broke up into frag 
 ments during the night ; and on proceeding to 
 hunt next morning, my boat got beset in such 
 quantities of it that we lost great part of the 
 day in extricating her. Upon such occasions we 
 often have to get out, and drag the boat over 
 large pieces of ice which " stop the way ; " and 
 as the boats are not only heavy in themselves, 
 but additionally so on account of the number 
 of indispensable articles we are obliged to 
 carry, this becomes very severe work when 
 these "portages" are of long or frequent oc 
 currence. 
 
 The greater part of this ice was out of sight 
 before night, owing to the strong current 
 which runs from the north-east on this part of 
 the coast ; this current has perceptibly increased 
 in strength since we came to Spitzbergen, and 
 may now be running at three miles an hour. 
 
 When sailing at some miles from the land it 
 is very difficult to realise the existence of such 
 a current, for vessel and boats and floating ice 
 all go along together, and it is only on ap 
 proaching any of the large grounded icebergs 
 
 M 2 
 
164 CURIOUS DELUSION. 
 
 that one becomes fully alive to it ; but then it 
 appears as if the boat and the small ice were 
 stationary, and the grounded berg sailing past 
 them with great velocity the reverse of course 
 being the case. 
 
 The gulf stream has little or no influence to 
 the north and east of Black Point and the 
 Thousand Islands, as the ice is always travelling 
 to the south-west (except, of course, in case of 
 southerly gales) ; but directly it is driven to 
 the south or west of that promontory, it comes 
 within the influence of the gulf stream, and is 
 rapidly dissolved that is, during June, July, 
 and August. After the end of August the 
 Arctic current entirely overcomes the remnant 
 of the gulf stream, which has been struggling 
 with it so far successfully as to modify its 
 blighting influence on the south and west shores 
 of Spitzbergen during the three preceding 
 months; and the polar ice, aided by the in 
 creasing cold, comes down in such quantities 
 as to defy the efforts of the now vanquished 
 gulf stream to dissolve it. It rapidly sweeps 
 round the coast, overlapping first Black Point 
 and the Thousand Islands, then Hvalfiske Point 
 and up Stour [Fiord, where it meets with 
 another stream of ice coming in by Thymen s 
 
WINTER ICE. 165 
 
 Straits ; lastly, enveloping South Cape, it ex 
 tends up the west coast until it meets, ahout 
 Prince Charles Foreland, another vast body of 
 ice, which has travelled round Hakluyt s Head 
 land; and Spitzbergen is enveloped for the 
 winter. 
 
 I believe that the sea itself, to the south and 
 west of Spitzbergen, would not freeze over far 
 to the outside of the shallow bays and gulfs, 
 were it not thus crowded and encumbered with 
 heavy drift-ice, continually swept down from 
 the colder regions to the north and east. 
 
 Once the arctic current fairly gains this 
 preponderance over the gulf stream, it is quite 
 inconceivable how rapidly the ice sweeps round 
 the coast and fills up all the bays before it. 
 I have been told that a very few days suffice 
 to surround the whole of Spitzbergen with an 
 impenetrable barrier ; and I can readily under 
 stand that such must be the case, for in the 
 end of August, we found so strong a current 
 setting round Black Point, that six men pulling 
 their hardest could not move the boat against 
 it ; and I am positive that I have seen the 
 current running amongst the Thousand Islands 
 at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour ! 
 
 Woe betide the luckless vessel which at this 
 
 M 3 
 
166 NEARLY HEMMED IN. 
 
 critical period happens to get becalmed far up 
 any of the long bays or fiords ; for when they 
 at length make their way to the entrance, they 
 may chance to find all hope of egress barred 
 for nine months to come, a period synonymous 
 with eternity to most of those unfortunates who 
 have thus been entrapped. 
 
 On my first visit to Spitsbergen, my yacht 
 had a very narrow escape from being shut into 
 a little bay, near Hvalfiske Point, into which 
 we had entered for the purpose of setting-up 
 the rigging for the voyage home. A sudden 
 calm came on, and the ice was advancing from 
 the east with such fearful rapidity that I began 
 to think we were in for an arctic winter. No 
 amount of whistling would induce a breeze to 
 spring up, so, after waiting to the last moment, 
 I ordered all hands into the boats, and with 
 some difficulty we succeeded in towing her out 
 of danger. I had been averse to adopt this 
 obvious expedient sooner, because we feared 
 that the strength of the current was such that 
 we should not be able to keep the yacht from 
 drifting against a long and formidable reef of 
 rocks, which lay below the current ; but by the 
 assistance of Providence we got clear of both 
 ice and rocks., and drifted into open water. 
 
DENSE AND SUDDEN FOG. 167 
 
 CHAP. XL 
 
 Dense and sudden Fog. Our Hours and Habits. - 
 Supplies run short. Meet the Yacht. Their bad 
 Success in Sport. Novel Bullet-mould Geological 
 Specimens. Part Company again. Medical Treatment 
 of sick Men. Water up. News. Old Acquaintance. 
 Gradual Extinction of the "Walrus. They are receding 
 further North. Nova Zembla. Illness of young Bear. 
 Attempt to escape. Aged Bull- Walrus. His pro 
 bable Eeminiscences. Coal and Fossils. Commander 
 Gillies Land. North-east Spitzbergen. Bear shot 
 from the Deck of the Sloop. 
 
 THE thickest fog which I ever saw even in the 
 Spitzbergen seas came suddenly down upon 
 us from the north-east while we were seven or 
 eight miles ahsent from the sloop on the 2nd. 
 I had killed one large seal, and was look 
 ing forward with pleasure to killing five or 
 six others which we had marked, when the 
 fog came down like a curtain upon us, and 
 the ice being very intricate, it was hopeless to 
 attempt looking for the seals, so we made the 
 best of our way to the sloop. "We had of course 
 carefully taken the bearings by compass, and 
 
 M 4 
 
168 RISK OP SUDDEN FOGS. 
 
 we rowed accordingly for two hours and a 
 quarter : I then thought we must have made 
 the distance, so I fired two shots into the air, 
 and was immediately answered hy the people 
 on board the sloop; we had hit her off to 
 within half a mile ! The instinct of these 
 people in finding their way in a fog almost 
 equals that of savages in traversing a pathless 
 forest ; but for all that the greatest risk which 
 these arctic hunters run, is that of being sur 
 prised by fog amongst the ice when at a dis 
 tance from their vessel. The most usual 
 expedient, when practicable, is to go ashore 
 and light a fire, and await with what patience 
 one can, the abatement of the fog. This in my 
 case was out of the question, as the inac 
 cessible ice-cliffs of the great glacier were the 
 only shore within fifteen miles of us, and 
 Ryk-Yse Island, which was the nearest land, 
 would have been as difficult to find as the 
 sloop itself. 
 
 When I got on board, Lord David s boat was 
 still out, so we fired repeated signals from our 
 little cannon, heavily charged, and with a wad 
 of walrus blubber to increase the report, but 
 they did not rejoin us until after midnight. 
 
 They had been close to Ryk-Yse Island 
 
OUR HOURS AND HABITS. 169 
 
 when the fog came on, and had taken refuge 
 there until it somewhat abated, and allowed 
 them to find their way back. 
 
 This fog did not seem to extend much above 
 the mast-head, as the bright sun and the blue 
 sky were distinctly visible above the dense 
 vapour which seemed to float on the water; 
 it was also quite warm during its continuance. 
 
 We have now got pretty well reconciled to 
 the state of dirt, grease, noise, and irregular 
 hours we live in ; always excepting the never- 
 to-be-forgotten stench from the hold. We 
 generally breakfast together at any hour, from 
 four to eight in the morning, according to the 
 weather and the distance we contemplate row 
 ing; dine separately whenever we come on 
 board ; and sleep whenever there is nothing 
 else to do : our hours of sleep vary from four 
 to fourteen per diem. We always sleep in our 
 clothes, so as to be ready at a moment* s no 
 tice if any game is reported in sight : we 
 found this very disagreeable at first, but 
 have now got quite accustomed and even at 
 tached to the practice so much so, indeed, as 
 to feel it rather an irksome duty to change 
 our under garments on Sundays. 
 
 A more serious difficulty is the entire demo- 
 
170 MEET THE " GINEVKA." 
 
 lition of the Consul s bull, the last of which 
 tough but otherwise praiseworthy little animal, 
 appeared in the form of a curry to-day. All 
 our other supplies are also running short, and 
 the bowels of all on board are yearning for fat 
 reindeer venison ; so I resolved to take advan 
 tage of a north-west wind which was blowing, to 
 pay a visit to the rendezvous at Hvalfiske Point. 
 The yacht was not due at the rendezvous 
 before the 6th, but by good luck we saw her 
 also making her way there as we were about 
 halfway between Black Point and Hvalfiske 
 Point. Upon signalling to her she bore up, 
 and came within hail about one A.M. on the 
 4th, when I immediately manned a boat and 
 went on board to take possession of as much 
 venison as might happen to be still uneaten. 
 I was however grievously disappointed at 
 finding that they had only shot eight reindeer 
 during the whole four weeks in which they 
 had had nothing else to do, although they 
 had been lying in Bell Sound, which is con 
 sidered the best place in all Spitzbergen for 
 geese and reindeer ! They had also carefully 
 eaten all the hind-quarters of the deer them 
 selves, and had left nothing but ten lean fore- 
 quarters for us ! Geese had they none, but 
 
THEIR BAD SUCCESS IN SPORT. 171 
 
 they had managed to kill some hundreds of 
 eider-ducks ; from the fact of there being no 
 drakes amongst them I concluded these had 
 been killed on their nests. It was a long 
 time before they had succeeded in killing a 
 deer at all, and said that, but for the eider- 
 fowl and their eggs, of which they had found 
 great numbers, they would have been obliged 
 to go over to Hammerfest for provisions. 
 They admitted that they had found the deer 
 "very difficult to hit" and as they could make 
 nothing of the breech-loading rifle, they had 
 been obliged to make bullets for the shot-gun 
 which I had also lent them, by cutting a piece 
 of wood round at the end, and then boring 
 holes in the sand, into which they poured the 
 lead, and then beat these plugs into a spherical 
 shape. The bullets manufactured by this 
 ingenious process must have considerably im 
 proved the bore of my gun by the attrition 
 of the sand attached to them. They stoutly 
 maintained having killed several seals, but 
 " they had all sunk." Seal not being very 
 good " grub," I doubted whether much time 
 had been devoted to the chasse of that animal. 
 I was very glad to find that my sailing- 
 master, Mr. Wood, had devoted great attention 
 
172 GEOLOGICAL SPECIMENS. 
 
 to making a collection of shells, fossils, gravels, 
 and other geological specimens ; a duty which 
 I had devolved upon him when we parted, 
 and for the due performance of which I had 
 given him. copious written as well as oral 
 instructions. 
 
 I appropriated the ten fore-quarters of veni 
 son my crew had heen kind enough to leave 
 us, likewise all the eider-ducks except twenty ; 
 and instructing Mr. Wood to go up Stour 
 Eiord as far as the valleys where we had found 
 reindeer the previous season, to kill as many 
 as they could, and then meet us at Hvalfiske 
 Point on or before the 21st, we parted company, 
 and we bore up once more for the walrus 
 districts to the north-east. 
 
 Two of the "hands" in the sloop, one of 
 whom is the redoubted Solomon (harpooner, 
 disrated for incapacity, and since reinstated), 
 have been ailing a good deal for the last week 
 or ten days, and I only to-day discovered that 
 Isaac the skyppar, who has charge of the 
 medicaments, had, in his ignorance of the 
 Pharmacopoeia, been putting the two unfor 
 tunate men through a course of chloride of 
 lime ! A jar of this had been sent from the 
 chemists along with the medicines, for the 
 
MEDICAL TREATMENT. 173 
 
 purpose of counteracting the smell of the 
 putrid blubber. It was fortunate the mistake 
 had been no worse, for there also happened to 
 be amongst the medical stores a jar of arsenical 
 soap for preserving skins, and our nautical 
 ^Esculapius doubtless looked upon it also as a 
 mild aperient, or some other beneficial drug ; 
 probably he was keeping it in reserve, in case a 
 perseverance in the chloride of lime treatment 
 did not ultimately succeed. I at once put a 
 stop to his homicidal proceedings, and adminis 
 tered to the two patients " Duse pil. cal. et op. 
 haust. cap." followed after four hours interval 
 by two Seidlitz powders. I could not by any 
 means make out what was the matter with the 
 two men, although I must own I had some slight 
 suspicions of incipient scurvy, and I was not 
 aware whether in prescribing as above, I might 
 not be acting with as great a violation of pro 
 fessional custom as Isaac with the chloride of 
 lime ; but except the drugs from the Ham- 
 merfest Apothek, whose Norwegian names and 
 looks quite puzzled me, I had no medicines 
 but the pills and Seidlitz powders, and to 
 them I should unhesitatingly have had re 
 course if anything had been the matter with 
 myself. 
 
174 WATER ON THE ICEBERGS. 
 
 We saw Solomon sitting on the windlass 
 shortly after having taken his two pills and 
 two powders. His face was a perfect study 
 for an artist, and indicated anything hut confi 
 dence in my medical treatment ; I am afraid 
 that it even "betrayed a slight suspicion that I 
 had poisoned him in revenge for his losing the 
 hig hull-walrus, whose escape I have hefore 
 narrated. 
 
 5 tli. We are still in the same place where 
 we parted from the " Ginevra," as we can 
 make no progress to the north-east with hoth 
 wind and current against us. This is the more 
 vexatious and tantalising, as the hrief Arctic 
 summer is slipping fast away, and this is such 
 a splendid day that we keep fancying many 
 walruses must he "being killed in the direction 
 of the hank and Byk-Yse Island. 
 
 We moored to a flat tabular iceberg, to fill 
 up the water-casks. Even sea-ice, as is well- 
 known, makes drinkably fresh water, and most 
 of the flat slabs have a hollow in the surface 
 filled with water from the melted snow, so 
 that we are never at any loss for fresh water. 
 
 6^. We met a small schooner, and heard 
 from the master of the great battle of Solferino, 
 and also that Oscar, king of Norway and 
 
HEAR THE NEWS FROM NORWAY. 175 
 
 Sweden, was dead. His demise does not seem 
 to affect very much his loyal subjects in this 
 sloop. 
 
 The Norwegians are in general very demo 
 cratic people, and not fond of kings and 
 nobles ; they also very much dislike the Swedes, 
 and most jealously resent any interference or 
 attempt at supremacy on the part of that 
 people. 
 
 This skyppar, Daniel Danielson, who gave 
 us the above intelligence, had piloted my 
 yacht from Hammerfest to Tromsoe, when I 
 was grouse-shooting amongst these islands in 
 September 1858, and I was glad to meet him 
 again, as he is one of the finest fellows I ever 
 saw in my life. " Bold as a lion, and strong as 
 a horse," he is universally admitted to be one of 
 the most skilful, brave, and successful of all the 
 walrus hunters who frequent Spitzbergen, and 
 from my knowledge of the man, I fully believe 
 it to be the case. 
 
 He had been obliged to go over to Hammer 
 fest, to refit some twenty days ago, on account 
 of the leakiness of his vessel ; but even at that 
 early period of the season, he had taken with 
 him a cargo of sixty walruses and a hundred 
 seals, and now he was back again amongst the 
 
176 GRADUAL EXTINCTION OF THE WALRUS. 
 
 ice in hopes of filling his vessel a second time 
 before the autumnal gales set in. 
 
 "When the walrus trade was first systemati 
 cally followed from Tronisoe and Hammerfest, 
 much larger vessels were employed, and it 
 was usual for them to get their first cargo 
 about Bear Island early in the season, and 
 two more cargoes at Spitsbergen in the course 
 of the summer. This systematic and whole 
 sale slaughter soon exterminated or drove 
 away the walruses from the banks around 
 Bear Island; but even after that it was a 
 common thing to procure three cargoes in a 
 season at Spitzbergen, and less than two 
 full cargoes was considered very bad luck 
 indeed; now, however, it is a rare thing to 
 get more than one cargo in a season, and 
 many vessels return home after four months 
 absence only half full. 
 
 Prom all the information which I have been 
 able to collect on the subject, I calculate that 
 about one thousand walruses and twice that 
 number of bearded seals are annually captured 
 in the seas about Spitzbergen, exclusive of 
 those which sink or may die of their wounds ; 
 so that some idea may be formed of the 
 numbers of these curious and useful amphi- 
 
THEY ARE RECEDING FURTHER NORTH. 177 
 
 bious monsters still existing in that country ; 
 but it is quite clear that they are undergoing 
 a rapid diminution of numbers, and also that 
 they are gradually receding into more and 
 more inaccessible regions further to the 
 north. 
 
 We learn from the voyage of Ohthere, which 
 was performed about a thousand years ago, that 
 the walrus then abounded on the coast of Pin- 
 marken itself : they have, however, abandoned 
 that coast for some centuries, although in 
 dividual stragglers have been occasionally 
 captured there up to within the last thirty 
 years. After their desertion of the Finmarken 
 coast, Bear Island became the principal scene 
 of their destruction; and next the Thousand 
 Islands, Hope Island, and Hyk-Yse Island, 
 which in their turn are now very inferior 
 hunting-ground to the banks and skerries lying 
 to the north of Spitzbergen. fortunately for 
 the persecuted walruses, however, these latter 
 districts are only accessible in open seasons, or 
 perhaps once in every three or four summers ; 
 so that they get a little breathing time there 
 to breed and replenish their numbers, or un 
 doubtedly the next twenty or thirty years 
 would witness the total extinction of Rosmarus 
 
 N 
 
178 NOVA ZEMBLA. 
 
 trichecm on the coasts of the islands of 
 northern Europe. 
 
 The walrus is also found around the coasts 
 of Nova Zembla, but not in such numbers as 
 at Spitzbergen ; and he undergoes, if possible, 
 more persecution in those islands from some 
 colonies of Russians or Samoiiedes, who, I am 
 told, regularly winter in Nova Zembla for the 
 purpose of hunting and fishing. 
 
 The 7th being Sunday, we did not leave the 
 sloop. 
 
 One of our young bears seems out of sorts, 
 and shows symptoms of rheumatism, being 
 quite stiff and helpless as to his hinder ex 
 tremities ; we therefore gave them the run of 
 the deck for a few hours while we had their 
 hutch repaired and thoroughly cleaned out. 
 The sick one, after trying to walk about for a 
 little, moaned piteously, and at last sat down 
 in a corner and remained there quietly enough ; 
 the other availed himself of his liberty by 
 eating, or trying to eat, everything he could get 
 hold of, and then turned his attention to ex 
 ploring the vessel ; he looked down the hatch 
 ways and climbed on top of them, hunted 
 through all the boats, clambered along the 
 gunwales and out to the end of the bowsprit. 
 
AGED BULL-WALRUS. 179 
 
 looking about him all the time with the 
 most comical air of inquisitiveness. He was 
 evidently searching for a road to the shore, 
 but not finding any, he took advantage of a 
 moment when nobody happened to be looking, 
 and getting over the taffrail into the little boat 
 hung up astern, he slipped into the water and 
 made play for the shore, distant about ten 
 miles. A boat being lowered, he was soon 
 overtaken and recaptured, but not without a 
 most energetic resistance on his part. 
 
 On the 8th we came in sight of some 
 streams of drift-ice, and seeing what appeared 
 to be a seal asleep on one piece, I went off in a 
 boat to kill him. On approaching nearer him, 
 however, we discovered him to be a solitary 
 old bull- walrus: he lay sound asleep on a 
 piece of ice which sloped very much from one 
 side to the other. We were obliged to ap 
 proach him at the lower side, in order to ob 
 tain the advantage of the wind, and on getting 
 to fifteen yards distance, he heard us, and 
 lazily awaking, raised his head and pre 
 pared to absquatulate : he was a moment 
 or so too late, however, for I shot him 
 through the head, and he sunk dead on the 
 
 ice, and then, in the most graceful and Con 
 s 2 
 
180 HIS PROBABLE REMINISCENCES. 
 
 venient manner possible, lie rolled like a great 
 hogshead from the top to the bottom of the 
 inclined plane, and the boat arriving at the 
 foot of the iceberg at the same moment as 
 he did, we easily harpooned and secured him. 
 
 This was a case decidedly illustrating the 
 occasional advantage which a good rifle has 
 over the harpoon ; for if I had delayed 
 another second in firing, the walrus would 
 have jumped off the high side of the iceberg, 
 which was farthest away from us, and where it 
 would have been impossible to have harpooned 
 him. This walrus was neither very large nor 
 very fat, but he carried a very fine and perfect 
 pair of tusks, and from the worn state of his 
 molar teeth, and his rugose, scarred, and al 
 most hairless hide, he had evidently attained 
 to extreme old age ; and I think it not improb 
 able that he may have been a lazy and peaceful 
 denizen of the Spitzbergen ice-floes at the 
 time when the immortal Nelson visited these 
 shores as a midshipman in Lord Mulgrave s 
 expedition in 1773. 
 
 We saw nothing else all day but seals in the 
 water. "We sent a boat ashore in the afternoon 
 to collect fire-wood, and one of our sailors picked 
 up a good pair of walrus tusks on the beach. 
 
COMMANDER GILLIES LAND. 181 
 
 We also gathered some pieces of lime 
 stone full of fossils, and some pieces of water- 
 worn native coal or lignite. 
 
 A small vessel becalmed near us had, early 
 in the summer, sailed as far to the north as the 
 land marked in the charts as "Commander 
 Gillies Land," which lies sixty or seventy 
 miles to the north-east of Spitzbergen. I 
 was anxious to ascertain some particulars about 
 this distant country, but I could elicit no in 
 formation except that " it was a hilly country, 
 very like Spitzbergen, and that there were no 
 sea-horses or seals, or even reindeer, there. " 
 
 This vessel, however, had a large number of 
 seals and walruses on board, and although 
 they said they had killed the most of them 
 about Ryk-Yse Island, still I think it not im 
 probable that they actually did so at Gillies 
 Land, but that they wish to keep the fact of its 
 being so good a place in the dark. 
 
 There is no doubt that many of the seals and 
 sea-horses frequenting this part of the Spitz 
 bergen coast come down from the north-east, 
 and I have often suspected that Gillies Land, 
 or some other unknown country in that direc 
 tion, must be the grand emporium which 
 supplies them. A great many are known to 
 
 N 3 
 
182 FOG AGAIN. 
 
 exist about the north-east corner of Spitzbergen, 
 which, as I mentioned before, is rarely acces 
 sible. No vessel has ever succeeded in circum 
 navigating Spitzbergen, and although separate 
 voyages have been made which overlap one 
 another in this direction, still very little indeed 
 is known about those parts of the Spitzbergian 
 archipelago marked in the charts as " Nord- 
 ost Land " and "New Friesland." 
 
 On the 9th and 10th there was a dense fog, 
 with both barometer and thermometer high. 
 
 Bather dull work. We have read all our 
 books, Ave cannot see forty yards from the deck, 
 and the smell from the hold is getting almost 
 intolerable. It changes silver to the colour of 
 copper, and copper to that of iron, and actually 
 turns ^cMte paint black. 
 
 On the llth a slight breeze sprung up, and, 
 clearing off the fog, enabled us to ascertain the 
 very unsatisfactory fact, that we are exactly in 
 the same place as we were before the fog came 
 on. Some streams of good ice, however, lie in 
 different directions around, but no seals or sea 
 horses in sight. 
 
 The fog returned as bad as ever on the 12th, 
 but the 13th was a trifle clearer, and, being in 
 amongst the ice, we discovered two big seals in 
 
SHOOT A BEAK, FROM THE DECK. 183 
 
 different directions. "We took one each, and 
 killed them both. 
 
 Lord David had returned on board, and I 
 was also rowing back, when we discovered a 
 bear on a small iceberg close to the sloop. The 
 people on deck also observed him immediately, 
 and called to Kennedy, who was below, but 
 quickly came on deck with, his rifle. The bear 
 looked coolly at the sloop for a little before he 
 could make up his mind that it was time to be 
 off. "When at last he did so the sloop quickly 
 sailed up to him, and Lord David shot him 
 from the deck as he swam under the bows. 
 
 My boat being still in the water, we took hold 
 of the bear, and dragged him on an iceberg to 
 flense him. While we were doing so, a seal 
 came capering about in the water, popping up 
 his head close to us, and looking at our proceed 
 ings exultingly, as if he was thinking with 
 Charles IX. that " the smell of a slaughtered 
 enemy was sweet." I punished him for in 
 dulging in such unchristian-like emotions, by 
 shooting him through the head. 
 
 N 4 
 
184 THE WALRUSES DISAPPEAR. 
 
 CHAP. XII. 
 
 Walruses leave the Banks, and go upon Land. Vast 
 Herds ashore. Frightful Massacre. Just Eetribution. 
 Cargo of Bones. Beautiful Day and sudden Change. 
 Early northern Voyagers. Scoresby s Opinion. Open 
 Polar Basin a mere Chimera. Dr. Kane. North Pole. 
 -Scheme for reaching the Pole. Parry s Sledge Expedi 
 tion ; and why it failed. - Alexei Markhoff s Expedition ; 
 and his difficult Eeturn. 
 
 THE 14th was Sunday, and continued foggy, 
 but looked a little more promising ; and accord 
 ingly on the 15th it had cleared away, and we 
 had a fine day with north-westerly wind. "We 
 were both out in the boats all day, and brought 
 in one walrus and seventeen seals. 
 
 During the fog of last week we had been 
 apprehensive that there were few or no walruses 
 remaining in this neighbourhood, as we had 
 heard no bellowing; and if there had been any 
 walruses around we could not have failed to 
 hear them, as the weather was mild, and there 
 was plenty of good ice. This day s proceedings 
 completely proved that our apprehensions were 
 well-founded, for, except the one we killed (and 
 
VAST HEEDS ASHORE. 185 
 
 who had been badly wounded by some one 
 else), we did not see a walrus either on ice or 
 in the water. 
 
 Several other small vessels which were in 
 sight bore up for the south in the evening, as 
 if they had made the same discovery, and our 
 people say that all the walruses " must have 
 gone on land now," and that the best chance 
 is to look for them amongst the Thousand 
 Islands; but it seems to us that amongst so 
 many islands, and so many hundred miles of 
 rugged shores, we stand but a bad chance of 
 finding them with our slow-sailing vessel. 
 
 About this time of year the walruses usually 
 congregate together in vast herds sometimes 
 to the number of several thousands and all 
 lie down in a mass in some secluded bay, or 
 some rocky island, and there they remain, in a 
 semi-torpid sort of state, for weeks together, 
 without moving or feeding. They do not 
 usually do this until near the end of August, 
 by which time most of the vessels have de 
 parted full, and of course it is a very great 
 chance whether any of those remaining will 
 find these trysting-places in the few days which 
 remain before the season breaks up ; but such 
 chances are what every Spitzbergen walrus 
 
186 FORTUNATE DISCOVERY. 
 
 hunter prays for by day and dreams of by 
 night, because they know that if they are for 
 tunate enough to find the walruses under these 
 circumstances, they may be enabled to kill a 
 small for tune s- worth of them in a few hours. 
 
 I never saw a walrus on terra firma my 
 self; but I know that frequently on these oc 
 casions, even of late years, prodigious numbers 
 of them have been slaughtered by the lucky 
 finders. 
 
 At the close of my first visit to Spitzbergen, 
 in the end of August 1858, I visited a small 
 island, which I think is the south-western 
 most of the Thousand Islands, for the pur 
 pose of inspecting the scene of the latest 
 important massacre of this sort which had 
 taken place, and the details of which were 
 afterwards related to me by one of the per 
 petrators. They are as follows : 
 
 It seems that this island had long been 
 a very celebrated place for walruses going 
 ashore, and great numbers had been killed 
 upon it at different times in bygone years. 
 In August 1852, two small sloops sailing in 
 company approached the island, and soon dis 
 covered a herd of walruses, numbering, as 
 they calculated, from three to four thousand, 
 
FRIGHTFUL MASSACRE. 187 
 
 reposing upon it. Pour boats crews, or six 
 teen men, proceeded to the attack with 
 spears. 
 
 One great mass of the walruses lay in a 
 small sandy bay, with rocks enclosing it on 
 each side, and on a little mossy flat above the 
 bay; but to which the bay formed the only 
 convenient access for such unwieldy animals. 
 A great many hundreds lay on other parts of 
 the island at a little distance. 
 
 The boats landed a little way off, so as not 
 to frighten them, and the sixteen men, creep 
 ing along shore, got between the sea and the 
 bay full of walruses before mentioned, and 
 immediately commenced stabbing the animals 
 next them. The walrus, although so active 
 and fierce in the water, is very unwieldy and 
 helpless on shore, and those in front soon suc 
 cumbed to the lances of their assailants ; the 
 passage to the shore soon got so blocked up with 
 the dead and the dying, that the unfortunate 
 wretches behind could not pass over, and were 
 in a manner barricaded by a wall of carcases. 
 Considering that every thrust of a lance was 
 worth twenty dollars, the scene must have 
 been one of terrific excitement to men who had 
 very few or no dollars at all ; and my infor- 
 
188 JUST RETRIBUTION. 
 
 niant s eyes sparkled as he related it. He 
 said the walruses were then at their mercy, 
 and they slew, and stabbed, and slaughtered, 
 and butchered, and murdered until most of 
 their lances were rendered useless, and them 
 selves were drenched with blood and exhausted 
 with fatigue. They went on board the vessels, 
 ground their lances, and had their dinners, 
 and then returned to their sanguinary work ; 
 nor did they cry " Hold, enough ! " until 
 they had killed nine hundred walruses; and 
 yet so fearless or so lethargic were the animals, 
 that many hundreds more remained sluggishly 
 lying on other parts of the island at no great 
 distance. 
 
 Their two small sloops, already partially 
 loaded, could only carry away a very small 
 portion of the spoil ; but they trusted to being 
 able to return from Hammerfest with other 
 vessels to convey away the remainder. The 
 result, however, was a very striking illustra 
 tion of the truth of the adage, " JJ homme 
 propose, et Dieu dispose ; " for on their return 
 they were most justly punished for their 
 wasteful and wanton slaughter of these useful 
 animals, by finding the island surrounded by 
 many miles of heavy and impenetrable drift- 
 
ASPECT OF THE FIELD OF BATTLE. 189 
 
 ice, which "baffled all their attempts to get at 
 their walruses ! 
 
 In their hurry they had not even extracted 
 all the tusks, which thenceforth "became any 
 body s property; and Daniel Danielsen told 
 me he happened to be one of the first to 
 revisit the island the ensuing season, and that 
 he cut out about a hundred pairs of tusks. 
 The skins and blubber of course were quite 
 useless by that time, and thus six or seven 
 hundred walruses were destroyed without bene 
 fit to anybody. 
 
 "When I visited this island six years after 
 wards, there still remained abundant testimony 
 to corroborate the entire truth of the story. 
 The smell of the island was perceptible at 
 several miles distance, and on landing we 
 found the carcases lying as I have described 
 them, and in one place two and three deep. 
 The skin and flesh of many remained tolerably 
 entire, notwithstanding the ravages of bears, 
 foxes, and gulls. So many walruses have been 
 killed on this island at different times, that a 
 ship might easily load with bones there, and it 
 grieved me, as an agriculturist, to see the mate 
 rials of so much excellent bone-dust lying 
 unappropriated . 
 
190 BEAUTIFUL PANORAMA. 
 
 I believe the walruses have since discon 
 tinued their visits to the island probably on 
 account of the overpowering smell of the re 
 mains of their slaughtered kindred. 
 
 The morning of the 16th was beautifully 
 bright and clear, but the game have so com 
 pletely deserted this part of the coast, that we 
 only got two seals and one walrus all day. 
 
 Kennedy brought in a load of fire-wood, and 
 some limestone boulders, containing fossils 
 from Byk-Yse Island. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the sublime grandeur of 
 a really fine day in these regions : the sea as 
 calm and bright as a mirror, and covered with 
 countless floating icebergs of a dazzling white 
 ness, and of all imaginable sizes and shapes ; 
 no sound to be heard but the terrific peals of 
 thunder caused by the cracking of the glaciers, 
 the hoarse bellowing of the walruses, and the 
 screams and croaks of the gulls and divers. 
 All this makes up such a scene, that no man 
 who has once beheld it can ever forget 
 it. Alas ! that there should be a reverse to 
 this beautiful medal, but often ten minutes 
 suffice to change the face of everything en 
 tirely : a chilling blast of wind comes from the 
 eternal ice-fields to the north-east ; thick fog. 
 
FALL BACK TO THE THOUSAND ISLANDS. 191 
 
 and, probably, snow follow immediately; the 
 brilliant sugary-looking glaciers are hidden, 
 and nothing remains of the glorious panorama 
 of sea, and ice, and hills, and glaciers, but a 
 dim, and cold, and misty circle of an acre in 
 extent, around the boat. 
 
 Such a day, with such a termination, was 
 the 16th, and we were late before we could 
 find our way back to the sloop. 
 
 Vlth. The other vessels have now all gone 
 southwards, and most of them have gone 
 home altogether, so that I believe we are now 
 farther to the north than any human beings 
 in the world, although only in latitude 78* 
 There is lots of heavy ice coming down, and 
 we reluctantly make up our minds to fall back 
 to the Thousand Islands. 
 
 The extreme north to which the outlying 
 skerries to the north of Spitzbergen reach, is 
 about 81, and very few people have ever suc 
 ceeded in penetrating to a higher latitude than 
 that, as it is now pretty generally believed that 
 the accounts some of the early Dutch navi 
 gators give of having sailed to 83 or 84, are 
 either apocryphal, or founded upon erroneous 
 observations. 
 
 * We afterwards reached 79, inside of Stour-Fiord. 
 
192 OPEN POLAE, BASIN A MEUE CHIMERA. 
 
 Scoresby, who seems to have been one of 
 the most accurate and painstaking observers, 
 and a thoroughly practical as well as scientific 
 seaman, who had spent his life in the Polar 
 seas, admits never having been further north 
 than 81 30 ; and I believe with him that 
 this is about the closest authenticated approxi 
 mation which ever has been made, or which 
 ever will be made, towards the Pole by water. 
 
 Prom much reading on the subject, and 
 much conversation with intelligent practical 
 men, well acquainted with those seas, as well 
 as from my own little opportunities of observa 
 tion during my two visits to Spitsbergen, I 
 may be permitted to express my thorough con 
 viction that all idea of a great open sea around 
 the Pole, is entirely chimerical : and that no 
 thing exists within a radius of six hundred miles 
 of the Pole, but vast masses of eternal and 
 impenetrable ice unless indeed there may 
 happen to be land intervening. 
 
 I am. aware that the distinguished Dr. Kane 
 held very strongly an opposite opinion ; but 
 the arguments in his book do not seem to me 
 to be of the slightest avail against the over 
 whelming amount of evidence in a contrary 
 direction. 
 
SCHEME FOR REACHING THE POLE. 193 
 
 Hopelessly impossible as all attempts to sail 
 to tlie Pole must ever continue to be, I think, 
 if there were sufficient inducements to under 
 take the attempt, that it is possible enough to 
 do it by land, or, to speak more correctly, by 
 ice. 
 
 The distance from the extreme north of 
 Spitzbergen would be 600 miles, and the only 
 way in which I conceive the attempt could be 
 made with any chance of success, would be for 
 a well-provided vessel, with sledges and plenty 
 of good dogs to draw them, to go to Spitzbergen 
 in summer, select a sheltered harbour as far to 
 the north as they could get, and pass the re 
 mainder of the fine weather in killing a quan 
 tity of rein-deer and wild fowl for provisions 
 for themselves, and seals and walruses to keep 
 the dogs fat and in good condition. Good 
 hunters would have little difficulty in laying in 
 a hundred tons of deer, seals, and walruses in 
 two months. 
 
 It would be necessary, of course, to winter in 
 Spitzbergen, but that would be no worse than 
 wintering in other parts of the Arctic regions, 
 and plenty of hardy volunteers could be got in 
 Tromsoe and Hammerfest to act as hunters and 
 harpooners to the expedition. The dogs would 
 
 o 
 
194 SIR EDWARD PARRY S ATTEMPT, 
 
 require to be brought from Greenland or 
 Siberia, with men who understood the manage 
 ment of them. 
 
 During the early spring the party would 
 have to exercise their teams, and to get them 
 into as thorough a state of condition and dis 
 cipline as possible, and, if practicable, they 
 should lay out some depots of provisions as far 
 as they could on their intended route to the 
 north. If they then were to take advantage of 
 the first available fine weather in March or April 
 to start to the north in well-appointed dog- 
 sledges, I entertain very little doubt they could 
 reach the Pole and regain their ship within a 
 month or six weeks from the date of their de 
 parture, and that without undergoing any 
 hardships and privations exceeding those in 
 evitable to Arctic exploring expeditions. 
 
 The fourth expedition of Sir Edward Parry, 
 in 1827, was sent out with the view of trying 
 to reach the Pole by sledge-travelling; but, 
 as is well-known, it failed, because they did 
 not winter in Spitzbergen, and they were con 
 sequently unable to take to their sledge-boats 
 until the 22nd of June, a period at least two 
 months too late, and when the midsummer s 
 sun had loosened and softened the ice, and 
 
AND WHY IT FAILED. 195 
 
 rendered it utterly unfit for sledge-travelling. 
 Parry s sledges were, further, drawn by seamen 
 instead of dogs, and the pace at which men 
 can drag a heavy sledge is so slow that they 
 cannot convey a sufficiency of fuel and pro 
 visions for a long journey, and Parry s men 
 were consequently upon short allowance from 
 the commencement of their arduous labours. 
 
 In spite of these tremendous disadvantages, 
 however, the gallant Parry and his crews per 
 severed for more than a month, and actually 
 attained the latitude of 82 40 , which decidedly 
 entitles them to the well-earned distinction of 
 being the " Champions of the North." On 
 the 27th of July, however, their solar observa 
 tions gave them the most disheartening proofs 
 that they were only making the sort of progress 
 that a squirrel makes in a cage, or a horse in 
 one of those ingenious saw-mills used at the 
 railway stations in America ; for while, during 
 the last three days, with incredible labour, 
 they had gone about ten miles to the front, the 
 Arctic current had driven the ice fourteen miles 
 to the rear underneath their feet ! At this 
 rate of travelling it is capable of demonstration 
 that they would have reached the South Pole 
 
 sooner than the North, and Parry was, there- 
 
 o 2 
 
196 DR. SCOEESBY S OPINION. 
 
 fore, obliged but one can well understand 
 with what heart-felt reluctance he did so to 
 give it up. 
 
 I believe, however, that that distinguished 
 navigator always maintained, to the last day 
 of his life, that it was perfectly possible to 
 make a sledge expedition to the North Pole 
 successfully. 
 
 In this belief the late Dr. Scoresby also 
 concurred, and certainly no two men can be 
 named who were more entitled to give an 
 opinion on the subject. 
 
 It may also be remarked that Arctic sledge- 
 travelling has become very much better un 
 derstood since the days of Parry ; and one has 
 only to read the narratives of Dr. Kane, Sir 
 Leopold McClintock, and others, to see what 
 can be performed by zealous and resolute men 
 with well-appointed dog-sledges. 
 
 In Muller s " Voyages from Asia to Ame 
 rica," there is an account of a sledge-journey 
 which seems to me to go a long way towards 
 establishing the practicability of the thing. 
 In 1715, one Alexei Markhoff was sent by the 
 Russian Government to explore the ocean 
 lying to the north of Siberia, and this gallant 
 fellow, with eight others, set off in sledges 
 
ALEXEI MAEKHOFF S EXPEDITION. 197 
 
 drawn by dogs on March 10th from the mouth 
 of the River Jana, in latitude 70 30 . They 
 travelled due north, as fast as the dogs could 
 go, for seven days, by which time they had 
 got to about the 78th degree of latitude (400 
 miles in seven days). Here their progress 
 was interrupted by the excessive roughness 
 and irregularity of the ice, and they were 
 compelled to retrace their steps. Markhoff 
 seems to have made the dangerous error of 
 miscalculating the quantity of his provisions, 
 or of overestimating the endurance of his dogs ; 
 for on his return journey he fell short of 
 provisions, and it was only by the desperate 
 expedient of killing some of his dogs to feed 
 the others, that he and his companions got 
 back in safety; for this reason, the return 
 journey seems to have occupied a much longer 
 time than the run north, for he only returned 
 to Ustianskoe Simowie, the place from which 
 he had started, on April 3rd. 
 
 As Alexei Markhoff had thus travelled up 
 wards of 400 miles in seven days, and upwards 
 of 800 miles in twenty-four days, there can surely 
 be no absolutely insuperable reason why other 
 people, better provided than he was, should not 
 be able to travel 1200 miles in thirty-six days, 
 
 O 3 
 
198 AND ITS FAILURE. 
 
 or even in less time, especially as modern 
 science has done so much in the way of con 
 densing nutritious substances into small bulk, 
 that the difficulties as to provisions, which 
 Markhoff had to contend with, might be 
 greatly lessened in the case of a fresh ex 
 pedition. 
 
HALF-MOON ISLAND. 199 
 
 CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Whales Bones. B-apid Elevation of the Land. Early 
 Whale-fishery. Shallowing of the Sea. Trench ploughed 
 by an Iceberg. Last Day at the Sea-horses. Successful 
 Stalk and double Shot. Lose two Harpoons. Very bad 
 Luck Difficulty of shooting Walruses. Grale. Wrecks 
 in Spitzbergen. Insurance. Kill a White Whale. 
 Description of the same. Sail to the Rendezvous. 
 
 AFTER this long digression about the North 
 Pole, I resume the narrative of our own pro 
 ceedings. 
 
 Early in the morning of the 18th we had 
 got back to Black Point, having been turned 
 out of bed at midnight and at 4 A.M. to polish 
 off seals which came in sight. 
 
 At eight o clock we started in both boats 
 and proceeded, Lord David to Halmanne (or 
 Halfmoon) Island, and myself to a cluster 
 of rocky islands lying four or five miles 
 E. S. E. of Black Point ; we did not expect to 
 do much good in the way of sport, so we both 
 agreed to bring back boatloads of firewood 
 from our respective islands if we should get 
 
200 WHALES BONES. 
 
 nothing better to load them with. I landed 
 upon one of the islands and ascended to the 
 highest point to look ont ; there was some ice 
 visible in different directions around, hut I 
 could discover nothing alive upon it, so I 
 set the boat s crew to load up with drift-wood, 
 quantities of which, of excellent quality and in 
 every stage of preservation, strewed the shores 
 of this island. 
 
 While they were so engaged I walked about 
 and geologised. The island was in every 
 respect similar to those which I have already 
 described ; a great deal of drift-wood lay far 
 above high-water mark, and in positions where 
 it could not possibly have been driven by 
 storms in the present relative levels of land 
 and sea. 
 
 Numbers of whales bones also lay upon 
 this island from the sea-level up to the top 
 of the rocks, which may have been thirty- 
 five to forty feet in height. Those bones lying 
 high above the sea-level were invariably 
 much more decayed and moss-grown than 
 those lower down. Some of them were of 
 enormous size. In one slight depression of 
 the island, about ten feet above the sea-level, 
 I counted eleven enormous jawbones, all lying 
 
SPECIMENS BROUGHT HOME. 201 
 
 irregularly and mixed indiscriminately with 
 many vertebrae, ribs, and pieces of skulls. Of 
 course it will be understood that these bones 
 which I mention in different parts of this 
 narrative were not fossilised. "We found them 
 in many parts of Spitzbergen, and at all 
 elevations up to that of two hundred feet 
 above the sea. I brought home many speci 
 mens, which are now in the Museum of the 
 Geological Society. Could an approximation 
 to the age of these bones be in any way 
 arrived at, they would give some chrono 
 logical data for determining the time which 
 the land whereon they were found has been 
 in emerging from the sea and attaining its 
 present level. My own impression, for many 
 reasons, is, that the whole of Spitzbergen has 
 been gradually rising within the last few 
 hundred years, and that this upheaval is still 
 continuing. 
 
 It is, perhaps, impossible to judge of the 
 length of time which such enormous bones 
 may endure in a climate like this, where they 
 are bound up in ice for eight or nine months 
 out of the twelve ; but allowing, at a 
 guess, four hundred years for bones lying 
 at an elevation of forty feet, which is about 
 
202 ELEVATION OF THE LAND, AND 
 
 the highest at which I have found entire 
 skeletons, and adding twelve feet of water for 
 the whale to have floated in when he died 
 there, we shall arrive at thirteen feet per cen 
 tury as the rate of elevation. 
 
 Prom the position of the eleven jawbones, 
 &c., which I have just mentioned, and from 
 the fact of so many lying together in a 
 slight hollow, I am inclined to believe that 
 these are the remains of whales killed by 
 man, and that they were towed into this hol 
 low (then a shallow bay), for the purpose of 
 being flensed there. "We learn from the ac 
 counts of the early whale-fishers that their 
 usual practice was to flense their whales in 
 the bays ; and, in fact, that the whales were 
 so abundant close to the shore, that the ships 
 did not require to leave their anchorage in the 
 bays at all. It was about the year 1650 that 
 the whale-fishery in the bays of Spitzbergen 
 was in its prime. Thus, supposing these 
 whales to have been killed in that bay two 
 hundred years ago, allowing three fathoms (the 
 very minimum) for the ship to have anchored 
 in, and adding the ten feet which the bones are 
 now above the sea-level, we have twenty-eight 
 feet of elevation in two hundred years, or very 
 
CONSEQUENT SHALLOWING OP THE SEA. 203 
 
 nearly the same rate as I arrived at by the 
 other example. 
 
 The enormous numbers of whales which, in 
 the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth 
 centuries, frequented first the bays, next the 
 coasts, and lastly the banks lying outside the 
 coasts of Spitzbergen, have now entirely de 
 serted these waters altogether. Nobody ever 
 thinks of going to the neighbourhood of 
 Spitzbergen now to catch whales. During the 
 whole summer we only saw three individuals 
 of the Mysticetus. McCulloch and other 
 commercial writers attribute this migration of 
 the whales to the persecution they underwent, 
 saying, that they were all killed or frightened 
 away ; but, although their disappearance is un 
 doubtedly partially attributable to that cause, 
 I believe the principal reason to be that the 
 seas around Spitzbergen have become too shal 
 low for them; this is the general belief of 
 the sealers frequenting the coast, only they 
 generally put the cart before the horse, by 
 saying that " the sea is going back" 
 
 I have heard the same remark made by the 
 sailors and fishermen on the west coast of 
 Norway, where Sir Charles Lyell ( " Principles 
 of Geology," p. 506) has shown to demonstra- 
 
204 TRENCH PLOUGHED BY ICEBERG. 
 
 tion, that the coast-line is rising at the rate of 
 four feet per century. 
 
 On this island I observed a further most in 
 teresting proof of its elevation. This was a 
 sort of trench or furrow, of about one hundred 
 yards long, three or four feet deep, and about 
 four feet broad, which was ploughed up 
 amongst the boulders : it was about twenty 
 feet above the sea-level, and extended from 
 north-east to south-west, being exactly the line 
 in which the current-borne ice travels at the 
 present day, so that I presiime there is 
 no doubt it must have been caused by the 
 passage of a heavy iceberg, while the island 
 lay under water. 
 
 We left the island about one o clock to 
 inspect some small packs of floating ice, 
 and most unexpectedly I had one of the 
 most exciting afternoon s sport I enjoyed 
 the whole season, although it was attended 
 throughout with the most perverse bad luck. 
 As this was the last day on which we saw any 
 walruses at all, I will venture, even at the risk 
 of horrifying the sensitive reader, to give an 
 account of it in detail. 
 
 We first found five good bull- walruses on a 
 piece of ice ; four were sound asleep with their 
 
LAST DAY WITH THE SEA-HOESES. 205 
 
 sterns towards us, but the remaining villain 
 seemed to be acting as sentry ; however, he 
 permitted us to approach to about thirty yards 
 distance, when he snorted, and began to kick 
 his sleeping companions to arouse them. I 
 had covered the sentinel s head, and had deter 
 mined that he should pay for his alertness 
 with his life, when suddenly a bull with much 
 better tusks lifted his head above the sen 
 tinel s back; so, quickly changing my aim, I 
 shot this other bull through the head, and he 
 tumbled forward on the ice, so dead that he 
 lay with his head doubled under him, and the 
 points of his tusks thrust into his stomach ; 
 the rest then escaped. We found that the 
 bull I had shot had given up the ghost in 
 that peculiar state described by the historian 
 Gibbon (in a Latin note) as having been the 
 last dying position of the prophet Mahomet. 
 To make room in the boat for his skin and 
 blubber, we threw out a proportionate quan 
 tity of the fire-wood. 
 
 In about another hour we found a solitary 
 old bull asleep on a very small piece of ice ; 
 he lay on his side with his back to lee 
 ward, which is the very best possible position 
 for either shooting or harpooning a walrus. I 
 
206 SOLITAEY OLD BULL. 
 
 felt perfectly certain of this one, and I resolved 
 not to fire, but to allow the harpoon to do the 
 business ; when we got to ten or twelve yards 
 distance, however, the brain of the walrus was 
 so beautifully developed, that I could not 
 resist the temptation of firing, and I accord 
 ingly shot him through the back of the head, 
 but, to my unspeakable vexation and disgust, in 
 the act of dying he gave a convulsive half-turn 
 backwards, and the edge of the ice giving way 
 underneath him, he sank like a shot, only, as 
 it were, a quarter of a second before the har 
 poon swished into the water after him. This 
 mishap was my own fault, and I bitterly 
 anathematised my own impatient folly in 
 firing when it was not the least necessary. 
 
 We next found in succession three large 
 seals, and I killed them all ; we secured two, 
 but lost the third from the edge of the ice 
 giving way beneath him in his dying convul 
 sion, precisely in the same way as with the 
 last walrus. 
 
 After rowing for an hour or two more, we 
 found two lots of walruses on ice about an 
 English mile apart ; one lot consisted of four 
 and the other of five, and all were bulls of the 
 first magnitude. We took the former first, 
 
EIGHT AND LEFT SHOT. 207 
 
 and by taking advantage of a sort of screen of 
 ice, we got within six yards of the partie 
 carree without their perceiving us ; they lay 
 very favourably for us, two being close toge 
 ther to the right, and the other two about five 
 yards to the left. I silently motioned to Chris 
 tian to take the right hand ones, and like 
 lightning he darted one harpoon and thrust the 
 other. At the sound of the harpoons my two 
 particular friends to the left raised themselves 
 on the ice to see what was going on, and the 
 instant they did so, I took them quickly right 
 and left on the sides of their heads, and 
 they tumbled lifeless on the ice ; one falling 
 across the body of the other. " Hurrah ! " 
 thought I, " here is luck at last ; four of the 
 biggest bulls in Spitzbergen all secured at one 
 stalk." Nothing could have been more com 
 plete and more beautiful than it looked. My 
 exultation was, however, a little premature, 
 for one of the harpooned walruses was selfish 
 enough to spoil this very pretty thing by 
 breaking loose and escaping. As we afterwards 
 found, this had happened through the line 
 having got twisted round the animal s body 
 and cutting itself against the edge of the har 
 poon. I then finished off the remaining 
 
208 VERY BAD LUCK. 
 
 "fast " one by shooting him, in doing which I 
 unfortunately smashed the forepart of his head, 
 and spoiled a very fine pair of long white 
 tusks. After flensing these victims, we re 
 quired to throw out all the remaining firewood 
 to make room for them, and yet the hoat was 
 up to the thwarts with skins and blubber 
 and heads. 
 
 "We then turned our attention to the troop 
 of five, which were still in sight about a mile 
 off. This lot lay upon a rather large sloping 
 iceberg ; we had no cover, and we were obliged 
 to approach at the high side of the berg to get 
 the wind, so that when we got to about forty 
 yards the walruses took the alarm and began 
 to move. I again shot a magnificent bull, 
 with fine tusks, through the head, but un 
 luckily not quite in the fatal spot ; he fell on 
 the ice, but succeeded in regaining his feet and 
 began to stagger slowly down the slope after 
 the others, who had by this time all gained the 
 sea. The rowers ran the boat against the ice, 
 and Christian and myself jumped out and ran 
 down the sloping ice to intercept the walrus ; 
 not being able to see his head, I fired an un 
 availing shot into his shoulder, and Christian, 
 getting to the brink of the ice just as the 
 
LOSS OF A HARPOON. 209 
 
 walrus was staggering in, thrust the harpoon 
 into his posteriors ; the line ran to the end, and 
 then, the hoat being fast against the ice, it 
 snapped like a thread, and the walrus was lost. 
 This had been an old line much used, and 
 before leaving the iceberg where we had killed 
 the last ones, I had pointed out a weak place in 
 it to Christian, and requested him to change it 
 or to splice out the defective part; he had, 
 however, contented himself with tying a big 
 ugly knot across the flaw, and at that knot the 
 line gave way ; I, therefore, blamed the har- 
 pooner for the loss of this walrus; but pro 
 bably under the circumstances any line would 
 have given way in like manner. 
 
 We then found three large bulls, two of which 
 were asleep, but the third one, acting as look 
 out, kicked his friends awake on our approach 
 ing to forty or fifty yards distance. I shot the 
 best one on the side of the head with two 
 barrels, but all three got into the water, the 
 wounded one bleeding most profusely. We 
 followed them for six or seven dives, in hopes 
 of securing this one ; but, although he was 
 very sick and faint, the others kept close to 
 him, and always gave him timous notice when 
 to dive; at last I shot the two sound ones 
 
 p 
 
210 DIFFICULTY OF SHOOTING THE WALHUS. 
 
 through the head, one after the other ; but 
 there was now a considerable sea running, and 
 the boat was so heavy with skins and blubber, 
 that they both sank before we could harpoon 
 them. After his protectors were gone, I made 
 sure of getting the one first wounded, but 
 after getting close to him once or twice more, 
 we lost sight of him amongst the ice, and saw 
 him no more. 
 
 The sloop was now six or seven miles off, 
 and we had a weary row of several hours, 
 against a heavy sea, which nearly swamped 
 the deep -laden boat, and prevented us getting 
 on board until past midnight. 
 
 No one who has not tried it will readily be 
 lieve how extremely difficult it is to shoot an 
 old bull-walrus clean dead. The front or sides 
 of his head may be knocked all to pieces with 
 bullets, and the animal yet have sense and 
 strength sufficient left him to enable him 
 to swim and dive out of reach. If he is 
 lying on his side, with his back turned to 
 his assailant, it is easy enough, as the brain 
 is then quite exposed, and the crown of the 
 head is easily penetrated ; but one rarely gets 
 the walrus in that position, and when it 
 so happens, it is generally better policy to 
 harpoon him without shooting. 
 
LEAD BULLETS FLATTEN ON HIS SKULL. 211 
 
 By firing at an old bull directly facing 
 you, it is almost impossible to kill him, but 
 if half-front to you, a shot just above the eye 
 may prove fatal. If sideways, he can only 
 be killed by aiming about six inches behind 
 the eye, and about one-fourth of the apparent 
 depth of his head from the top ; but the eye, 
 of course, cannot be seen unless the animal is 
 very close to you, and the difficulty is enor 
 mously increased by the back of the head 
 being so embedded in fat, as to appear as if 
 it were part of the neck. 
 
 If you hit him much below a certain part 
 of the head you strike the jaw-joint, which is 
 about the strongest part of the whole cranium. 
 A leaden bullet striking there, or on the front 
 of the head, is flattened like a piece of putty, 
 without doing much injury to the walrus ; and 
 we sometimes found that even our hardened 
 bullets, propelled by five drachms of powder, 
 were broken into little pieces, against the rocky 
 crania of these animals. 
 
 On the 19th we had a storm from the south 
 west, and lay-to all day; as it increased to 
 wards the evening, and the motion aggravated 
 the smell from the hold to an intolerable 
 extent, we took shelter to the leeward of 
 
 P 2 
 
212 WRECKS IN SPITZBERGEN. 
 
 Halmanne Island, and came to an anchor 
 there ah out midnight. 
 
 The gale continued on the 20th, so we re 
 mained in shelter, and sent hoth hoats ashore 
 for firewood and water. The wood we pro 
 cured on this island was mostly part of the 
 remains of a schooner from Hammerfest, which 
 had heen lost in this hay in a gale of wind, 
 five years ago ; it was her first voyage, and 
 they had neglected to make the cable fast at 
 the inner end, the consequence of which lub 
 berly proceeding naturally was, that it all ran 
 out, and the vessel drove ashore, and went 
 to pieces. 
 
 Prom what I have heard, I am inclined to 
 suspect that a good many of the shipwrecks 
 which happen in Spitzbergen are caused wil 
 fully, in order to defraud the insurance offices. 
 These vessels are principally insured in Ham 
 burg, and I believe the rate of insurance is 
 as high as seven per cent., although one 
 would think that even that was little enough 
 for the unavoidable risks of such a dangerous 
 voyage, without taking into consideration the 
 impunity with which such nefarious proceed 
 ings as I have alluded to may be committed in 
 those distant waters. 
 
KILL A WHITE WHALE. 213 
 
 The 21st being Sunday, we stayed on board, 
 and I wrote up the last few pages of this 
 Journal. 
 
 About 3 A.M. on the 22nd we were aroused 
 by a report of many white whales being along 
 side ; we got up instantly, and jumped into 
 the boats with our rifles. There was a very 
 dense fog, but the bay seemed to be full of 
 the whales, as we heard them blowing all 
 around the vessel ; we pulled off into the fog 
 where the blowing seemed most frequent, and 
 soon found ourselves surrounded by twenty 
 or thirty of these animals, shoving up their 
 heads and backs, and spouting. They were of 
 a brilliant, shining, snowy whiteness, and when 
 they were near us, we could see them swim 
 ming under water. "We lay on our oars, and 
 I waited a little for a good chance, until at 
 last I saw a large one under water approach 
 ing the boat ; holding my rifle ready at my 
 shoulder, I was quite prepared for him, and 
 the instant he appeared above the surface I 
 shot him through the head, immediately be 
 hind the blowholes. He disappeared in a 
 cloud of foam and blood, but upon rowing 
 quickly to the spot, I was just in time to strike 
 a walrus harpoon into him as he sank about 
 
 p 3 
 
214 DESCRIPTION OF BELUGA, 
 
 eight feet beneath the surface, and we in 
 stantly followed this up with another, for fear 
 it should draw; a vigorous application of the 
 lance, accompanied by a peculiar pump-handling 
 motion of the weapon, soon settled the business, 
 and getting a running noose round his tail, we 
 towed him along to the sloop. Many others 
 now appeared close round the boat, the old 
 ones white and shiny, like immense shapes of 
 blanc-mange, and the young ones of a dusky 
 grey in colour ; I could easily have shot more, 
 but being incommoded by the dead one towing 
 astern, we should not have been able to secure 
 them, as this whale sinks when dead. 
 
 "We hove our victim on deck, with some 
 difficulty, by means of two strong tackles at 
 tached to the rigging and one of the boat s 
 davits, and proceeded to examine him. He 
 was fourteen feet long, by about ten feet in 
 circumference, and of a snow-white colour all 
 over. His skin was perfectly smooth and 
 rather shiny. The head was very small and 
 round. He had a row of small teeth in both 
 jaws. No dorsal fin. The eyes and ears were 
 both extremely small. The skin was of a 
 curious, gristly, gelatinous consistency, and cut 
 very readily with a knife ; it was about half an 
 
OB BAL.ENA ALBICANS. 215 
 
 inch thick, and firmly attached to the under 
 lying blubber, which was about two and a half 
 inches thick, and measured about 500 Ibs. 
 when packed in casks. We kept it separate 
 from the seal, bear, and walrus blubber, as it 
 is of much superior quality to any of these, and 
 produces a far finer oil. 
 
 This was not a full- sized specimen of Halcena 
 albicans, as I believe they sometimes attain to 
 a length of twenty feet, and circumference of 
 twelve ; but we were very much pleased at 
 having obtained a specimen, as this was the 
 only one we killed, and the only time we had 
 an opportunity of seeing these animals alive. 
 They are rather rare on this part of the coast, 
 although frequenting the bays on the west 
 coast of Spitzbergen in great numbers during 
 the summer months. 
 
 There are said to be great numbers of this 
 whale in the estuaries of the great rivers of 
 Siberia, and the natives there sometimes kill 
 them in large quantities by stretching strong 
 nets across the tideways, and then harpooning 
 or spearing them. 
 
 After breakfast the fog cleared away, and 
 the gale being now gone, we left our anchorage 
 at Halmanne Island, and cruised about all day. 
 
 p 4 
 
216 BEAU UP FOR THE RENDEZVOUS. 
 
 The ice has all been driven away again to the 
 north-east by the late gale, and we were un 
 willing to go north again so late in the season, 
 as the chances of bad weather are now con 
 siderable. We held a council of war, therefore, 
 and as it was clear we could do little more 
 with the walruses this season, we determined 
 to seek the " Ginevra " at the rendezvous of the 
 Russian huts, and to devote a few days to 
 reindeer stalking in the valleys up Stour 
 Fiord. 
 
 We reached the harbour at Hvalfiske Point 
 about 9 P.M. on the 23rd. 
 
SMEERENBERG, OB BLUBBER TOWN. 217 
 
 CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Smeerenberg, or Blubber Town. Agremens of ditto. 
 Discovery of Spitzbergen. Barentz. Whale Fishery. 
 Attempts to colonise the Country, and to make it a 
 penal Settlement. They fail. The West Indies versus 
 Spitzbergen. Eussian Eobinson Crusoes. Wintering 
 Establishment. How conducted. Awful Mortality. 
 Final Tragedy. Death of eighteen Men from Scurvy 
 and Hunger. Ingenious Counter-irritant. Eussian 
 Bath. Cricket. Boats sewed together. Post Office. 
 Signs of Deer. Kill three Geese with Ball. Find the 
 "Ginevra," and change into her. Nautical Nimrods. 
 Amusing Walrus-hunt. Gun bursts. 
 
 I HAVE often been asked "what the inhabitants 
 of Spitzbergen are like? " but I need scarcely 
 mention to the intelligent reader that Spitz 
 bergen never has been inhabited; unless we 
 include under that term the flourishing summer 
 settlement of Smeerenberg, or New Amsterdam, 
 near Hakluyt s Headland, which was the ren 
 dezvous and boiling establishment of the Dutch 
 whaling-fleet during the palmy days of the 
 Spitzbergen whale-fishery in the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
218 DISCOVERY OF SPITZBERGEN. 
 
 Smeerenberg (Anglice, Blubber Town), in 
 deed, arrived at such a degree of civilisation 
 and refinement, that " hot rolls " were to be 
 had every morning for breakfast ; and, if report 
 speaks true, even the charms of female society 
 were not wanting to " emollify the manners," 
 and lighten the pockets, of the successful 
 fishers. But Smeerenberg was only a summer 
 settlement, and was always entirely abandoned 
 at the approach of winter. 
 
 Spitzbergen (literally "sharp-topped moun 
 tains") was discovered and named in 1596 by 
 the third expedition under William Barentz, 
 a Dutchman, and one of the most distinguished 
 navigators of the age, who was sent by the 
 States-General of Holland to try to discover 
 a north-east passage to China, a chimerical 
 project, which in those days caused the sacrifice 
 of even more lives and treasure than the search 
 after a north-west passage in later times. 
 Barentz himself, and a number of his crew, 
 lost their lives on this expedition; and the 
 remainder only escaped by taking to their boats, 
 after passing a winter of incredible hardships 
 on the coast of Nova Zembla, where they had 
 got beset, and were compelled to abandon 
 their vessel. 
 
ATTEMPTS TO COLONISE IT. 210 
 
 In the early part of the seventeenth century 
 Spitzbergen became the seat of the most flour 
 ishing whale-fishery that ever existed, as many 
 as between 400 and 500 sail of vessels, prin 
 cipally Dutch and Hamburgers, resorting there 
 in a season. It then became obvious that it 
 would be very advantageous if something in 
 the shape of a permanent settlement or colony 
 could be founded in Spitzbergen; and the 
 merchants engaged in the trade offered rewards 
 to their crews, to induce some of them to make 
 the hazardous experiment of trying whether 
 human life could be supported there during 
 the winter. For a long time this was believed 
 to be impossible ; and, as no volunteers could 
 be prevailed upon to risk their lives in the 
 solution of the interesting problem, an English 
 company hit upon the ingenious and economical 
 idea of trying it upon some criminals who were 
 under sentence of death in London. Accord 
 ingly they procured " a grant " of these culprits 
 -probably sheep -stealers, papists, or some such 
 atrocious criminals and offered them their 
 lives on condition that they would pass, or 
 try to pass, one winter in Spitzbergen. Of 
 course they were glad to purchase their lives 
 on any terms a and at once acceded to the 
 
220 WEST INDIES VERSUS SPITZBERGEN. 
 
 conditions. They were taken out in one of 
 the whalers, and a hut was erected for their 
 winter quarters ; but when the fleet was about 
 to depart, and they saw the awful gloomy hills, 
 already white with the early snows, and felt 
 the howling gales of north-east wind, their 
 hearts utterly failed them, and they entreated 
 the captain who had charge of them to take 
 them back to London and let them be hanged, 
 in pursuance of their original sentence, rather 
 than leave them to perish in such a horrible 
 country ! The captain seems to have had more 
 of the " milk of human kindness " in him than 
 his philanthropic employers, for he acceded to 
 their request, and took them back to London. 
 As hanging them would not have been of any 
 pecuniary benefit to the company, they were 
 then good enough to procure a pardon for the 
 men. 
 
 This story reminds me of a conversation 
 which I once heard some of my yacht s crew 
 holding together. They were discussing the 
 respective merits of hot and cold countries 
 the West Indies versus Spitzbergen; and one 
 fellow was urging, that, although "neither rum 
 nor tobacco grew in Spitzbergen," still the 
 continual " blow-out" of fat reindeer which 
 
RUSSIAN ROBINSON CRUSOES. 221 
 
 it seemed to afford, might be considered as a 
 point in its favour. To him the other : 
 " Well, Bob, all I can say is, that I would a 
 deuced sight rather go to the West Indies and 
 be hanged there, than die a natural death in 
 
 this here country ! " 
 
 Soon after the failure of the criminal plan, the 
 experiment of wintering in Spitzbergen was in 
 voluntarily tried by four Russian sailors, whose 
 vessel was lost or driven away by ice while they 
 were ashore, on a desolate part of the east divi 
 sion of the island. These poor fellows had 
 nothing but what they stood up in, with one gun 
 and a few charges of ammunition ; but they ap 
 pear to have been men of a very different stamp 
 from the London jail-birds, and they at once 
 set to work to make the best of things. They 
 built a hut, and killed some reindeer with their 
 gun, and then, their ammunition being ex 
 hausted, they manufactured bows and arrows, 
 spears and harpoons, of drift-wood. They 
 pointed their weapons with bones and pieces of 
 their now useless gun, and twisted their bow 
 strings out of reindeer s entrails. They made 
 traps and nets for birds and foxes. With these 
 rude and imperfect weapons they not only 
 provided themselves with food and raiment. 
 
222 THEY SURVIVE SIX YEAHS. 
 
 but kept off the assaults of the Polar bears. 
 It is almost incredible ; but these meu not only 
 survived, but preserved good health for six long 
 years. It seems extraordinary that such ener 
 getic fellows as they clearly were should not, 
 in all that time, have contrived to travel across 
 the country, or round the shore, to the west 
 coast, where they would have been certain of 
 relief every summer, especially as they were 
 on the most desolate part of the island, and one 
 often inaccessible, and always little frequented 
 by the whalers. In the sixth year of their 
 captivity one of the four died, and the survivors 
 began to lose all hope of deliverance, and to 
 fall into a state of despondence, which would 
 certainly have soon proved fatal to them all, had 
 not a vessel at this time fortunately approached 
 the coast and rescued them. During their long 
 banishment these poor Robinson Crusoes had 
 killed such quantities of bears, deer, seals, and 
 foxes, that the proceeds of the skins and blubber 
 made a small fortune for them. 
 
 Other parties of winterers were left on 
 these desolate shores, both accidentally and 
 intentionally, and although in some cases 
 they all miserably perished, still the possibility 
 of maintaining life throughout the horrors of 
 
WINTERING ESTABLISHMENT. 223 
 
 a Spit zber gen winter was made manifest, and 
 a company of Russian traders in Archangel 
 organised a regular wintering establishment, 
 for the purpose of hunting the seal and the 
 walrus, the Polar bear and the reindeer. 
 Their men were left there in September or 
 October, and were distributed in small parties 
 of two, three, or four individuals each, in 
 wooden huts, which had been constructed in 
 Archangel, and were erected in different parts 
 of the coasts and islands of Spitzbergen. The 
 men w^ere paid by a share of the proceeds, 
 and were supplied by their employers with 
 provisions, consisting principally of rye-meal, 
 salt pork, and tea. They had a sort of head 
 quarters establishment at Hvalfiske Point, 
 which was under the charge of a superin 
 tendent or clerk, who distributed the supplies 
 to the hunters and collected the skins and 
 blubber from the different outposts ; and the 
 company sent over a vessel in the month of 
 May every year, to relieve the men and carry 
 the proceeds of their labours to Archangel. 
 
 It was probably found to be too severe a 
 strain upon the constitution to pass successive 
 winters in this way, as I believe it was usual 
 for these men only to remain every alternate 
 
224 GREAT MORTALITY AMOKGST THEM. 
 
 winter in Spitzbergen. In 1858 I was in 
 formed there was still living at Kola, in Lap 
 land, an aged Russian who had actually 
 wintered thirty-five alternate seasons at Spitz 
 bergen. Many of these hardy fellows, how 
 ever, succumbed to scurvy and the hardships 
 they endured, and many hundreds must have 
 thus miserably perished, as the traveller in 
 these awful solitudes frequently conies across 
 the ruins of a small log-hut with two or three 
 green mounds or cairns of stones in front of it ; 
 and it is also common enough to see the 
 skeletons of the hapless Russians bleaching 
 alongside of those of the bears and reindeer 
 they had killed and subsisted on while living. 
 They seem to have killed an immense quantity 
 of animals of different sorts, and the conse 
 quent profits must have been large, as, in 
 spite of the number of lives which were lost, 
 the establishment was kept up until about 
 seven or eight years ago, when such a dismal 
 tragedy occurred at Hvalfiske Point, that the 
 company was broken up, and I believe no one 
 has ever since wintered in Spitzbergen. 
 
 During the summer of the year in* question, 
 
 * I forget the precise date ; but I think it was either 
 1850 or 1851. 
 
FINAL TRAGEDY. 225 
 
 a prodigious quantity of heavy drift-ice sur 
 rounded Hvalfiske Point and all the southern 
 coast of East Spitzbergen. The men belong 
 ing to the Russian establishment had all come 
 in from the various outposts, and were assem 
 bled at the head-quarters to the number of 
 eighteen, waiting to be relieved by the annual 
 vessel from Archangel. By a concurrence of 
 bad fortune this vessel was lost on her voyage 
 over, and was never heard of again. The 
 crews of the other vessels in Spitzbergen knew 
 nothing of these men; or if they did, they 
 naturally supposed that the care of relieving 
 them might safely be left to their own vessel, 
 as nothing was yet known of her loss either 
 there or at Archangel. The ice in the summer 
 months prevented any vessel from accidentally 
 approaching Hvalfiske Point, and no one went 
 near it until the end of August, when a party 
 of Norwegians, who had lost their own vessel, 
 travelled along the shore to seek for assistance 
 from the Russian establishment ; but on ap- 
 praching the huts they were horror-struck to 
 find its inmates all dead. Fourteen of the 
 unhappy men had recently been buried in 
 shallow graves in front of the huts, two lay 
 dead just outside the threshold, and the re- 
 
 Q 
 
226 DEATH OF EIGHTEEN MEN 
 
 niaining two were lying dead inside, one on 
 the floor and the other in bed. The latter 
 was the superintendent, who had been able to 
 read and write, and a journal-book lying beside 
 him contained a record of their sad fate. 
 
 It appeared that early in the season scurvy 
 of a malignant character had attacked them ; 
 some had died at the out-stations, and the 
 survivors had with difficulty assembled at the 
 head-quarter station, and were in hopes of being 
 speedily relieved by the vessel ; but the latter 
 not arriving, their stores got exhausted, and 
 the unusual quantity of ice surrounding the 
 coast prevented them from getting seals or 
 wildfowl on the sea or the shore. In addition 
 to the scurvy, they then had the horrors of 
 hunger to contend with, and they gradually 
 died one after another, and were buried by 
 their surviving companions, until at last only 
 four remained. Then two more died, and the 
 other two, not having strength to bury them, 
 dragged their bodies outside the hut and left 
 them there. These two then lay down in bed 
 together to await their own fate, and when 
 one of them died, the last man the writer of 
 the journal had only sufficient strength re 
 maining to push his dead companion out of the 
 
FROM SCURVY AND HUNGER. 227 
 
 bed on to the floor, and lie had soon after 
 wards expired himself, only a few days 
 before the Norwegian party arrived. The 
 Russians had a large pinnace in the harbour 
 and several small boats on shore, but the 
 ice at first prevented them reaching the 
 open sea, and latterly, when the ice opened 
 out, those who survived so long were much 
 too weak to make any use of the boats. 
 The shipwrecked Norwegians, therefore, took 
 advantage of the pinnace to effect their own 
 escape to Hammerfest, carrying with them 
 the poor superintendent s journal, which 
 the Russian consul at that port transmitted 
 to Archangel. 
 
 "When I first visited this spot in 1858, I 
 took a photograph of it. 
 
 Everything then remained almost exactly as 
 the unfortunate Russians left it, and some of 
 their weapons, cooking utensils, and ragged 
 fragments of clothes and bedding lay scattered 
 around. A great many skulls and bones of 
 bears, foxes, deer, seals, and walruses also testi 
 fied to their success as hunters. We likewise 
 found a curious implement, like a miniature 
 wooden rake, the use of which contrivance was 
 a complete enigma to me, until our pilot ex- 
 
 *Q2 
 
22S INGENIOUS COUNTER-IRRITANT. 
 
 plained that such were commonly used by the 
 Russians when they suffered from entomo 
 logical annoyances. 
 
 The huts were all formed of logs dovetailed 
 into one another at the corners, and were 
 tolerably entire except the roofs, which had 
 been flat and covered with earth, but had now 
 mostly fallen in. The principal one, about 
 twenty-four feet square, had been used both as 
 sitting-room, and dormitory; off this was a 
 small wing with a brick fire-place, evidently 
 used as a kitchen.- Another hut was the 
 store-house, and a third of all things in the 
 world a Russian bath-house of a rude de 
 scription, in which I suppose they had enjoyed 
 the national luxury of parboiling themselves, 
 and then rolling in the snow at a tempera 
 ture of 50 or so. The roof of the main 
 hut had fallen in, and a little glacier, about 
 as large as a boat turned bottom up, had 
 formed in the middle of the floor. On a 
 gentle eminence, at a distance of two or three 
 hundred yards from the huts, they had built 
 up a sort of look-out house of loose stones, and 
 here we may conceive they passed alternately 
 many weary hours in watching the ice-laden 
 sea before them. 
 
CEICKET IN SPITZBERGEN. 229 
 
 They may even have been tantalised by 
 seeing the topsails of vessels passing outside of 
 the icy barrier, but far beyond their reach. 
 On a little piece of level ground, not far from 
 the huts, they had kept themselves in exercise 
 by playing at a game resembling cricket, as 
 was evident by the bats and rude wooden balls 
 they had used still lying on the mossy ground. 
 Altogether there was something inexpressibly 
 sad and desolate about the remains of this 
 unfortunate establishment ; and by the rude 
 Norwegian sealers the place is regarded with 
 a degree of superstitious awe which perhaps 
 may be the reason for the huts being in such a 
 good state of preservation. As my English 
 sailors were not afflicted with any similar 
 scruples, and as we were in urgent need of 
 firewood, we took the liberty of appropriating 
 some pieces of one of the outhouses, although 
 I would not allow the standing parts of the 
 walls to be pulled down, in case the huts might 
 be called upon to do duty again as winter 
 quarters for any shipwrecked crew. We also 
 broke up a large boat, which never could have 
 been made seaworthy again, and which, 
 having been thickly smeared with pitch, made 
 excellent firewood. This boat, instead of being 
 
 Q3 
 
230 BOATS SEWN TOGETHER. 
 
 fastened together by metal nails or rivets, had 
 been sewed together with twigs or withies of 
 twisted birch, and was even then surprisingly 
 strong, the birchen withies remaining quite 
 sound and undecayed. This construction of 
 boat is, I believe, commonly used in Siberia 
 and Russian Lapland. 
 
 We arrived in the " Anna Louisa " off Hval- 
 fiske Point on the evening of the 23rd, and were 
 surprised not to find the yacht in the harbour ; 
 so we took a boat and landed to see if Mr. 
 Wood had left any letters in the post-office 
 to say where he was. On entering the door, 
 I pointed out to Kennedy my name and that 
 of my yacht, which more Britcmnorum I 
 had engraved on the lintel in letters three 
 inches long on my visit the previous year. 
 Hung up by a rope-yarn to one of the ceiling- 
 beams we found a letter from Mr. Wood, 
 saying that he had been obliged by the gale 
 of the 19th and 20th to leave that harbour 
 and take refuge in another, a few miles to 
 the north. As the night was fine, Kennedy 
 and myself decided on walking there, and so 
 we sent our boat s-crew on board the sloop 
 and set off alone, thinking the distance was 
 only two or three miles, and that we might 
 
ANAS BERNICLA. 231 
 
 fall in with some geese on the way. To the 
 north and east was an immense flat, at least 
 five or six miles in breadth, extending from 
 the shore to the hills ; it was dead level, and 
 beautifully green, with mosses slightly inter- 
 sprinkled with grass, and looked as if it ought 
 to be a very good place for deer, but we could 
 see none. This part of the island is very little 
 frequented by deer in the summer months, 
 although they are said to come down here in 
 immense numbers during winter. The plain 
 was strewed with quantities of their cast horns 
 and tufts of winter hair. We saw vast flocks 
 of Brent or Bernacle geese (Anas Bernicla) 
 pasturing on the plain, but as these birds in the 
 winter get the benefit of enlarging their minds 
 by an European education, they took quite 
 as good care of themselves as they do when 
 they are " down south." The walking across 
 the flat was awfully bad, as we went nearly 
 up to the knees in the soft, splashy, mossy 
 ground at every step, so we took towards 
 the shore, intending to follow it up until we 
 should find the harbour mentioned by Mr. 
 Wood s letter. The shore was also very bad 
 walking, and after travelling much further 
 than we had expected, and seeing nothing of 
 
 Q4 
 
232 KILL THREE GEESE WITH BALL. 
 
 the yacht, we began to think there must be 
 some mistake ; and not being in good walking 
 condition after our long confinement in the 
 sloop, we began also to get tired, and to think 
 we should have to pass the night on the shore. 
 We determined not to pass it supperless, at all 
 events, if we could help it ; so observing a large 
 flock of geese in a sort of creek on the shore, 
 with a ridge of trap rocks on one side of them, 
 we commenced to stalk them, in hopes of 
 getting near enough to kill one with our 
 rifles. "When we got behind the rocks we 
 agreed sotto voce that I should fire first; so 
 peering over the rocks I saw the geese all busy 
 guzzling amongst the mud, and, taking a 
 cool aim, I was lucky enough to send rifle- 
 balls through two of them by a right-and-left 
 shot ; they were young birds and Avere slow in 
 getting on the wing, which enabled Lord David, 
 by a beautiful shot, to knock over a third as 
 they squattered along the surface of the water. 
 (N. B. Nothing makes a man shoot so well 
 as the fact of his dinner depending on the 
 shot.) We then walked about a mile or so 
 further, until we found a sheltered corner 
 amongst the rocks, with lots of drift-wood 
 lying about it ; here we agreed to pass the 
 
GET ON BOARD THE YACHT. 233 
 
 night, and I set about gathering the materials 
 for a fire, and commenced to pluck the geese, 
 while Kennedy walked to the top of a neigh 
 bouring rocky eminence to take one more look 
 for the yacht. After a while I saw him with 
 my glass beckoning to me, so concluding that 
 he had discovered her, I took up the geese and 
 joined him, when I also saw the yacht s top 
 masts, but still a long way off above a snug 
 little rock-encompassed cove, where she was 
 perfectly sheltered and almost hidden. "We 
 got on board about 4 A.M., not sorry to 
 exchange broiled goose and a bed on the rocks 
 for a supper of reindeer cutlets, with hot 
 brandy-and-water, and comfortable cots. 
 
 24tk. While we were asleep the crew got 
 the anchor up, and sailed down to where we 
 had left the sloop. Our intention being to go 
 in quest of deer up Wybe Jan s Water, where 
 there was not now much chance of ice, we left 
 the slow sailing sloop in the anchorage at the 
 Russian huts, and took out of her the two 
 servants and a portion of our kits ; also Chris 
 tian and Johann, with the two walrus-boats and 
 tackle, in case we should unexpectedly fall in 
 with walruses or seals. We then ran up the 
 fiord before a slashing breeze, at ten or eleven 
 
234 TENACITY OF LIFE IN A REINDEER. 
 
 knots an hour, a rate of speed which seemed to 
 us little short of miraculous, after the perfor 
 mances of the " Anna Louisa." 
 
 The yacht s crew were all in good health and 
 spirits. They had killed seven fat reindeer 
 and one seal, after an expenditure of between 
 five and six hundred rounds of ammunition. 
 The British sailor is generally a most enthu 
 siastic, but lamentably unsuccessful sportsman, 
 and we were exceedingly amused by the way 
 they described their sporting exploits. The 
 mate told me " he never saw hanirnals so hard 
 to kill as the reindeer in his life. Why, Sir," 
 said he, " there was one fellow I fired at, and 
 broke his hind leg broke it right off, Sir, and 
 even that didn t kill him ; and, Lord bless you, 
 Sir, he ran much faster on three legs than I 
 could ; then I shot him through the head, Sir, 
 and made his jaw hang down ; but even that 
 didn t kill him till I got up nearer him, and 
 gave him a settler." 
 
 Another sailor gravely told me that he had 
 fired at a white whale from the beach and 
 wounded him, upon w r hich the infuriated mon 
 ster ran right ashore in its frantic efforts " to 
 get at him." 
 
 Their description of a walrus-hunt, however, 
 was quite the most refreshing sporting narra- 
 
AMUSING WALRUS-HUNT. 235 
 
 tive I ever listened to. This unlucky animal, 
 the only one they had seen, floated along 
 side of the yacht on a cake of ice while they 
 were at anchor in Bell Sound. Half the crew 
 were absent in the whale-boat, which con 
 tained all the harpoons and lances ; but Mr. 
 Wood and two hands, armed with a rifle and a 
 shot-gun, valorously attacked the monster in 
 the dingy. Unluckily they only took two 
 cartridges for the rifle, but they commenced 
 proceedings by administering one of these to 
 the walrus " in his loins" that naturally sug 
 gesting itself to them as being the most 
 vulnerable part of the animal ; it " seemed to 
 go right through the walrus and disabled him, 
 as he did not leave the ice, but merely raised 
 his head and looked at them, upon which they 
 gave him another bullet in the head this 
 time." I fancy this bullet must have struck 
 the animal on the nostrils, as upon receiving it 
 "he scuffled into the water, but could not 
 remain underneath," so they rowed after him 
 and continued firing repeated doses of small shot 
 into his face whenever he appeared, until the 
 persecuted amphibian went ashore, and, in the 
 desperation of his heart, "walked back and 
 forwards " on the beach. There they thought 
 they were sure of him, but he contrived to get 
 
236 BURSTING OP A GUN. 
 
 past them, and finally sunk in deeper water. 
 They then " swept " for him nearly a whole 
 day with a weighted rope, but could not re 
 cover him. 
 
 An affair which might have had a termina 
 tion anything hut comical, however, was, that 
 they had burst the gun I had bought at Ham- 
 merfest for them to shoot fowls with. They 
 seemed to attribute this catastrophe to the low 
 price (four and a half dollars) which I had 
 given for that weapon; but as a gentleman 
 who accompanied me last summer had burst a 
 seventy-guinea London rifle near the very 
 same spot, a friend of mine burst a four- 
 barrel the year before in Norway, and my 
 present compagnon de voyage, Lord David 
 Kennedy, burst another expensive rifle by 
 the same maker a few years before in India ; 
 it seems that even the exorbitant prices charged 
 by the crack London makers afford no security 
 whatever against such accidents ; so that I was 
 inclined to attribute this mishap to careless 
 loading. The explosion had very nearly de 
 prived my valued sailing-master, Mr. "Wood, of 
 his left arm ; and as it was, the arm had been 
 burned and lacerated in a painful manner, but 
 was now healing. 
 
BITTER, COLD MORNING. 237 
 
 CHAP. XV. 
 
 Bitter Cold. Reindeer-shooting. Three right and left 
 Shots. Delight of the Sailors. Black Fox. Ponche a 
 la Spitzberg. Description of the Eeindeer. High Con 
 dition he attains. Excellence of his Flesh. His Igno 
 rance of Man. Anecdotes. Fine Valley. Unexplored 
 Channel. Near Heinlopen Straits. Unjust Attack. 
 Marrow-bones. Ice-borne Boulders. Good " Bag." 
 Two singular Mountains. Thymen s Straits. Meri 
 torious Deer. Receipt for Kabobs. Splendid Deer 
 Forest. Eejoin the Sloop. 
 
 BY seven in the evening we had reached the 
 anchorage opposite to a valley where I had 
 killed some reindeer in 1858 ; but it being 
 Sunday we did not land, nor was there any 
 inducement to do so, as we could see the 
 entire valley with telescopes from the deck, 
 and there was not a single reindeer visible 
 in it. 
 
 On the 25th we went ashore in both boats 
 at 4 A.M. of a bitterly cold morning (thermo 
 meter 16 in the companion-way). After 
 hauling the boats high and dry out of the reach 
 
238 REINDEER-STALKING. 
 
 of accidents, we ran about to warm ourselves, 
 and then, taking different sides of a large wide 
 valley, we proceeded to seek for deer. Lord 
 David unluckily got amongst ground which 
 had been hunted a few days previously (as we 
 afterwards ascertained) by a boat s crew from 
 Ericson s brig, and he consequently saw nothing, 
 and returned to the yacht about mid-day. 
 
 I walked five or six miles, when I reached a 
 high glen amongst the hills, and close to the 
 line of perpetual snow and ice. It also snowed 
 hard as we walked up, and it was frightfully 
 cold as the wind whistled down over the 
 glaciers to the eastward of us. The walking, 
 however, was excellent, as the intense frost had 
 frozen the beastly, splashy, muddy, mossy 
 conipoimd, which in Spitzbergen represents 
 soil, to the consistency of iron. 
 
 I first found three indifferent young deer on 
 an open place where I could not approach 
 nearer than 250 yards ; but I managed to break 
 the shoulder of the best one, and I finished 
 him off with another shot. The other two ran 
 up the glen, and I did not follow them 
 in the meantime, as I now observed two much 
 finer stags on a hill a mile off. I stalked up 
 a little gully, which allowed me to approach 
 
i. 
 
 H 
 
 
THREE DOUBLE-SHOTS. 239 
 
 quite close to these deer, unseen by them ; but 
 the instant I put up my head to look at them, 
 they took the alarm, and were going best pace 
 down a steep hill, when my bullets overtook 
 them, and they both rolled dead down the hill., 
 going heels overhead like rabbits as they fell. 
 
 My boat s crew now set to work to gralloch 
 these deer, and to carry them down to the boat 
 half a deer to a man while I followed up 
 the glen in search of the two indifferent stags 
 I had lost sight of. I found them about two 
 miles up, and close to the edge of the glacier. 
 They were not much alarmed, and had recom 
 menced to feed, so I easily got within shot of 
 them again, and I disposed of them also by a 
 right and left shot. I opened these two deer 
 myself, as the sailors were on their way to the 
 boat. After having concluded this necessary, 
 but slightly disagreeable operation, I sat down 
 and had a good look round with my glass. I 
 soon had the satisfaction of discovering two 
 superb stags lying down on the opposite side of 
 the glen. It now began to snow very heavily, 
 and under cover of it I crossed the glen, not 
 far from the stags, without their seeing me. 
 I got up to about a hundred yards or so from 
 them behind a bank of mossy earth, and shot 
 
240 DELIGHT OF THE SAILORS. 
 
 one of them dead as he lay. The other sprang 
 to his feet on hearing the report, and instantly 
 shared a similar fate. 
 
 My sailors came back while I was admiring 
 these two splendid stags, as they lay bleeding 
 on the snow, and loud were Jack s expressions 
 of wonder, admiration, and delight at finding 
 as many deer lying dead in the glen, after seven 
 hours stalking, as had taken them all four 
 weeks to kill. One of these men a fine young 
 fellow, the very beau-ideal of an English sailor 
 was an ex-man-of-war s-man, and had as 
 sisted in that deplorable business at Petro- 
 paulauski, and he seemed to think that if 
 they had had a few four-barrelled rifles on that 
 unhappy occasion, the Hoosians would not have 
 had so much the best of it ! 
 
 I had now shot all the deer which I could 
 discover in the valley, and more than my four 
 sailors could carry down to the sea in one day. 
 While we were cutting up the last two deer 
 a black fox made his appearance, probably 
 attracted by the smell of the venison ; but he 
 seemed to be fully aware of the important fact, 
 that his sable jacket was worth 20/.*, as he 
 
 * A good skin of this rare animal is, I believe, the most 
 valuable fur in the world. 
 
PONCHE A LA SPITZBERG. 241 
 
 avoided all my attempts to get within rifle-shot 
 of him. 
 
 Before proceeding to the sea with a second 
 load of meat we ate some biscuits, and, as the 
 intense frost had congealed all the water in 
 this high valley, we indulged in a " ponche a 
 la Eomaine" or rather " poncJie a la Spitzberg" 
 by saturating cupfuls of snow with rum ; and 
 I can strongly recommend that cordial to any 
 one under similar circumstances. 
 
 In this valley I observed some singular 
 conical-shaped masses of trap or other Plutonic 
 rock, which had abruptly burst up through 
 the limestone hills. 
 
 We got on board about 4 P.M., and my 
 four men having walked at least twenty miles, 
 ten of which with half a fat stag on each of 
 their backs, I sent a boat s crew of fresh hands 
 to bring down the remainder of the venison. 
 
 The rein-deer (Cervus Tarandus) abounds in 
 most parts of Spitzbergen, and in every valley 
 which affords any vegetation, a troop of from 
 three to twenty is generally to be met with. 
 They do not grow to such a large size as the 
 tame rein-deer of Lapland, nor are their horns 
 quite so fine; but they attain to a most ex 
 traordinary degree of condition. This seems to 
 
 E, 
 
242 HIGH CONDITION OF EEINDEEH. 
 
 be a sort of provision of nature to enable these 
 animals to exist through the long Polar winter, 
 as during that inclement season, although they 
 no doubt obtain a little sustenance by picking 
 the dry withered moss from spots which the 
 wind has cleared of snow, as well as by scraping 
 up the snow with their feet to get at it, still they 
 must in a great measure subsist by consuming 
 internally their own fat. The short space of 
 time which suffices for them to lay on this 
 coat of blubber is perfectly extraordinary ; and 
 as scarcely any grass exists even in the most 
 favoured parts of Spitzbergen, this must be 
 chiefly attributable to some excessively nu 
 tritious properties in the mosses on which they 
 feed. The deer killed by my yacht s crew in 
 Bell Sound in July were mere skin and bone, 
 whereas now, in the end of August, every deer 
 we shot was seal-fat, and in all probability 
 their condition goes on improving until the 
 end of September. Of those we killed, even 
 the hinds giving milk and the calves were very 
 fat, and the old stags were perfectly obese, 
 having all over their bodies a sort of cylinder 
 of beautifully hard and white fat about two 
 inches thick in most part s, and at least three 
 inches thick over the haunches and on the 
 
EXCELLENCE OF HIS FLESH. 243 
 
 brisket. We had no means of weighing these 
 deer, but I consider that the best stags must 
 have exceeded three hundred pounds in clean 
 weight. I think the flesh of the rein- deer is 
 
 o 
 
 the richest and most delicious meat, wild or 
 tame, which I ever tasted, with the excep 
 tion of a fat Eland, and a diminutive West 
 Indian animal called by the negroes the Lapp* 
 (Ccologenys or Cavia Paca). Unlike the flesh 
 of most wild animals, the venison of the rein 
 deer is not improved by keeping, and I think 
 it is never better than the same day, or even 
 the same hour, that the animal is killed. 
 When it is kept long the fat gets dark co 
 loured, and acquires a rank and unpleasant 
 taste and odour. 
 
 In the summer months they do not live in 
 large herds together. An extensive valley 
 may, perhaps, contain forty or fifty deer, but 
 they are all in small independent companies of 
 two, four, or six ; and I have seldom, if ever, 
 seen more than eight in one herd. In the 
 winter season, however, when they come down 
 to the islands and the wide flats on the sea- 
 
 * After a somewhat extensive experience in that line, I 
 am inclined to award to the Lapp the palm of being the 
 best culinary animal in the world. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 TAMENESS OP THE DEER. 
 
 shore, I imagine they congregate in great 
 numbers, and at that time they travel over 
 long distances of ice and land in search of 
 food. 
 
 The hair of the rein-deer is very long, thick, 
 and close, and is of a slaty-grey colour, verging 
 into white about the stern and belly. The 
 hinds have horns as well as the stags, although 
 of a smaller size. They shed their horns 
 every winter, and numbers of these cast-horns 
 strew the plains where the herds have win 
 tered. 
 
 The deer I had killed on the 25th were 
 reasonably shy and wild, as I think they had 
 been hunted by Ericson s boat s crew in the 
 lower valley a few days before ; but sometimes 
 they are incredibly tame and fearless, and I have 
 repeatedly known deer, which I had failed in 
 approaching unseen, to come up boldly of their 
 own accord until they were within easy shot of 
 me, although I was not only in full view, but 
 to windward of them ! I can only account for 
 this extraordinary temerity on the part of 
 these deer by supposing that they were indi 
 viduals which had been reared in some remote 
 part of the country, and had never seen a 
 human being, nor anything else which could 
 
HOW ACCOUNTED FOE. 245 
 
 hurt them*, in their previous blissful existences. 
 Neither does the report of a rifle much alarm 
 them ; but that is more easily understood, as 
 they are no doubt accustomed to hearing the 
 cracking of the glaciers and the noises caused 
 by the splitting of rocks from the frost in 
 winter. 
 
 On one occasion Lord David Kennedy found 
 a troop of five deer, and obtaining a concealed 
 position within shot of them, he knocked over 
 four of them with a round from his four- 
 barrelled rifle ; the survivor then stood snuffing 
 his dead companions until Kennedy had time 
 to load one barrel, and to consummate this 
 unparalleled sporting feat by polishing him off 
 likewise. 
 
 Another time we broke one of the fore-feet 
 of an old fat stag from an unseen ambush ; his 
 companions ran away, and the wounded deer, 
 after making some attempts to follow them, 
 which the softness of the ground and his own 
 corpulence prevented him from doing, looked 
 about him a little, and then, seeing nothing, he 
 
 * There are no wolves in Spitzbergen ; and I am inclined 
 to doubt whether the Polar bear ever meddles with the 
 rein-deer, unless he may fall in with a sick or wounded 
 individual near the sea-shore. 
 
 B 3 
 
246 ROW Lip TO THE HEAD OF FIORD. 
 
 actually began to graze on his three remaining 
 
 C? 
 
 legs as if nothing had happened of sufficient 
 consequence to keep him from his dinner ! 
 
 On the 26th, we again started at 4 in the 
 morning in both boats, to make an expedition 
 to the head of Stour Fiord, distant about 
 seventeen miles ; with the view of laying in a 
 further supply of deer. We first ran about six 
 or seven miles under sail, with a fine breeze 
 and smooth water ; and then, the fiord making 
 an abrupt turn to the east*, we were obliged 
 to take to the oars, and after six hours of hard 
 pulling against both wind and tide, we reached 
 the embouchure of an extensive flattisli valley, 
 which I knew to be one of the best places in 
 the country for deer. Here we left Lord David, 
 as I felt sure that he would have no difficulty 
 in filling his boat with venison. Not caring 
 about that description of sport myself, I con 
 tinued three or four miles further on, to 
 explore a sort of narrow gut or sound into 
 which the fiord there contracts, in hopes of 
 finding some floating ice with seals, or may-be 
 a bear. We found a good deal of ice but no 
 seals, and on entering the gut there was such 
 
 * It is erroneously marked in the charts as if it con 
 tinued straight north. 
 
TJNEXPLORED CHANNEL. 247 
 
 a tremendous current running down it, that 
 after persevering for two or three miles more, 
 we were obliged to stop. 
 
 I stopped with great reluctance, as I was 
 extremely anxious to ascertain whether this 
 channel really communicates with the East Sea 
 or not. Many of the habitues of Spitzbergen 
 believe that it does, but the point has never 
 been clearly settled, as nobody has ever passed 
 through the sound, or seen the termination of 
 it. I then tried to continue the exploration 
 by walking up the sides of the sound but the 
 ground was so excessively rough as to be al 
 most impracticable for walking, and I had to 
 give it up. 
 
 Christian had been sixteen seasons in Spitz 
 bergen, but he had never been so far up as 
 this before, and could give me no information 
 on the subject. He however agreed with me 
 in opinion that there was strong evidence in 
 favour of the communication being complete, 
 because the water seemed very deep, and much 
 heavy ice was floating down it ; also, he 
 thought the current was much stronger than 
 was likely to be caused by the mere return of 
 the regular tide down Stour Fiord. 
 
 The day was tolerably clear, but there was 
 
 E 4 
 
248 NEAR HEINLOPEN STRAIT. 
 
 no hill near us on which we could ascend to 
 obtain a more extended view in that direction. 
 From the top of the highest rocks we could 
 find we could see no high land to the east 
 ward, nor anything but low, flattish, rugged 
 hillocks of a coarse red-brown Plutonic rock, 
 with many small glaciers lying amongst them. 
 The surface of these rocks was much smooth - 
 ened and polished, as if by the passage over 
 them of much heavy ice in bygone times. 
 There was not a particle of vegetation to be 
 seen, and the aspect of the country was bleak, 
 sterile, and gloomy beyond description. 
 
 Christian said the sky in that direction had 
 the peculiar appearance which indicates ice 
 underneath, and altogether our impre ssion was 
 that we were within a very few miles of the 
 East Sea, probably at or about Heinlopen 
 Straits. If the longitude of the coast of these 
 straits is laid down in the charts at all cor 
 rectly, we undoubtedly were close to them 
 now ; but the old charts of Spitzbergen are so 
 extremely defective, that no reliance is to be 
 placed upon them in any respect. 
 
 I turned my back upon these unexplored 
 straits with regret, and we now hoisted the sail 
 and stood slowly along the coast of the main 
 
LUDICROUS MISTAKE. 249 
 
 fiord to look for deer. In the first valley we 
 came to, we espied some small troops of deer 
 feeding w fHn half a mile of the shore. We 
 landed, and I killed nine of them without 
 much trouble, and as these were thoroughly 
 unsophisticated animals, I might easily have 
 shot as many more, but I got disgusted with 
 such a burlesque upon sport and left them 
 alone. I was much amused by one of these 
 deer a well- grown stag who, upon receiving 
 my bullet in his ribs, made a furious attack 
 upon a companion of about his own size, 
 evidently under the impression that the bullet- 
 wound was the result of a treacherous prod 
 from the horns of his friend. 
 
 While the sailors were carrying down these 
 deer, I gathered a lot of drift-wood, and soon 
 made a roaring fire, whereat we boiled some 
 coffee and made a glorious fry of chops and 
 kidneys in the iron baling-ladle of the boat ; 
 topping up with broiled marrow-bones, a very 
 different article, oh ! my dear reader, from 
 the bestial compound of brains and lard 
 rammed into old bones, which you have often 
 eaten in London, and imagined, in the inno 
 cence of your heart, to be real marrow. 
 
 When standing on the rocks up the small 
 
250 BOATLOAD OF VENISON. 
 
 sound, I had observed a large bay 011 the 
 opposite side of the fiord to be full of floating 
 ice, and we now sailed across to that in hopes 
 of falling in with seals. It was very suitable 
 ice ; but the night was too cold for seals, and 
 we only found two on many square miles of 
 ice. I shot them both, but one of them was 
 lost. I observed a great many large dark- 
 coloured stones lying on different pieces of this 
 ice, and mistook several of them for seals, until 
 we got close enough to discover our mistake. 
 These stones probably tumbled off the hills on 
 the ice while it lay in an unbroken sheet across 
 the fiord, and were now being transported about 
 to be deposited, elsewhere. 
 
 We had a cold and fatiguing row back to the 
 yacht, and did not reach her until we had been 
 twenty-eight hours absent. 
 
 As I expected, Lord David had found his 
 valley full of deer, and had shot a boat-load of 
 them. His men had further to carry them 
 than mine had, so they did not reach the yacht 
 until after an absence of nearly forty hours. 
 
 I observed two very singular mountains in 
 this trip up the high fiord. One of these was a 
 long, large hill of about 1500 feet in height, and 
 apparently composed of the same shaly, sandy 
 
HILL WITH BANDS OF COAL. 251 
 
 limestone as mostly all of the lower hills of 
 East Spitzbergen ; but it had a perfectly flat or 
 tabular top, and the upper stratum, as well as 
 another band about the middle of the hill, 
 were composed of black substance, which I 
 supposed to be coal. I was not within several 
 miles of the hill ; but I estimated the thickness 
 of each of these black bands at about twenty 
 feet. Their substance was evidently pretty 
 hard, as the ends of the bands stood up per 
 pendicularly, instead of participating in the 
 otherwise uniform 45 slope of the hill. At 
 the left-hand, or south-westerly side of the hill, 
 I could perceive that the lower band gradually 
 thinned away to nothing. This hill is very 
 conspicuously placed, and cannot fail to be 
 recognised by any future visitor to the upper 
 part of Stour Eiord. 
 
 The other hill I imagine to be a truncated 
 cone of Plutonic rock, and of it I can hardly 
 hope to give a sketch that will convey any idea 
 of its singularly grand and picturesque appear 
 ance. It seemed to be about 600 feet high, 
 and two or three miles in circumference at the 
 base, and the lower two-thirds of its height 
 consisted of a steep talus of detritus covered 
 with beautifully variegated mosses, while the 
 
252 now TO THYMEN S STEAITS. 
 
 upper third was composed of a series of bright 
 russet-coloured columns of rock, arranged per 
 pendicularly, and looking exactly like a number 
 of half-decayed trunks of enormous trees bound 
 together in a sort of Titanic faggot. 
 
 27th. After myself and my boat s crew had 
 had five hours sleep, we started again on 
 another trip, my intention being to penetrate 
 well into Walter Thymen s Straits, a narrow 
 passage of twenty or five-and-twenty miles 
 long, and five or six in breadth, which di 
 vides East Spitzbergen into two nearly equal 
 halves. 
 
 When there is ice in this strait it is a great 
 thoroughfare for seals and sea-horses passing 
 from the East Sea into Stour Fiord, and we 
 were in hopes that ice would by this time have 
 been driven into it by the current from the 
 east. It is considered a dangerous place for 
 vessels, on account of the violent current 
 running through it, so I preferred going in 
 the boat to risking my yacht itself in the 
 straits. 
 
 It seemed by the chart as if we had not more 
 than ten or twelve miles to go, as in the chart 
 there is laid down at the north-west corner of 
 the straits what appears to be a bank with 
 
LONG ROCKY PROMONTORY. 253 
 
 shallow water over it, protruding a long way 
 into Stour Fiord. We had a fine day, with a 
 strong, though bitterly cold breeze of east 
 wind, and I steered the boat close along shore, 
 hoping, as it was near high tide, that we might 
 have sufficient depth of water to enable us to 
 make a short cut by sailing over this bank. 
 On reaching the edge of the bank, however, 
 I found to my surprise that it was not a sub 
 marine bank at all, but an immense flat plain 
 of dry land edged with a reef of rocks several 
 feet above high tide mark, and we had to make 
 a long detour to get round it. 
 
 As there has been no survey of Spitzbergen 
 in recent times, and all the charts are copied 
 from an ancient Dutch or Danish one, pub 
 lished two centuries or more ago, I think it is 
 highly probable that this point of land was 
 actually under water (as the chart seems to 
 represent it) at the time the latter was con 
 structed, and that it has since been gradually 
 elevated to its present level. Enormous quan 
 tities of drift-wood lay upon the reef of rocks 
 above the sea-level. 
 
 When we had got round this long pro 
 montory and about six miles into the straits 
 it fell calm,- and we encountered such a strong 
 
254 ACCOMMODATING STAG. 
 
 current from the eastward, that we could make 
 110 head against it; and it being now 9 P.M., 
 we went ashore in a little sandy hay to spy out 
 the land and see whether it afforded anything 
 for supper. I took my rifle and my glass, and 
 ascended to the top of a neighbouring hillock, 
 and from there I soon discovered our evening 
 meal provided to our hands in the shape of 
 a fat stag, grazing by himself on the slope of 
 a hill about a mile distant. I therefore an 
 nounced to the crew that we should sup there 
 and set two of them to gather wood and make 
 a fire, while the other two accompanied me 
 to carry down the stag, who was still quietly 
 engaged with his own supper, and in a happy 
 state of unconsciousness of how soon he would 
 be called upon to conjugate the verb to sup 
 in a passive instead of an active sense. 
 
 A beautifully developed terrace of trap 
 rocks conducted me within forty yards of 
 the stag, and in twenty minutes more he was 
 at the side of the fire which, like those of the 
 cannibals in Robinson Crusoe, had been lighted 
 for him while yet alive. 
 
 I shudder to think how many pounds of 
 this meritorious animal we consumed in the 
 shape of chops, marrow-bones, and kaLols. 
 
RECEIPT FOR KABOBS. 255 
 
 The latter I have found on such occasions 
 to be the best mode of cooking fresh-killed 
 meat ; the mode of preparing them is as 
 follows : 
 
 [First catch a fat deer, then cut a number of 
 wooden skewers, and thread upon these alter 
 nately pieces of meat, fat, and heart, each cut 
 to about the size and thickness of a dollar; 
 broil upon the glowing embers, season with 
 wood-ashes in the absence of salt and pepper, 
 and bite them off while smoking hot. If you 
 are hungry, you fancy this the most delicious 
 thing you ever tasted. For my knowledge of 
 this most interesting plat I was indebted to a 
 one-eyed Arab cook, yclept Hadji Mohammed, 
 
 whom Sir P S and myself had on an 
 
 expedition in Egypt and Palestine some years 
 ago. I have also seen kabobs retailed to the 
 faithful by itinerant cooks in the streets of 
 Constantinople. . 
 
 After supper we erected a screen to wind 
 ward ef the fire by hanging the boat s sail 
 upon the harpoon shafts ; and then, lighting 
 our pipes, we lay down to sleep on the beach, 
 "Plenus Bacchi*, pinguisque ferine;" like 
 
 * For " Bacchi," read " backy," and the quotation will be 
 more applicable. 
 
256 WHALE S SKELETON. 
 
 the pious ^Eneas and his companions on the 
 shores of Italia. 
 
 We have lost sight of the midnight sun 
 for the last few days, and it was slightly 
 dusk at night. The temperature was far 
 below frost, but we slept very comfortably. 
 The crew kept watch alternately, to mind 
 the boat and keep up the fire, and I could 
 observe, in my waking moments, that the 
 sentinel always seemed to be whiling away 
 the tedious hours by renewed attacks upon 
 the carcass of the stag. 
 
 On awaking in the morning, I summoned 
 one of the men to my assistance, and walked 
 to a place about half a mile distant, where, 
 whe^n stalking the stag the evening before, 
 I had observed some bones of a whale pro 
 truding from the moss at a good elevation. 
 The height above the sea proved to be 
 about forty-two feet, and the entire skele 
 ton of a very large whale lay there par 
 tially imbedded in moss and earth. There 
 was a terrace of trap rocks between it and 
 the sea, higher in most places than the 
 ground where the bones lay. These were 
 a good deal decayed, and were now frozen 
 hard to the ground, but we managed to 
 
VIEW DOWN THE STRAITS. 257 
 
 extract a piece of a jaw-bone*, tolerably 
 sound, and as large as a man could carry. 
 
 I sent iny attendant back to the boat with 
 this trophy, and I walked to the top of a 
 steep hill, to have a good look along the 
 straits, to see if there was no appearance of 
 the eastern ice coming through. Prom the 
 height I was on, I must have seen nearly to 
 the east end of the straits, but they seemed 
 quite clear of ice throughout their entire 
 length. There were two considerable glaciers 
 some miles down the straits, one on each side, 
 and both protruding into the sea. 
 
 Eor several miles about me, both to the 
 east and west, there extended the most beau 
 tiful piece of country to the eye of a deer 
 stalker, which I ever beheld. To the east 
 there lay a low flat plain, green with succu 
 lent mosses, and not less than ten thousand 
 acres in extent ; this plain gradually contracted 
 in breadth, until below where I stood, it was 
 only about a mile broad between the hills 
 and the straits, and here it was intersected 
 with dry water-courses, and ridges, and dykes 
 of trap rocks, affording admirable stalking 
 
 * Now in the Museum of the Geological Society. 
 8 
 
258 BEAUTIFUL DEER-FOREST. 
 
 ground. Prom the plain up to the rocky hill 
 whereon I stood, was a steep slope or talus, 
 beautifully carpeted with mosses ; before me 
 stretched a level plateau, or table-land, and 
 above that a number of grand sheltered 
 corries, with high rugged mountains towering 
 over all. The frost was intense, but the sun 
 shining brightly, the plains and the rocky 
 slopes looked as if covered with a brilliant 
 Turkey carpet, being red, brown, green, yel 
 low, orange, and purple with mosses. The 
 whole scene made up such a picture, or beau- 
 ideal of a deer-forest, as I never saw before. 
 
 I did not care about shooting any more deer 
 now, and there seemed to be no chance of that 
 much more exciting quarry, the sea-horse, so 
 we prepared to start. Before leaving the 
 yacht the day before, I had told Mr. Wood to 
 get up his anchor as soon as Lord David should 
 return on board, and drop down to a well-known 
 anchorage at the south-east corner of the straits, 
 and I would meet him there; but now, as 
 there was nothing to be clone in the straits 
 with the walruses, and we had tons of venison 
 on board, I determined to intercept the yacht, 
 and prevent her from coming to an anchor. 
 When we saw from the heights, therefore, 
 
GET ON BOARD AGAIN. 259 
 
 that the yacht was coming down, we made sail 
 to meet her. 
 
 Soon after we started, we saw six or seven 
 cakes of ice in a small bay, where they were 
 kept together by a sort of eddy, and upon one 
 of these lay a big seal asleep. I shot him 
 and took him with us; but when we got on 
 board the yacht, I was astonished to find that 
 it was Sunday, a fact of which I had previously 
 been quite unaware. 
 
 "We sailed rapidly down the fiord, and joined 
 our consort off Hvalfiske Point in the evening. 
 
 S 2 
 
260 DEAD WALRUS FOUND. 
 
 CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Dead "Walrus found. Bears nearly escape, but are caught. 
 
 Gale and Ice. Mynherr Holmengreen. Presents 
 more Kaffirorum. Send home the Sloop. Result of 
 Ericson s eight Months Voyage. South Cape. Sugar- 
 loaf Mountain. " Eight "Whales." Parasitical Gulls. 
 
 Practical Joke. Arctic Fauna. Chain of Subsist 
 ence. Divergence of "White Bear from original Stock. 
 Probable origin of the "Walrus And of the Seal. Of 
 the Cetaceans. Changes in the South African Ante 
 lopes, caused by Desiccation of that country. 
 
 THE " Anna Louisa s " people had also killed a 
 few rein- deer on the extensive plains near the 
 Hussian huts ; and they had found a bull- 
 walrus floating dead in the water, and of 
 course added his blubher to the cargo. He 
 was probably one of those we had shot and 
 sunk. I believe they all float up after a few 
 days, but the currents are so strong that they 
 are swept away to sea, and are very rarely 
 recovered. 
 
 The young bears had made a most deter 
 mined effort to escape, and had very nearly 
 succeeded. One day, while all hands except 
 
ESCAPE OP THE YOUNG BEARS. 261 
 
 the cook were ashore, they had taken the 
 opportunity to eat through the rotten drift 
 wood composing their cage, and to break out 
 on deck. The cook, hearing the scuffling of 
 their feet, came up and attempted to drive 
 them in again, but they completely got the 
 better of him, and compelled him to make a 
 precipitate retreat to the masthead for security. 
 They then added insult to injury, and still 
 further embittered the cook s feelings, by de 
 vouring great part of a haunch of fat venison 
 which was hanging on deck ready for dinner. 
 Finally, and we may suppose after a facetious 
 grin at the cook aloft, they clambered over the 
 side and swam ashore. Their triumph, however, 
 was not of long duration, for the rest of the 
 crew accidentally met them coolly travelling 
 along the shore in the evening ; and although 
 at first they were nearly shooting them for 
 wild bears, at last it occurred to them, from 
 there being no old one with them, that they 
 were their young shipmates trying to escape ; 
 so they pursued and recaptured them, but not 
 until after a most severe struggle, in the 
 course of which one or two of the men got 
 severely bitten by the young demons, who 
 
 8 3 
 
262 NORTH-EASTERLY GALE. 
 
 had now grown much too big and strong to 
 be handled with impunity. 
 
 We determined to have one more last look 
 at the edge of the main ice pack to the north 
 east, as the weather was so fine that we 
 thought we might still pick up a sea-horse or 
 two. Both yacht and sloop sailed in company 
 at midnight, steering for Black Point. A 
 howling gale of north-easterly wind came on 
 early in the morning, but the " Ginevra," in 
 which we still continued, easily beat up against 
 it, and got close to Black Point about 10 A.M. 
 on the 29th. We found great quantities of ice 
 had come down, and long lines of it stretched 
 far away to the south of us. 
 
 Near Black Point we recognised Danielsen s 
 schooner, and another small vessel from Bergen, 
 commanded by one Mynherr Holmengreen. 
 They were both at anchor, in shelter of an 
 island to leeward of the ice; and, as it was 
 blowing much too hard for boat work, we 
 dropped anchor beside them. 
 
 Mynherr Danielsen, probably observing the 
 long rows of fat quarters of venison hung up in 
 our rigging, honoured us with an immediate call. 
 He said his vessel, with Holmengreen s and our 
 two, were now the only remaining ships in the 
 
MYNHEER HOLMENGREEN. 263 
 
 Spitzbergen seas. He had been looking for 
 walruses on the Thousand Islands for ten days 
 past ; but had got nothing except one of our 
 dead ones. The Bergen schooner had found 
 a herd of several hundreds on one of these 
 islands ; but the men most indiscreetly attacked 
 them to windward, and the walruses taking 
 the alarm, all rushed into the sea. This must 
 have been the more provoking for the unlucky 
 schooner, as they had only killed fifteen all 
 summer. 
 
 Mr, Holmengreen also called to pay his 
 respects to us or our venison; and we were 
 much surprised to find him a stout, well- 
 dressed, benevolent-looking, elderly party in a 
 brown wig! Altogether he had much more 
 the appearance of a well-to-do London mer 
 chant than a Spitzbergen walrus-hunter; and 
 yet this man is said to be one of the pluckiest 
 and most skilful harpooners who ever transfixed 
 a walrus. 
 
 In the afternoon my steward informed me, 
 with a very serious air indeed, that we were 
 " quite out of sugar," and he suggested that it 
 would be a " good plan to borrow some from 
 the schooners ; " so I sent the captains each 
 four fat quarters of deer, and desired one of 
 
 84 
 
264 PRESENTS IN THE KAFFIR FASHION. 
 
 our harpooners, who carried the meat, to say, 
 with my compliments, that if they had any 
 sugar to spare, it would be an acceptable return 
 for the gift, as we were quite out of that luxury. 
 This was somewhat in the Kaffir fashion of 
 making presents, and Johann seemed to think 
 it was to be a literal case of barter ; for he said 
 to me, " I suppose, if they have got no sugar, 
 then I -rill bring back the deer? " I replied, 
 " Of course not ; give the deer, and then ask 
 for some sugar." Nor was my confidence mis 
 placed ; for they sent us enough sugar to last 
 us to Hammerfest, and the mind of Mr. Quirk, 
 the steward, was set at rest. 
 
 30th. It still blows very hard from north 
 north-east, with heavy snow. Thermometer 
 is about 28, and barometer very low. 
 
 The " Anna Louisa " joined us last night. 
 
 In the evening it looked no better. The 
 barometer would not rise, and the ice began to 
 sweep round us ; so Mr. Wood said that he 
 must get the yacht at all events out of this 
 anchorage before next tide, as she had received 
 some very severe bangs from heavy icebergs 
 already ; and, not being protected by exterior 
 planking, like the other three vessels, it would 
 not do to expose her to such risk any more. 
 
WE ARE DRIVEN AWAY BY ICE. 265 
 
 We held a council of war, and discussed three 
 alternatives which we had before us : 
 
 Pirst : "We might shift again into the sloop, 
 and obstinately ride out the gale in her, and 
 then, if it abated within a few days, we might 
 hope for three or four days more at the wal 
 ruses, if we could find any. In this case the 
 yacht must be sent away in charge of a pilot to 
 await us at South Cape, or elsewhere, clear of 
 the ice. One grave objection to this course 
 was, that if thick weather came on we might 
 not be able to find the yacht at sea, and there 
 was no harbour in which I would now trust 
 her nearer than Ice Fiord, as Horn Sound and 
 Bell Sound are liable to be choked up in one 
 night when the ice is moving fast round to the 
 westwards. 
 
 Second : We could go home to Hammerfest 
 66 holus-bolus," as Mr. Wood expressed it, and, 
 
 Third : We could send the sloop over to 
 Hammerfest, and go round to Ice Piord our 
 selves in the yacht for a few days. The 
 advantages of the last plan were that the sloop s 
 crew could be paid off, and our cargo valued 
 and accounts squared by the time that we 
 should probably arrive, and that we might 
 thus escape the chance of detention in Ham- 
 
266 AND SAIL FOE THE WEST COAST. 
 
 nierfest. "VVe were also assured of getting 
 plenty of reindeer, and maybe white whales, 
 in Ice Piord ; but as that part of the coast is 
 clear of ice in the autumn, we must bid good 
 bye to the sea-horses for this season. 
 
 After some deliberation, we decided on adopt 
 ing the last-mentioned plan, and it seemed to 
 give general satisfaction to all concerned, in 
 cluding the masters of the two schooners, who 
 were resolved to remain to the last, and there 
 fore appeared to think that our terrible rifles 
 would be well out of their way. 
 
 In an hour after making up our minds, we 
 had got all our things out of the sloop, 
 " liquored-up " the crew of the latter, written 
 a letter to our agents in Hammerfest, got the 
 boats stowed, the anchors up, and made sail, 
 we for South Cape, and the "Anna Louisa" 
 for Hammerfest. We still kept Johann and 
 Christian in the yacht to act as pilots and 
 harpooners. 
 
 The " Anna Louisa " carried with her a man 
 belonging to Hammerfest, who had been a 
 harpooner in Ericson s brig. Ericson had left 
 him on board the " Anna Louisa " at Hvalfiske 
 Point, with a letter for me, in which he ex 
 pressed a hope that I would give him a passage 
 
ERICSON S CARGO. 267 
 
 to Hamnierfest, as it would save the expense 
 and delay of sending him by steamboat from 
 Tonsberg, in the south of Norway, to Hammer- 
 fest, in the extreme north. The man thus 
 luckily avoided a voyage of about 3000 miles. 
 
 Poor Ericson has a pretty wife with a young- 
 family in Tonsberg, and he must have gone 
 home to her with a heavy heart, for he has 
 made but a bad summer s "fishing" of it. 
 Between Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen, he has 
 been away from home seven months ; and his 
 letter to me mentions that he has only killed 
 270 Jan Mayen seals, 140 big Spitzbergen 
 seals, 62 walruses, 4 bears, and 35 rein-deer ; a 
 cargo which will afford but a miserable remu 
 neration for eight* months 5 time of a brig 
 carrying twenty-four men, and constantly man 
 ning four boats, and five upon an emergency. 
 
 S~Lst. Early in the morning we are off South 
 Cape, the sea quite free from ice and the 
 weather fine. I think storms are very local 
 in Spitzbergen, and it is probably as coarse as 
 ever at Black Point, that stormy promontory 
 where we encountered so many fierce gales of 
 wind. 
 
 * Allowing one month to reach Tonsberg. 
 
268 SUGAR-LOAF MOUNTAIN. 
 
 Very long, low, and dangerous reefs of rocks 
 run out many miles from the land all along 
 the coast, from South Cape to Ice Eiord. The 
 mountains are much higher and steeper than 
 in East Spitzbergen. There is one enormous 
 sugar-loaf-looking peak, not far from South 
 Cape. It appears to be of granite, and is said 
 to be the highest mountain in Spitzbergen. 
 This is evidently the mountain described by 
 Scoresby, who states its height to be 4500 
 feet ; although, judging by the eye, I should 
 have estimated it at considerably more. 
 
 Many of these mountains have a singularly 
 striking resemblance, on an enormously ex 
 aggerated scale, to the pyramids of Egypt. 
 Some of them, have four well-proportioned 
 sides, and slope at a very regular angle of 
 about 45 from top to bottom ; and the lines of 
 stratification being very horizontally disposed 
 and broken short off at the ends, give them 
 exactly the appearance of being composed of 
 gigantic courses of masonry, each smaller than 
 the one below it, until the mountain termi 
 nates in an absolute point. Others again have 
 the uppermost strata slightly overhanging, or 
 projecting over, those immediately below. 
 
 The 1st of September was a fine calm day, 
 
RIGHT WHALES. 269 
 
 with only occasional gusts of wind from the 
 valleys on the coast. 
 
 We saw two huge Mysticeti, or " right 
 whales," lazily rolling on the surface and 
 blowing sonorously, at one or two miles dis 
 tance. They remained so long above water 
 after each dive,, that it looked as if there would 
 be no great difficulty in harpooning them, 
 and only our want of proper tackle compelled 
 us reluctantly to abstain from making the ex 
 periment. 
 
 The sea here swarms with incredible num 
 bers of minute Medusa3, on which these 
 whales were probably feeding when we saw 
 them. These animalcule also seem to be af 
 fording an inexhaustible banquet to gulls and 
 guillemots by the thousand. The latter are 
 the only things we ever take the lives of with 
 out intending to make any use of them after 
 wards ; but they afford such admirable marks 
 for rifle practice, that the slaughter of them is 
 perhaps justifiable, as affording a means to 
 an end. 
 
 It is very amusing to watch the proceedings 
 of the parasitical gulls, of whom two or three 
 species exist here Larus parasiticus and 
 Larus glaucus ; the latter is called by the 
 
270 PARASITICAL GULLS. 
 
 Dutchmen the " Burgomaster," from his tyran 
 nical and rapacious selfishness. Neither of 
 these birds ever seem to take the trouble to 
 pick up anything for themselves ; but as soon 
 as they observe any other gull in possession of 
 a morsel which he is not able to swallow out 
 right, they dash at him and hunt him through 
 the air, until the victim is obliged to drop 
 whatever he has secured, and the ravenous 
 burgomaster then appropriates and swallows it 
 himself. I have watched many of these nefa 
 rious transactions, and the result is always the 
 same ; the small gull turns, and twists, and 
 doubles, and dodges, screaming all the time so 
 pitifully that one would think he expected to 
 lose his life instead of his dinner ; but at last 
 he is compelled to give up possession, and the 
 burgomaster then ceases to molest him. In 
 the breeding season, these parasitical gulls also 
 pick the eggs out of the nests of the inferior 
 tribes; but fortunately for the latter, the 
 number of their persecutors is very limited, or 
 else they would soon get exterminated alto 
 gether, and then L. parasiticus and L. glaucus 
 would be compelled to have recourse to a more 
 reputable mode of life to obtain a subsistence. 
 The sailors are very fond of playing off a 
 
PRACTICAL JOKE. 271 
 
 certain practical joke on the gulls which are 
 always hovering ahout the ships. The trick is 
 this : you take three or four pieces of sail- 
 twine, of a fathom or so in length, tie them all 
 together in the middle, and to the end of each 
 tightly attach a small piece of blubber, then 
 throw the whole into the sea; a gull comes 
 and swallows one piece; another then sees 
 there is plenty to spare, and swallows the 
 next ; perhaps a third gull takes possession of 
 another, but as they are all attached to one 
 another by the sail-yarns, whenever they try 
 to fly away, one party or another is perforce 
 compelled to disgorge his share ; and this is 
 continued at the expense of the poor gulls 
 alternately, to the great amusement of the 
 sailors. 
 
 It seems to me that an attentive study of 
 the Arctic Fauna is capable of throwing great 
 light upon some debated questions in Natural 
 History. 
 
 I am aware that I am now treading upon very 
 dangerous ground, and that what I say will be 
 severely criticised ; but I will " take a header " 
 into the deep waters of controversy at once, 
 and unhesitatingly avow my belief that an 
 attentive study of the Arctic animals is capable 
 
272 ARCTIC ZOOLOGY. 
 
 of mightily strengthening the theory of pro 
 gressive development, first suggested by the 
 illustrious Lamarck, and since so ably ex 
 pounded and defended, under somewhat modi 
 fied forms, by the author of the " Vestiges of 
 Creation," and by Mr. Charles Darwin. 
 
 There, Messieurs les Critiques, is a chance for 
 you ! " Pitch into him ; jump down his throat ; 
 tear him in pieces ; the Atheist ! the La- 
 marckian ! the disciple of the atrocious author 
 of the < Vestiges/ " &c. &c. &c. 
 
 I acknowledge with humility my presump 
 tion in entering upon so profound a question in 
 Natural History ; but although I make no pre 
 tensions to the character of a scientific natu 
 ralist, still I have had opportunities such as 
 few have enjoyed, of observing and studying 
 the habits and mode of life of strange animals 
 in many strange countries ; and the more I 
 observe nature, and ponder on the subject, the 
 more do I become convinced that Almighty 
 God always carries out his intentions with 
 regard to the animal creation, not by " direct 
 interpositions " of His will, nor by " special 
 fiats of creation," but by the slow and gradual 
 agency of natural causes. 
 
 It might naturally be expected that in such 
 
ABUNDANCE OF LIFE. 273 
 
 inclement regions, and where so little vegeta 
 tion exists as in the Arctic zone, there must 
 only be very few living animals, and those few 
 of a dwarfish and miserable nature ; but, on 
 the contrary, no portion of the surface of the 
 globe more abounds in animal life, from the 
 minute animalcule which, although too small 
 to be seen in detail without a microscope, are 
 yet in the aggregate so numberless as to dis 
 colour the ocean to the huge walrus and the 
 vast mysticetus with his congeners. All this 
 life hangs together from link to link in a 
 beautiful chain : thus the different animalcule 
 prey on one another; the shrimps and small 
 fishes prey on the larger animalcule ; the seals 
 and walruses and the numerous sea-fowl prey 
 on the shrimps and the fishes ; the bear preys 
 on the seal and the walrus, and the fox on the 
 sea-fowl. 
 
 The Polar bear seems to me to be nothing 
 more than a variety of the bears inhabiting 
 Northern Europe, Asia, and America; and it 
 surely requires no very great stretch of imagi 
 nation to suppose that this variety was origi 
 nally created, not as we see him now, but by 
 individuals of Ursus arctos in Siberia, who, 
 finding their means of subsistence running 
 
274 PROBABLE ORIGIN OF WHITE BEAR. 
 
 short, and pressed by hunger, ventured on the 
 ice and caught some seals. These individuals 
 would find that they could make a subsistence 
 in this way, and would take up their residence 
 on the shore, and "gradually take to a life on 
 the ice. Polar bears in the present day are 
 often carried on the ice to Iceland, and even to 
 within swimming distance of Northern Norway, 
 so there is no impossibility in supposing that the 
 brown bears, who by my theory were the proge 
 nitors of the present white bears, were accident 
 ally driven over to Greenland and Spitzbergen 
 by storms or currents. Individual bears of U. 
 arctos are found frequently of a silvery grey 
 colour, and such bears are known in Norway 
 as " silver bears." Then it stands to reason 
 that those individuals who might happen to be 
 palest in colour would have the best chance of 
 succeeding in surprising seals, and those who 
 had most external fat would have the best 
 chance of withstanding the cold. The process 
 of natural selection would do the rest, and 
 
 Ursus arctos would, in the course of a few 
 thousands, or a few millions of years, be trans 
 formed into the variety at present known as 
 
 Ursus maritimus. 
 It may be urged against this that " there is 
 
CAUSED BY NATURAL SELECTION. 275 
 
 no reason, if my theory is true, why brown 
 bears are not still occasionally taking to a Polar 
 life, catching seals and turning white " (?) 
 The answer is easy; the ground is already 
 occupied by the variety of bear formed by 
 Nature, acting through the process of natural 
 selection, for catching seals. The seals are so 
 shy that even the existing white bears have 
 difficulty in living, and a brown bear, although 
 he may eke out his means of subsistence by 
 occasionally still catching a seal on the shores 
 of Siberia, would have no chance of succeeding 
 in the struggle for life if he were to set off on 
 a seal-hunting expedition, and to enter into 
 competition with his white congeners, who are 
 already formed and fitted by Nature, through 
 countless generations, for that particular mode 
 of life.* 
 
 I think the appearance and the very existence 
 
 * It will be obvious to any one that I follow Mr. Darwin 
 in these remarks : and although the substance of this 
 chapter was written in Spitzbergen, before the " Origin of 
 Species " was published, I do not claim any originality for 
 my views ; and I also cheerfully acknowledge that, but for 
 the publication of that work in connection with the name 
 of so distinguished a naturalist, I never would have ven 
 tured to give to the world my own humble opinions on the 
 subject. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THE WALRUS. 
 
 of the walrus are among the strongest and most 
 incontestable proofs to be found in the hand 
 writing of Nature throughout all the animal 
 kingdom, in support of the theory of creation 
 by slow and gradual causes, and in opposition 
 to that of abrupt, unnatural, and uncalled-for 
 interpositions of the Divine will. 
 
 There are very few or no animals in the 
 world which seem to me to constitute so clear 
 and well-defined a link between two different 
 and distinct races ; and I can hardly understand 
 how any reflecting and unprejudiced person 
 can attentively study the habits of the walrus 
 when alive, or even attentively examine his 
 skeleton when dead, without coming to the 
 conclusion that he forms a plain and unmis 
 takable link between animals inhabiting the 
 land and the cetaceans or whales. 
 
 The origin of the walrus is a much more 
 difficult and complicated problem to solve, 
 than to account for the divergence from the 
 original stock of the white bear ; but never 
 theless, I think the walrus must have origi 
 nated in much the same sort of way as that by 
 which I have attempted to explain the origin 
 of 17. maritimus ; only, for the creation of the 
 walrus, I must claim the indulgence of my 
 
GREATER DIFFICULTY IN HIS CASE. 277 
 
 opponents to grant me a few more millions 
 of that cheapest of all commodities, past 
 years. I require this little extension to enable 
 me to make good my argument, because the 
 walrus differs far more from any known 
 animal, living or extinct, than does the 
 white from the brown bear ; also, I have 
 stated that I conceive the Polar bear to have 
 become a Polar bear by living on seals, and 
 it is therefore to be supposed that the seal and 
 the walrus were originated first. 
 
 In reference to the fact of a black bear 
 having been seen swimming for hours with his 
 mouth open catching insects in the water, like 
 a whale, Mr. Darwin states (page 184) that, 
 "Even in so extreme a case as this, if the 
 supply of insects were constant, and if better 
 adapted competitors did not already exist in 
 the country, he can see no difficulty in a race 
 of bears being rendered by natural selection, 
 more and more aquatic in their structure 
 and habits, with larger and larger mouths, 
 till a creature was produced as monstrous as a 
 whale." 
 
 I see no difficulty in it either, but it is cer 
 tainly a very extreme case to put, and there is 
 much less difficulty in believing that the thing 
 
 T 3 
 
278 BUT HOW TO ACCOUNT FOR HIS ORIGIN. 
 
 should have come to pass in a more gradual 
 manner by steps, as it were. 
 
 Suppose then the case of a bear (or any 
 oilier large land animal, existing or extinct) 
 living on the borders of the then existing 
 Polar sea. "We can easily fancy that in the 
 struggle for existence perpetually going on, 
 this bear or whatever he was may have 
 been compelled to take to the sea shore and 
 prey upon shell-fish amongst other things. 
 At first he would only go into shallow water, 
 but he would become emboldened, by success 
 and habit, to go deeper and deeper ; even in 
 the lifetime of one individual this would 
 happen, and he would acquire the habit of 
 digging shells up with his feet or his teeth 
 at first probably with his feet, but latterly, 
 when he came to picking shells in a foot or 
 two of water, he would require to see what he 
 was about, and he would use his teeth. Na 
 tural selection would now come into play, and 
 as those animals which had the best and 
 longest teeth would succeed best, so they 
 would have the best chance of transmitting 
 these peculiarities to their descendants. The 
 tusks of the walrus are not, as I mentioned 
 before, a pair of extra teeth, but merely an 
 
LEGS OF THE WALRUS. 279 
 
 enlargement or extraordinary development of 
 the eye-teeth, and I think it is easy to conceive 
 that any large carnivorous animal, driven by 
 necessity to subsist on shell-fish under water, 
 would, in a few thousands of generations, 
 acquire such tusks. 
 
 Also, he would soon learn to dive*, and to 
 hold his breath under water, and from gene 
 ration to generation he would be able to stay 
 longer below. As he would have very little 
 use for his legs they would soon become 
 abortive as legs, and grow more into the re 
 semblance of fins ; the hind legs would some 
 what resemble the tail of a fish and would do 
 duty for that organ, so his real tail would 
 almost disappear as is the case with the seal 
 and the walrus. 
 
 The legs of the walrus, although almost abor 
 tive, are still legs, and not fins, as he can walk on 
 all four on land or ice. Those of the seal are 
 more abortive still, and the latter cannot 
 walk, strictly speaking, but only jerk himself 
 along. Nobody who has seen the anatomy of 
 a whale s paddles can deny that even they are 
 legs and not fins, although of course only 
 
 * I stated, ante, that we had seen the white bear dive 
 for a short distance just like a walrus. 
 
 T 4 
 
280 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SEAL AND WALRUS. 
 
 used to propel him in the water after the 
 manner of fins. 
 
 The resemblance between the seal and the 
 walrus is not in any respect so close, either in 
 their appearance or in their habits, as one would 
 be apt to suppose by looking at the clumsily 
 stuffed specimen of a walrus in the British 
 Museum, or at the few absurd caricatures of 
 this animal which exist. The walrus in every 
 way partakes much more of the nature of 
 land-animals than the seal, which again seems 
 more closely allied to the cetaceans. Tor 
 instance, the walrus can double his hind-legs 
 under him and walk upon them like any other 
 beast, while the seal always keeps his hinder 
 extremities stretched backward like the tail of 
 a cetacean. The walrus cannot remain under 
 water for nearly so long a period as the seal, 
 neither can he sustain the pressure of the 
 water at anything like the depth to which the 
 great seal can descend : the walrus goes ashore 
 on the beach or rocks, and the great Spits 
 bergen seal, although he basks on ice, both 
 fixed and floating, is never known to go on 
 land or even to lie on a half- tide rock ; the wal 
 rus is gregarious and the great seal solitary, even 
 two seldom being found together ; the young 
 
THE CETACEANS. 281 
 
 walrus lives with, his dam for two seasons*, 
 while the young seals are helieved to leave the 
 protection of the old ones at a few days old 
 and to shift for themselves like young fishes. 
 I believe a young seal is never found along with 
 its dam. The food of the walrus is chiefly 
 obtained by ploughing the submarine banks 
 with his tusks, and the seal catches his prey 
 swimming in the water. 
 
 This evidence would seem, to argue that the 
 seal is a further intermediate link between the 
 walrus and the whale, but I cannot presume 
 to hazard any opinion on that point : he may 
 have diverged from the walrus, or he may have 
 sprung more directly from some other race of 
 animals living or extinct, without the interven 
 tion of the walrus. 
 
 But in whatsoever way the numerous tribes of 
 seals may have originated, I think that we have 
 strong evidence before us in the appearance 
 and habits of the great seal and the walrus, 
 to induce us to entertain the belief that one or 
 other of them, or some allied animal now 
 extinct, has been the progenitor of the whales 
 and other cetaceans. 
 
 * We always found one-year-old calves with their mothers, 
 i. e. calves of the preceding season. 
 
282 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 It is needless to recapitulate the description 
 of the manner in which I humbly conceive it 
 possible that these mighty animals might have 
 been developed, as the cases hypothetically put 
 before must have explained my meaning suffi 
 ciently ; and my utmost hope is that the 
 suggestions and remarks I have thrown out 
 about the appearance and habits of animals so 
 little known may assist in enabling other 
 better qualified advocates of the great theory 
 of progressive development by means of natural 
 selection, to work it out to demonstration. 
 
 This is not a treatise on Natural History, 
 but a narrative of a summer s sporting trip 
 in the Arctic regions, and I have only alluded 
 to this intricate subject in its connection with 
 the curious animals I have described, or I 
 could easily fill a volume with facts corrobora 
 tive of my views, taken from my own observa 
 tions of many other animals in widely different 
 parts of the earth. I will content myself with 
 one. 
 
 In a district of South Africa, not larger than 
 Britain, and not extending beyond ten degrees 
 of latitude, there are well known to exist nearly 
 thirty varieties of antelopes, from the huge 
 Eland of six feet in height and 2000 Ibs. in 
 
AFRICAN ANTELOPES. 283 
 
 weight to the diminutive bluebuck of 8 Ibs. or 
 9 Ibs. weight and twelve inches high. 
 
 Some of these varieties are confined to a 
 particular range of rocky mountains, the banks 
 of a particular river, or a particular series of 
 flats ; in other places as many as six varieties 
 may be seen at one coup d ceil, and as many as 
 ten or twelve in the course of a morning s ride. 
 Of several varieties which inhabit the vast Kali- 
 hari Desert, some do not drink above once in 
 three or four days, and others are never known 
 to drink at all. The whole of these antelopes, 
 although differing more or less in size, colour, 
 shape, horns, and habits, have strong points of 
 resemblance to one another, first in groups or 
 classes, and then altogether. Some of them are 
 so nearly alike to another variety that no two 
 people, either amongst naturalists or amongst 
 the colonists and inhabitants, seem to be agreed 
 whether these very similar varieties constitute 
 separate species or not. 
 
 Now, will any man attempt to make me 
 believe that each and all of these numerous 
 varieties (or species) of antelopes were origi 
 nally brought into being separately and dis 
 tinctly as we see them now ? That one variety 
 was specially created for this petty locality. 
 
284 DR. LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 and another for that ? That there was a 
 special interposition of Providence to create 
 a variety about the outskirts of the desert, 
 which should only drink water once in three 
 or more days, and other varieties which should 
 be absolute non-drinkers ? 
 
 I think reflection and an attentive obser 
 vation of nature lead one to a very different 
 conclusion. 
 
 Dr. Livingstone has shown that vast portions 
 of South Africa, which formerly used to be 
 well- watered, have been for long, and still are, 
 undergoing a rapid desiccation*, and it seems 
 to me that that important fact alone is suffi 
 cient to account for many of these antelopes 
 having changed their peculiarities and habits ; 
 and with the latter, through the lapse of 
 countless ages, their size, shape, colour, horns, 
 and other distinctions. Nay, further, I enter 
 tain no doubt that they are undergoing these 
 said changes at this moment, but by such a 
 slow and gradual process, that it is quite im 
 perceptible in the brief space of human life, or 
 even within the period since natural history 
 began to be studied. 
 
 * My own personal observation in South Africa abun 
 dantly confirms that remark of the Doctor s. 
 
THE ECCENTRIC GNTT. 285 
 
 A chapter might easily be here written 
 about that singular animal, the wildebeeste, or 
 gnu, which seems to be a tolerably well-defined 
 link between the antelopes and the bovine 
 tribe ; but I will now leave the discussion of 
 the subject to abler pens than mine. 
 
286 HORN SOUND. 
 
 CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 Horn and Bell Sounds. Ice Fiord. Pickled Reindeer s 
 Tongues. Arctic Poxes. Geology. Eaised Beaches. 
 Fossil Cannon-balls. Awful Avalanche. Begins to get 
 dark at Night. Reach Hammerfest. Sell our Cargo. 
 Take Leave of our Crew. Sail Home. Equinoctial 
 Gales. Leith. " Glut " of Bears in the British Market. 
 Conclusion. Game List. 
 
 ON- passing the mouth of Horn Sound, we en 
 countered a tremendous blast of wind blowing 
 out of that fiord as out of a funnel. This 
 helped us for a Iittle 3 and then it fell almost 
 calm again until we came opposite to the 
 entrance of Bell Sound, where we experi 
 enced just such another squall from the north 
 east. 
 
 Going closehauled, it was as much as the 
 yacht could do to stand up against it under 
 close-reefed mainsail, foresail, and staysail ; but 
 this squall carried us nearly to the mouth of 
 Ice Fiord, where these gusts of wind blowing 
 down through the high valleys were more 
 violent than ever, and were now accompanied 
 
ICE FIORD. 287 
 
 with heavy sleety rain. We beat up the fiord 
 in the teeth of this, and anchored in a shel 
 tered bay in the evening of the 2nd. 
 
 The sporting season seemed to be about 
 come to an end ; but we were now obliged to 
 stop here for a few days to fill the water tanks, 
 and gather firewood enough for the return 
 voyage. There is no danger in remaining here 
 for at least a week or two to come, as this is 
 said to be the last harbour in Spitzbergen 
 which remains open. The reason for this is 
 that the stream coming round from the east 
 here encounters that portion of the Arctic 
 current which sweeps round the north-west 
 corner of Spitzbergen, and runs through the 
 channel between Prince Charles Island and 
 the mainland. 
 
 Immense flights of geese, both of the grey 
 and brent varieties, winging their way to the 
 south, warn us, however, that it is nearly time 
 to leave the regions of the ice. 
 
 In the numerous fine valleys entering from 
 Ice Fiord, we found such quantities of rein 
 deer that we might have loaded the ship with 
 them, if we had been, in the language of 
 " Bell s Life," "gluttons " for that description 
 of sport ; but, as we had more venison on 
 
288 A HUNGRY FOX. 
 
 board than all hands, including the young 
 bears, could eat in a month, we contented our 
 selves by picking out a few of the old stags 
 with the best horns we could find. 
 
 The tongues of the reindeer are particularly 
 delicious, and we salted a small keg of these 
 for distribution among our friends at home. 
 
 We have now secured splendid specimens of 
 all the Spitzbergen animals worthy of a sports 
 man s attention, except the narwhale and the 
 black fox. These are both very rare, and we 
 never had the satisfaction of adding the long 
 spiral horn of the one, or the beautiful skin of 
 the other, to our collections. 
 
 On a promontory of sandy beach, near our 
 anchorage, there were always a lot of gulls 
 resting, and a small white fox, apparently half- 
 mad with hunger, continued the whole day 
 making unavailing efforts to stalk them. He 
 would go away for half an hour, until he 
 thought the gulls might have gone to sleep, 
 and then come sneaking back to try it again ; 
 but the gulls were always too wide-awake for 
 him. 
 
 There are a great many foxes on this part of 
 Spitzbergen, and it is rather a curious subject 
 to speculate upon how they subsist in winter ? 
 
RAISED BEACHES. 289 
 
 All the geese and eider-ducks, and I should 
 imagine also the gulls, leave Spitzbergen in Sep 
 tember. There are no hares or other small land 
 animals, and the occasional windfall of a dead 
 deer or seal can surely not maintain the foxes 
 for seven or eight months out of the twelve. 
 Do they then hybernate like the Norway bear, 
 or lay up a secret store of sea-fowl and eggs 
 against the winter ? If the latter, it is one 
 of the most singular cases of instinct sharpened 
 by necessity to be found in nature. 
 
 There are several well-developed raised 
 beaches around some parts of Ice Fiord. In 
 one place I observed three of these, each one 
 about eight or ten feet above the other. 
 
 Nothing strikes a geological observer in Spitz 
 bergen more than the total absence of pebbly 
 beaches. I was especially requested by a distin 
 guished geologist to direct my attention to this 
 matter, and I did so ; but I nowhere saw, on any 
 part of the coast between Kyk-Yse Islands and 
 Ice Fiord, nor amongst the Thousand Islands, 
 anything approaching to what can be called a 
 pebbly beach. Nine-tenths of the coast consists 
 of glacier, rocks, and clay. In some places 
 there are bays with sandy beaches, and in 
 
 u 
 
290 FOSSIL CANNON-BALLS. 
 
 others I have observed great accumulations of 
 coarse rhomboidal gravel, both on the beach 
 and at different elevations, but I never saw a 
 beach composed of rounded, water-worn pebbly 
 stones on any part of the coasts of Spitzbergen. 
 
 The mountains about this fiord are composed 
 of a friable, crumbling limestone, which in 
 great part has a sort of brown tinge, as if 
 impregnated with oxide of iron. They are per 
 fectly chock-full of fossils ; so much so as to look 
 as if they were actually composed of fossils in 
 some places. I gathered many specimens, and 
 I also picked up, in the bed of a torrent, three 
 stones so exactly spherical, and so highly fer 
 ruginous-looking, that my Petropaulauski man- 
 of-war 5 s-man stoutly maintained that if the 
 " other stones " I gave him to carry were the 
 fossils of clams and cockles, these must un 
 doubtedly be the fossils of cannon-shot of differ 
 ent calibres. 
 
 There is a good walrus-boat lying on the 
 beach in a small bay here. This boat was 
 found, two years ago floating bottom up, and 
 with two of the harpoon-lines broken, from 
 which it is concluded that a walrus had upset 
 her and drowned the crew. 
 
TREMENDOUS AVALANCHE. 291 
 
 On the fourth, while we were busy on deck 
 making preparations to depart, we saw a tre 
 mendous avalanche of rocks, ice, and earth 
 descend from the face of a steep mountain 
 three or four miles distant. I should think 
 the mass consisted of several millions of tons, 
 and the terrific roar and splash with which it 
 descended into the sea baffle all attempts at 
 description. It is fortunate we were not an 
 chored underneath it at the time. 
 
 "We got the two heavy boats in on deck, and 
 secured them firmly in case of bad weather, 
 and made everything else as snug as possible 
 for the return voyage. 
 
 We have some difficulty in stowing the 
 venison, of which 160 fat quarters now en 
 cumber the deck. At an average of 40 Ibs. 
 a-quarter, this amounted to 6400 Ibs. or about 
 three tons of meat ; and the yacht being hung 
 round with it in every possible place, it gives 
 her the appearance of a butcher s shop, full 
 of prize oxen, at Christmas. 
 
 Early in the morning of the 5th of Sep 
 tember we got the anchor up, and bade adieu 
 with profound regret and heart-felt reluctance 
 to the gloomy fiords, and the enchanting ice- 
 
 u 2 
 
292 NIGHTS BEGIN TO GET DA11K. 
 
 floes of Spitzbergen. As those desolate shores 
 faded from our view, I repeated to myself the 
 sublime lines of Longfellow "*, 
 
 " There we hunted the walrus, the narwal and the seal. 
 Aha ! twas a noble game : 
 And like the lightning s flame, 
 Flew our harpoons of steel." 
 
 As we sailed down the west coast we had 
 much calm, and the weather was actually 
 milder than we had had it all the summer. 
 There is evidently an enormous diiference of 
 climate between this part of Spitzbergen and 
 the east coast caused, no doubt, by the great 
 extent of glacier and the vast fields of floating 
 ice in the more immediate vicinity of the 
 latter, as well as by the presence of the fag- 
 end of the Gulf Stream, before alluded to, on 
 this coast. 
 
 It begins to get a little darkish now from 
 ten till two in the night. One could not have 
 seen to shoot a seal at 10*30 on the 6th. We 
 lighted the cabin and binnacle lamps for the 
 first time to-night at 10 o clock ; and so rapid 
 is the decline of the sun in those latitudes 
 when he once commences to go below the 
 
 * Discoverer of the North Cape. 
 
CROSS TO HAMMERFEST. 293 
 
 horizon, that on the 7th we had to light them 
 two hours earlier, although we have not made 
 much southing since yesterday. 
 
 We had light winds and mild weather all 
 the way across, and only cast anchor in Ham- 
 merfest harbour at dusk on the evening of the 
 llth. 
 
 To our great surprise and annoyance, we 
 found that the " Anna Louisa " had only made 
 her number twelve hours hefore us. 
 
 "We found a great accumulation of letters 
 and newspapers, and read nearly all night. 
 
 On the 12th we got the sloop unloaded, and 
 sold the cargo. Owing to the badness of the 
 casks with which we had been provided, a great 
 deal of our blubber was damaged and lost. 
 The price was also very low as seems always 
 to be the case somehow or other whenever one 
 has anything to sell but still we realised a 
 sum which went a long way towards pay 
 ing our expenses ; in addition to which we 
 kept the young bears, the six bearskins, and 
 all the ivory. 
 
 The 13th and 14th were occupied in getting 
 a stout cage, lined with old iron hoops, made 
 for the bears, settling accounts with our 
 agents, paying off the crew of the sloop, and 
 
 IT 3 
 
294 PAY OFF OTJK CHEW. 
 
 delivering that sluggish and odoriferous little 
 tub over to her owners. 
 
 The crew of the sloop seemed sorry to part 
 with us, and the regret was mutual, for, with 
 one exception, I never met with a more hard 
 working, docile, uncomplaining, and good- 
 humoured lot of fellows than skyppar and crew 
 proved themselves to be. 
 
 Although their wages were fully equal in 
 amount to what they would have received on 
 the usual principle of getting for themselves 
 one-third of the cargo, we gave the skyppar 
 a handsome additional gratuity, and each of 
 the men (with the exception of the individual 
 above alluded to) a small one. We also told 
 them to divide between them all the bread and 
 other provisions which were left over, but the 
 latter gift unfortunately proved a very " bone 
 of contention," and gave rise to a furious 
 dispute amongst them. The men who had 
 houses and families wished a division of the 
 actual victuals, (the " ipsa corpora" as the 
 
 Hev. Mr. calls the oatmeal, which I have 
 
 annually the honour of paying him for), 
 whereas the men who lived en garqon con 
 tended that the obvious intentions of the 
 munificent donors had been that the provi- 
 
ARRIVAL AT LEITH. 295 
 
 sions should be sold en masse and the pro 
 ceeds then divided with a view to their 
 immediate convertibility into brandy. As 
 we declined to give any decision on this 
 delicate point, the last we heard of it was, 
 that they had called in the intervention of 
 the merchants who had acted as our agents, 
 and I think it not improbable that these 
 gentlemen settled the matter somewhat after 
 the manner in which the oyster of the fable 
 was partitioned by the referee in that notable 
 case. 
 
 We sailed on the 15th, and as we had ex 
 perienced north-east winds all the way from 
 Leith to Hammerfest, it was quite to be ex 
 pected in the nature of things that we should 
 have south-west ones all the way back. We 
 did so, and in addition we had an awful 
 hustling from the equinoctial gales in the 
 end of the month. We religiously avoided 
 Lerwick this time, for fear the famishing 
 population might storm the yacht to get pos 
 session of our cargo of venison, and at last 
 cast anchor in Leith Roads on Sunday the 
 2nd of October. 
 
 Por the first few days the climate of Scot 
 land seemed oppressively hot, and I could 
 
 u 4 
 
296 PATE OF THE YOUNG BEARS. 
 
 sympathise with the feelings of the young 
 bears, who appeared ready to melt into oil at 
 this unwonted temperature. 
 
 With the view of disposing of these interest 
 ing animals, I entered into correspondence 
 with nearly every wild-beast-keeper and 
 secretary of Zoological Gardens in the 
 United Kingdom, but as usual the " British 
 market was quite overstocked." There was a 
 " glut " of bears in fact. It then occurred to 
 me that I could not put them to better 
 account than by turning them out in a large 
 wood at home, and inviting my friends 
 and neighbours to enjoy the Scandinavian 
 diversion of a " skall;" but the probable diffi 
 culty of obtaining beaters occurred to me as 
 one objection, and the possibility of being 
 brought in for heavy game damages as another ; 
 so eventually I disposed of them to M. le 
 Directeur of the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, 
 and I wish his Imperial Majesty joy of his 
 purchase. I had the satisfaction of seeing 
 them in that establishment some months later, 
 considerably grown, but their naturally ami 
 able dispositions not improved by their being 
 confined in one of the warm, dry dens used for 
 the tropical Carnivorae. 
 
GAME LIST. 297 
 
 They did not, like the lion in the story, re 
 cognise and welcome their old shipmate with 
 transports of joy. 
 
 In conclusion, I beg to direct attention to the 
 following fac-simile of an engraving executed 
 by Lord David Kennedy on one of the cabin- 
 beams of the " Anna Louisa," as it contains a 
 concise summary of our game-list. 
 
 LOKD DAVID KENNEDY 
 and JAMES LAMONT 
 
 HIRED this SLOOP 
 ANNA LOUISA not A 1. 
 
 In the Summer of the Year 1859 
 
 AND KILLED in SPITZBERGEN 
 
 46 WALRUSES 
 88 SEALS 
 
 8 POLAR BEARS 
 
 1 WHITE WHALE 
 61 REIN-DEER 
 
 TOTAL, 204 HEAD. 
 
 a 
 
 N.B. In addition to the above we sank and lost 
 about 20 Walruses and 40 Seals. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
LIST OE 
 
 SPECIMENS OF BOOKS, FOSSILS, ANIMAL REMAINS, &c, 
 
 SENT TO THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY AND NOW IN 
 
 THEIR MUSEUM. 
 
 From Black Point. Greyish, fine-grained, laminated 
 
 sandstone, sometimes micaceous. 
 Brownish, fine-grained, micaceous, shaly sandstone, 
 
 weathering white. 
 Pebbles of hard coal. 
 Brownish-grey limestone, with Nmula, Aviculo- 
 
 pecten, and Spirifer. 
 Grey limestone with calcareous veins. With a trace 
 
 of Calamite ? 
 Fossil wood, with attached coaly matter. 
 
 From Thousand Islands. More or less rounded frag 
 ments of 
 
 Compact red syenitic rock. 
 Grey compact siliceous limestone with Corals, Aviculo- 
 
 pecten, Streptorhynchus, &c. 
 Brownish argillaceous rock. 
 Yellowish fossiliferous siliceous limestone. 
 White fossiliferous limestone. 
 Black flint with chalcedonic vein. 
 White flint or chert. 
 
302 APPENDIX. 
 
 Purplish semitransparent quartz-rock. 
 
 Greenstone. 
 
 Thin-bedded, grey, compact, siliceo-argillaceous rock, 
 
 with a large Aviculopecten. 
 Hard compact sandstone. 
 Red, highly siliceous limestone. 
 Greenstone, coarse-grained, with weathered face. 
 
 From Ryk-Yse Islands. Rounded fragments of grey 
 compact limestone with Fenestellce and Corals. 
 
 From Ice Sound. Fine-grained, compact, dark grey 
 
 sandstone, weathering ferruginous. 
 Ferruginous nodules (exfoliating) of the size of 
 cannon-balls. 
 
 From Island, Bell Sound. Weathered fragment of 
 
 argillo-siliceous dark grey rock, with Fenestella 
 
 and Corals, 
 Hard reddish ferruginous rock, with pebbles of 
 
 Lydian stone. 
 Fossils, from 200 feet above the sea, and 350 yards 
 
 inland. (See Mr. Salter s Appendix.) 
 Brownish-grey, micaceous, compact, fine-grained 
 
 sandstone pebbles, with trace of the cast of an 
 
 Aviculopecten ? 
 
 From Bell Sound. Fossils from 400 feet above the sea 
 level. (See Mr. Salter s Appendix.) 
 
 From Moraine in Deeva Bay. Brown clay stone, 
 weathering reddish-purple. 
 
 Different Localities. 
 
 Ferruginous nodule, small. 
 
 Hard ferruginous sandstone with small ferruginous 
 nodule. 
 
APPENDIX. 303 
 
 Different Localities. 
 
 Siliceous conglomerate. 
 
 Boulder of conglomerate, or coarse pebbly grit; 
 pebbles of white and dark-grey quartz and Lydian 
 stone, cement calcareous. 
 
 White quartz -rock. 
 
 Stem-like piece of brownish fine-grained sandstone 
 (? cast of a ripple-mark). 
 
 Light-grey friable sandstone. 
 
 Dark-grey mudstone (calcareo-argillaceous) with im 
 pression of shell. 
 
 Water-worn fragment of tortuously laminated cal 
 careous slate. 
 
 Pebble of grey argillaceous limestone with calc-spar 
 vein. 
 
 Eouldered piece of grey siliceous limestone with Pro- 
 ductus and Corals. 
 
 Grey siliceous limestone with Orthis and Productus, 
 with weathered surface. 
 
 White crystalline limestone with Spirifer cristatus and 
 Corals, having a weathered surface. 
 
 White siliceous limestone with Corals, Encrinites, and 
 Shells. 
 
 Black siliceous limestone with calcareous veins. 
 
 Weathered fragment of white Encrinital chert with 
 Coals, Bryozoa (?), and Productus. 
 
 Black flint with whitish mottlings, splinters. 
 
 Pted siliceous limestone with a rounded, weathered 
 surface. Probably from the Thousand Islands. 
 
 (Islands to the South-east?) Weathered fragment 
 of white limestone with Productus, Spirifer alatus, 
 and a large foliaceous Coral (Stenopora). 
 
304 APPENDIX. 
 
 RECENT SHELLS (determined by S. P. WOODWARD, 
 Esq. F.G.S.). 
 
 1. From the Thousand Isles. 
 Buccinum undatum, var. (cyaneum ? ?) . 
 
 2. From Bell Sound, at about high-water mark. 
 Fusus despectus, L., var. ( = F. borealis, Philippi). 
 Buccinum glaciale, L. (~B. angulosumB. polar e, 
 
 Beck). 
 
 Margarita undulata ( Grcenlandica) inside a Buc 
 cinum. 
 
 Buccinum scalariforme ? 
 
 Balanus crenaius, var. Scoticus, probably. 
 
 Fusus Kroeyeri, Moller. 
 
 Cardium Islandicum ( = ciliatum] . 
 
 Cardium Grcenlandicum (broken). 
 - (very fine) . 
 
 Saxicava arctica. 
 
 My a Uddevallensis (truncata, var.). 
 
 Astarte borealis, Chemn., var. ( = semisulcata, Leach; 
 = lactea, Broderip). 
 
 Mya truncata, var. Uddevallensis. 
 
 Pecten Islandicus. 
 
 Nullipore, with Saxicava. 
 
 3. From Bell Sound, at a/bout \\ to 2 miles inland, and 
 
 400 or 500 feet above the sea-level. 
 Buccinum glaciale (1J to 2 miles inland, 400 and 500 
 feet high). 
 
 4. From the Moraine of a glacier in Deeva Bay. 
 Astarte borealis (var. semisulcata}. 
 
 compressa, Mont., var. striata. 
 Mya truncata, var. Uddevallensis . 
 
APPENDIX. 305 
 
 BONES. 
 
 1. Fragment of vertebra of Whale, rotten. Bell 
 
 Sound. Half a mile from the sea. 100 feet 
 above the sea. 
 
 2. Fragment of bone. Half a mile from the sea at 
 
 Bell Sound. 100 feet above the sea. 
 
 3. Cranium of a small Delphinopterus leucas (White 
 
 Whale or Beluga). Bell Sound. 300 yards 
 from the sea. 80 feet above the sea. 
 
 4. Anterior rib of a Whale. Bell Sound. 500 yards 
 
 from the sea. 80 feet high. 
 
 5. Small lumbar vertebra of Beluga (?) Bell Sound. 
 
 Nearly buried at 70 feet above high tide-mark. 
 
 6. Fragment of bone of Whale. Bell Sound. Buried 
 
 in bank 50 feet above the sea. 
 
 7. Half of a caudal vertebra of Whale. Balana 
 
 mysticetus (?) Bell Sound. A little above high- 
 water mark. 
 
 8. Caudal vertebra of Whale. Found among the 
 
 boulders at high- water mark. Coloured ferru 
 ginous. 
 
 9. Small cervical vertebra of Beluga ? 
 
 10. Tibia and fibula of hind left leg of a Walrus. 
 
 11. Large caudal vertebra of Whale. 
 
 12. Part of lower jaw of Whale. Walter Thymen s 
 
 Straits. Half a mile from the sea, and 40 feet 
 above sea-level. 
 
 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. 
 
306 APPENDIX. 
 
 Description of the GRAVELS from SPITZBEIIGEN. 
 By J. PRESTWICH, Esq. F.G.S. 
 
 1. Gravel from Bell Sound,, 60 feet above high-water 
 mark. Grey gravel of small subangular fragments of 
 dark-grey argillaceous and quartzose slaty rocks, some 
 portions calcareous, and a few fragments of grey sand 
 stone, mixed with a small proportion of earth. None of 
 the fragments are above two ounces in weight, the bulk 
 being of small size (seventy to the ounce). Amongst 
 these subangular fragments there are, however, a few 
 small round pebbles of a dark- grey limestone, and a few 
 perfectly angular fragments of slate. 
 
 There are no shells, nor any characters on any of the 
 fragments in the gravel to indicate a beach-origin. The 
 mass, in fact, looks much more like the smaller frag 
 ments of a moraine. None of the fragments, however, 
 are scratched or striated. 
 
 2. Gravel from Bell Sound, 20 feet above high-water. 
 Dark-coloured grit, clean and uniform in texture, con 
 sisting of small subangular fragments of a black horn 
 blende slate (like that of No. 4) about the size of cress- 
 seed, with a very few flattish pebbles of the size of peas, 
 and still fewer rounded pebbles of the size of marbles. 
 There are no fragments of shells. 
 
 3. Gravel from an island in Bell- Sound, a little above 
 high-water. Small greyish-green gravel of flat angular 
 fragments of greenish mica-slate, with a few pieces of 
 quartz. None of the fragments are an ounce in weight. 
 The bulk consists of pieces of about thirty to the ounce. 
 No matrix of any sort. No fragments of shells. This 
 gravel has the appearance of rock- debris in situ. 
 
 4. Gravel from Bell Sound, half-way betAveen high- 
 
APPENDIX. 307 
 
 and low-water. Ordinary clean and well-worn small 
 beach-shingle, the smaller fragments being more or less 
 subangular, and the larger ones more or less rounded : 
 no fragments above three-quarters of an ounce in weight; 
 and the bulk 117 to the ounce. It is composed mostly 
 of compact black hornblende-slate (like that of No. 2), 
 compact grey sandstone, and some grey limestone and a 
 very little quartz. There are no shells nor scratched 
 pebbles. It is much like the shingle of parts of our 
 own coast. 
 
 5. Gravel from Bell Sound, low-water anchorage. 
 Subangular small fragments of micaceous slates, with a 
 few flat angular fragments of limestone. Not one well- 
 rounded pebble ; few even of the fragments are much 
 worn. There are no shells. This looks much like the 
 small debris in an old slate- quarry. 
 
 Note on the FOSSILS from SPITZBERGEN. 
 By J. W. SALTEE, Esq. F.G.S. 
 
 The specimens of fossils brought by Mr. Lamont are 
 chiefly from three localities, viz. : 
 
 1. Bell Sound (at 400 feet above the sea-level), 
 western side of the island ; 
 
 2. Island in Bell Sound (at 200 feet above the sea, 
 and 350 yards from the shore) ; and 
 
 3. Black Point, near the S.E. angle of Spitzbergen, 
 close to which are the Thousand Isles. 
 
 From Bell Sound only a few species were collected ; 
 
 X 2 
 
308 APPENDIX. 
 
 and these are the same as those from the small island in 
 the same sound. One is a large Productus, which I 
 cannot identify completely with any British species. It 
 may be a large variety of one of our common shells, 
 P. semireticulatuSj or even a form of P. costatus. In 
 any case it is of a Carboniferous type. 
 
 The specimens from the island in Bell Sound are 
 much more numerous ; and in a grey limestone we 
 have 
 
 1. Athyris or Spirifer, a large smooth species, nearly 
 3 inches across, without any definite hinge-line, and with 
 very strong ventral muscular impressions. The shell is 
 much depressed. 
 
 2. Productus costatus, Sowerby, very large, and 
 deeply bilobed. Abundant. 
 
 3. Productus, the large striate species above men 
 tioned. 
 
 4. P. Humboldtii, D Orbigny, two or three specimens. 
 
 5. P. mammatus, Keyserling (?), or an allied species, 
 without large scattered spines. This species occurs in 
 Arctic America, having been brought by Captain Belcher 
 from the point opposite Exmouth Island. It is the P. 
 Leplayii of De Koninck s paper on the Fossils from 
 Spitzbergen, but not, I think, of De Verneuil, who de 
 scribed that species in " Russia in Europe." 
 
 Von Buch quotes the Productus giganteus from the 
 South Cape and from Bell Sound ; this is not noticed at 
 all in Prof. Koninck s list (1849, op. cit. p. 633). 
 
 6. Camarophoria, a large species, not unlike in shape 
 to the Rhynchonella acuminata of the Carboniferous 
 limestone, but ribbed throughout. 
 
 7. Spirifer Keilhavii, Von Buch. Several specimens. 
 
APPENDIX. 309 
 
 This, more than any other shell, tends to connect the 
 Spitzbergen formation with surrounding districts. Sp. 
 Keilhavii was described in the Berlin Trans, for May 
 1846. The specimens were brought home by Keilhau, 
 from the rocks of Bear Island in 74 30 N. lat., half 
 way between Norway and Spitzbergen. In the same 
 paper Von Buch notices that the locality of Bell Sound 
 had been visited by French naturalists (M. Robert and 
 the Scientific Commission which explored these seas in 
 1839), and that the same Producti and Spirifer ( S. 
 Keilhavii) were found there which occurred at Bear 
 Island. And, inasmuch as the Producti are the com 
 mon British species P. giganteus and P. Cora, there can 
 be no doubt whatever of the formation to which Spirifer 
 Keilhavii belongs. Count Keyseiiing described a variety 
 of it from Petschora Land, under another name ; and in 
 the Appendix to Belcher s " Last of the Arctic Voyages " 
 I have figured and described this shell from the Carbo 
 niferous rocks of North Albert Land Captain Belcher s 
 furthest point. Numerous Producti occurred with it, two 
 of which, if not more, are identical with the Spitzbergen 
 species. I notice this more particularly, because 
 in two communications to the Royal Academy of Brus 
 sels (Bulletin, vols. xiii. and xvi.) Prof, de Koninck has 
 described the Bell Sound fossils as Permian, and not 
 Carboniferous species, and has given figures of several 
 of them. In a short resume of the Arctic Geology read 
 by myself to the British Association, 1855, I have used 
 this fact as illustrative of the regularity of the Great 
 Arctic basin of palaeozoic rocks (Trans. Sect. p. 211). 
 
 One species only which appears to me of Permian 
 date occurs in a loose block (without definite locality) 
 and will be presently noticed. It would be somewhat 
 
310 APPENDIX. 
 
 remarkable if all the specimens brought home by M. 
 Robert should prove to be Permian, while those from 
 the same locality before us are mostly of Carboniferous 
 type. The larger and more conspicuous shells do not 
 seem to have been met with by M. Robert in his 
 voyage. 
 
 8. Fenestella, two species, one with very large meshes. 
 
 9. Sponges (?) ; large, stem-like and cake-like in 
 shape. 
 
 Specimens without definite localities : 
 
 10. Spirifer cristatus, Schloth. S. octoplicatus of 
 the Mountain -limestone is now regarded as the same 
 species. 
 
 11. Strcptorhynchus crenistria, or an allied form. 
 
 12. Zaphrentis Ovibos, Salter (?). Probably an 
 Arctic species. 
 
 13. Stenopora ; a large branched species, like S. 
 Tasmaniensis of Lonsdale. This occurs at Bell Sound 
 also. 
 
 14. Syringopora, large fragments. 
 
 15. A new genus, in all probability of the Fenestellida, 
 consisting of thick stems branching regularly from 
 opposite sides, the smaller branches also opposite, and 
 coalescing with their neighbours so as to form a 
 quadrangular network. But for this coalescence it 
 might be a gigantic Thamniscus or Ichthyorhachis. As 
 the poriferous face is not seen, it is better not to give a 
 new generic name. 
 
 From Black Point, in shaly beds, which seem to be 
 associated with the coal, slabs were obtained with nu 
 merous shells and some fragments of plants. 
 
 16. Nucula, abundant; and amongst these is a small 
 
APPENDIX. 311 
 
 17. Aviculopecten, and a Spirifer with broad ribs. 
 
 18. Aviculopecten. A large species (looking like the 
 A. papyraceus of our own coal-shales magnified), found 
 in the gravel among the Thousand Isles; it probably 
 came from these beds. 
 
 A weathered block of white limestone, probably from 
 the islands on the south-eastern side of Spitzbergen *, 
 contains the only truly Permian species which I have 
 seen among these specimens, viz. 
 
 19. Spirifer alatus, Schloth., a common fossil of the 
 Zechstein. 
 
 20. ProductuSj a small species. (P. horridus of De 
 Koninck s list, but apparently too deeply lobed.) 
 
 21. Stenopora, a large foliaceous flattened species. 
 Spirifer octoplicatus (cristatus), above mentioned, also 
 
 occurs in similar whitish limestone. These may possibly 
 have all come from the locality whence M. Robert s 
 original specimens were found; but it would appear 
 that they are not by any means the prevailing fossils of 
 the island. 
 
 The general aspect of the fossils is unquestionably 
 Carboniferous ; and some of the species have a wide 
 diffusion. Productus costatus ranges from India to the 
 Mississippi, and P. semireticulatus (which I think is 
 only a variety of the same species) has even a wider 
 
 * With regard to this specimen, I stated, in reply to an inquiry on 
 the subject, "The loose block of white limestone to which you refer as 
 having a Permian aspect was, if I mistake not, picked up on one of 
 the islands to the S.E. of Edge s Land. It is unlike any rock I saw in 
 situ ; and, as it is evidently a travelled block, I think it not improbable 
 that it does not belong to Spitzbergen at all, but may have been trans 
 ported by the drift-ice from Commander Gillies s Land, or some other 
 unknown country to the north-east." April 21, 1860. J. L. 
 
312 APPENDIX. 
 
 range.* P. Humboldtii is found in Russia and South 
 America. Our P. mammatus (?) is probably distinct from 
 the Russian species, but it is at all events the same 
 as one in Captain Belcher s collection f. 
 
 The size of the fossils, both of the shells and Bryozoa, 
 is remarkable, and, taken in conjunction with the pre 
 sence of large land-plants in the coal, would seem to 
 indicate a great decrease of temperature in the Arctic 
 region since the Carboniferous period. The shells are 
 larger, too, than the corresponding species in our own 
 mountain-limestone J . 
 
 * To Australia (M Coy). 
 
 t It is closely and finely striate, and has spines along the hinge-line 
 only. 
 
 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. 
 
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