ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY New York State Colleges OF Agriculture and Home Economics AT Cornell University THE GIFT OF WILLARD A. KIGGINS Cornell University Library G 780.L23 Seasons with the sea-horses; or, Sporting 3 1924 014 116 028 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014116028 SEASONS WITH THE SEA-HOESES ; OK, SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. BY JAMES LAMONT, ESQ., F.G.S. ■'There ive hunted the wah-us, the n[l^^^al, and the seal. Ahal 'twas a noble game, And like the lightning's flame Flew oLir harpoons of steel. "—Long fellow. NEW YORK: HAEPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANK UN SQUARE. 18 61. SiiiigtiiiE. TO SIR CHARLES LYELL, F.R.S., P.G.S., &c. My dear Sie Chaeles, A copy of your deliglitful Principles of Oeology has been my unvarying and instructive companion during ten years of adventurous wanderings, during which every thing I have seen seems to me entirely confirmatory of your geo- logical views. I therefore dedicate this little book to you ; and I shall esteem myself fortunate if any of the observations contain- ed in it shall be the means of riveting or strengthening a link in the beautiful chain of evidence by which you have in such a masterly manner demonstrated the perfect ade- quacy 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, Akgtleshire. 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 buUd 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. — SaU from Leith. — Steamer a little out in her Reckoning. — Dreadful Famine in Lerwick. — Gale. — Nam- sen Fiord and River. — Salmon Fishing. — ^Terry's Breech- loading Rifles Page 17 CHAPTER n. Hammerfest. — The "Anna Louisa." — Dr. de Jongh. — Nor- wegian 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. — Disastrous 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 BeU Sound 28 CHAPTER III. Preparations. — ^Description of a Walrus-boat, and Implements used. — Harpoons. — Lances. — The Haak-pick, or Seal-hook. — Axes. — Knives. — Ice-anchors. — Compass 43 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER 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 Walrus-hunt- er.— Profits of the Trade.— Truck System. — Cold.— Chil- blains. — Seal-shooting on the Ice. — Method of hunting the Great Seal. — Dimensions of Great Seal. — Seal-shooting in the Water Page 52 CHAPTER V. Hunting the Walrus. — Windfall. — ^Maternal Affection of Wal- rus. — Seal's Dinner. — MoUuscse. — Whale's Food. — Herd of Walruses. — ^Four killed.— Escape of a fine BuU. — Cutting up the Blubber. — Walrus Hide and Blubber. — Accommoda- tions of "Anna Louisa." — "Whittling" a great Resource. — Vast Herds of Sea-horses. — "Jaging" them. — Exciting Sport. — Man killed by a Walrus. — Spitzbergen Gazette of June 16th. — Walrus Veal or Foal 68 CHAPTER VI. Sabbath Observance. — ^Rewarded for ditto. — Oui» first Bear seen. — Kill him. — Lose the Sloop. — Quantities of Eggs. — Drift-wood.: — Comes from Siberia. — Can not be in situ. — Geology of Thousand Islands. — Red Snow. — Caused by Mute of Aloa Alle. — Bear Battue, and its Consequences. — Deplorable Effects of smelling Brandy 87 CHAPTER Vn. IS^ortheast Gale. — Bears' Grease. — Errors m the Charts. — Ge- ology. — Limestone. — Coal. — Creation of subalpine Plats. — Deeva Bay.—" Fast" Ice.— Bear's Mode of catchmg Seals. — Whale's Bones. — Glen-Turritt. — Large Extent of fixed Ice. — Many Seals shot. — Become my own Harpooner. Glacier with detached Moraine " . . . . loo CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER Vm. 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 Ingrati- tude Page 117 CHAPTER IX. The Ice disperses. — Lose a Bear and Cub. — ^Pot 600 lbs. of Bears'-grease. — Skins. — Slow going. — Seals attracted by Whistling. — Glaciers on the Coast. — ISToises from them. — Submarine Bank. — Shooting Wabuses. — Walruses fighting. — Walrus Tusks. — Awkward Customer. — ; Ivory. — Story of Mermaids. — Osteologioal Peculiarity. — Cook loses his Watch.— Shoot a Bear.— Cold Bath 131 CHAPTER X. Boat-race. — Visit. — Ingenious Harpoon. — Hippopotamus. — Phooa 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 Delusion. — Gulf Stream and Arctic Current. — Danger of getting embayed. — Narrow Escape 145 CHAPTER XI. Dense and sudden Fogj — Our Hours and Habits. — Supplies run short. — Meet the Yacht. — Their bad Success in Sport. — Novel Bullet-mould. — Geological Specimens. — Part com- pany again. — Medical Treatment of sick Men. — Water up. — ^News. — Old Acquaintance. — Gradual Extinction of the Walrus. — They are receding farther North. — Nova Zembla. — ^Ulness of young Bear. — Attempt to escape. — Aged Bull- XU CONTENTS. Walrus. — His probable Reminiscences. — Coal and Fossils. — Commander Gillies' Land. — Northeast Spitzbergen. — Bear shot from the Deck of the Sloop Page 159 CHAPTER XII. Walruses leave the Banks and go upon Land. — Vast Herds ashore. — Frightful Massacre. — Just Retribution. — Cargo of JBones. — Beautiful Day and sudden Change. — Early north- ern Voyagers. — Scoresby's Opinion. — Open Polar Basin a mere Chimera. — Dr. Kane. — North Pole. — Scheme for reach- ing the Pole. — ^Parry's Sledge Expedition, and why it fail- ed. — ^Alexei Markhoff's Expedition, and his difficult Re- turn IIS CHAPTER XIII. Whales' Bones. — Rapid Elevation of the Land. — Early Whale- fishery. — Shallowing of the Sea. — ^Trench plowed by an Ice- berg. — Last Day at the Sea-horses. — Successful Stalk and double Shot. — Lose two Harpoons. — Very bad Luck. — ^DLf ficulty of shooting Walruses. — Gale. — Wrecks in Spitz- bergen. — Insurance. — Kill a White Whale. — Description of the same. — Sail to the Rendezvous 185 CHAPTER XIV. Smeerenberg, or Blubber Town. — Agr^mens of ditto. — Dis- covery of Spitzbergen. — Barentz. — Whale-fishery. — At- tempts to colonize the Country, and to make it a penal Set- tlement. — They faU. — The West Indies versus Spitzbergen. — Russian Robinson Crusoes. — Wintering Establishment. — How conducted. — Awful Mortality. — Final Tragedy. — Death of eighteen Men from Scurvy and Hunger. — Ingen- ious Counter-irritant. — Russian 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-hvmt. — Gun bursts 199 CONTENTS. XUl CHAPTER XV. Bitter Cold. — ^Reindeer-shooting. — Three right and left Shots. — Delight of the SaUors. — Black Fox. — Ponche k la Spitz- berg. — Description of the Reindeer. — High Condition he at- tains. — ^Excellence of his Flesh. — His Ignorance 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. — Meritorious Deer. — Receipt for Ka- bobs. — Splendid deer Forest. — Rejoin the Sloop. Page 216 CHAPTER 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 Subsistence. — Divergence of "White Bear from original Stock. — Probable Origin of the "Walrus. — And of the Seal. — Of the Cetaceans. — Changes in the South African Antelopes, caused by Desiccation of that country 237 CHAPTER XVII. Horn and Bell Sounds. — Ice Fiord. — Pickled Reindeer's Tongues. — Arctic Foxes. — Geology. -^Raised 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. — Conclu- sion. — Game List ■ 258 Appendix 271 ILLUSTRATIONS. 1. Chase of the Walrus Montispiece. 2. The Author's Yacht, the " Ginevra" Vignette. 3. View on the River Namsen Page 25 4. Walruses on the Ice 73 5. Seal-shooting 113 6. She-Bear and Cubs 128 7. Reindeer-shooting 219 8. Group of Reindeer ; 260 Map op Authoe's Route at the end. SEASONS WITH THE SEA-HORSES. SPORTma ADYENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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. — ^Prehminary Trip to Guernsey. — Sail from Leith. — Steamer a little out in her Reckoning. — Dreadful -Famine in Lerwick. — Gale. — Nam- sen 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 received of rein- deer and other game to be met with in Spitzbergen, to make a trip across from Hammerfest to that country. It being late in the season before we got there, our stay was very short, and our sport was limited to killing a few reindeer, seals, and Brent B 18 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. geese, and to assist in tlie harpooning of one or two walruses, in the boats of a sealing brig, whicb we fell in with among the ice. I, however, saw enough of Spitzbergen to convince me that wonderful sport, and of a • most original description, was to be ob- tained there by any one who would go at the prop- er season, with a suitably equipped vessel and prop- er boats, manned by a crew of men accustomed to the ice and to the pursuit of the walrus and the 369.1. Although I have the honor to append the letters F. G. S. to my name, I make no pretensions 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 sci- ence, 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 farther this interesting phenomenon. I perceived on this occasion that nothing could be more utterly inapplicable for ice-navigation than a long fore-and-aft rigged schooner yacht, as in thread- ing the intricate mazes of the ice there was no pos- sibility 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 cop- per were exposed to constant destruction from the ice. The dandified "ultramarine blue" painted gigs were also totally unsuited for the rough work of DETERMINE TO GO AGAIN. 19 pushing in among 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 amphibise from the yacht's boats, for my subsequent experience of the strength and fe- rocity 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 Hamraerfest, 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 provided with a square topsail and every thing requisite for a summer's campaign against the ferae naturte of the arctic regions ; and including casks to stow their blubber in, as I ex- pected 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 suit- able whale- (or rather walrus-) boats to be construct- ed in Hammerfest, 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 my agent to engage two skillful * A small sloop without a topmast, a rig very general among the Scandinavian coasters. 20 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. harpooners, and men enough to man the boats and navigate the "jagt" — English sailors being al- most as useless as the boats for this description 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 among 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 traveling in different parts of the world, I have never fallen in with a pleasanter and more useful companion, or a keener and a braver sportsman, than Lord David Kennedy.. When we were nearly ready to start, and I was superintending the outfitting of my yacht at South- ampton, I was most unexpectedly requested by the Liberal party of a Scottish county to beconie their candidate in the general election about to take place ; so, deeming 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 engaged in all the excitement of an electoral contest. The result, by a very narrow majority, proved unfortunate for the walruses, although per- haps 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 STEAMER OUT IN HER RECKONING. 21 laying in a supply of cold-repelling fluids, etc., I sent the yacht round to Leith, while I traveled north by land, as I am not the least ashamed to confess that I have a strong preference for land- traveling when it is practicable. On May 31st the yacht arrived in Leith Roads, but a violent gale of east wind prevented us from sailing for several days ; however, 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 rela- tions 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 Ab- erdeen by our dead-reckoning, and were nearly run down by a tug steamer, from the deck of which a voice hailed in a strong Northumbrian dialect, re- questing to know "how far they might be from Shields. " I never saw any people look more sur- prised 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 Isl- ands on the 9th, and on the 11th, finding the wind still desperately ahead, with a heavy sea, we thought it would entail no great loss of time to put into 22 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. Lerwick to replenish our stock of fresh meat and vegetables, which, as well as fish and butter, we inaagined, in the innocence of our hearts, must abound here ; but, to our great surprise and dis- gust, we found there was no market, and scarcely any thing eatable to be bought. Will it be be- lieved that in a sea-port town of 3000 inhabitants, 'and so far advanced in civilization as to be lighted by gas, there was actually not a joint of fresh meat, a pound of fresh butter, nor even any fi'esh fish to be purchased? After much foraging we did suc- ceed in obtaining some milk, some indifferent bread, and some stale eggs. I went into a chemist's shop to purchase some photographic chemicals, and upon my remarking to the worthy proprietor that Ler- wick appeared to be suffering from famine at pres- ent, 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 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 its proprietor, a neighboring farmer who had heard of our necessities. The purchase of the sheep and the eight herrings GALE. — NAMSEN FIOBD. 23 was negotiated in a very few minutes, and then, " shaking the dust from our feet" on this wretched, poverty-stricken village, we renewed our hammer- ing 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 recogniz- ing the mountains as being those lying about the mouth of the Namsen Fiord, 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 replenishing our fresh water and fuel. We accordingly ran up this noble fiord, and at 8 A.M. on the 16th cast anchor in a beautiful lit- tle bay opposite to the gloomy precipices forming the island of Otteroe. Most extraordinary laby- rinthian clusters of islands and rocks lay on each side of the entrance to this fiord, but 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 neighboring pine- clad mountain. The Norwegian summer was just commencing, and every thing looked extremely fresh and beautiful. The celebrated Namsen River runs into the head of this fiord. This queen of rivers is well known 24 ADVENTURES IN THE NOKTHEEN SEAS. to anglers as being the finest salmon stream in Norway, or perhaps in the world. In by-gone 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 captured in the gigantic pools and magnificent rushing streams of the Namsen.* The good fish- ing water is a considerable way up, and only ex- tends 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 "Fiskum.ross" (Anglice, "the.Salmon's Fall"). This twelve mUes 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 Brit- ish 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 * 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 lbs. ; and t?ie best siwty averaging 20 lbs. each. And even this has been far exceeded by others, and particularly by the late Sir Charles Blois, who fished this river for many years. terry's BREECH-LOADINa RIFLES. 27 both came to the conviction that as sporting weap- ons they were nearly worthless, and were infinitely more troublesome 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 of any fire-arms without the test of actual practice in the field. I may add, that the principle seems to me to be still more in- applicable to military weapons than, to sporting ones, as the mechanism is far too complicated to stand wear and tear and rough usage. I dare gay 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 continuing N.E. we had to beat the whole way north, and did not reach Hammerfest until the 23d. 28 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. CHAPTER II. HIammerfest.— The "Anna Louisa." — Dr. de Jongh.— Nor- wegian 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. — Disastrous 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 BeU Sound. We dropped anchor opposite the British vice- consul's house, and had that worthy official on board to breakfast. He informed us that our "jagt" had been got ready and was waiting for us ; the boats, however, still required to be finished off and painted. Several small vessels engaged in the seal and walrus fishery had gone to Spitzbergen more than a month ago, but nothing had been heard of them since their departure. After breakfast, the gentleman to whom I had written about the prepai-ations came on board, and in company with him we went to inspect the "jagt," boats, etc. 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 THE "anna LOUISA." 29 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 Brit- ish measurement, and was rigged with a particular- ly ill-fitting mainsail, a staysail, a jib, and a small square topsail. She was high at the bow and the stern, and round in the bottom, and altogether look- ed as if the intention of her builder had been that she should make as much leeway as possible, and upset at the first opportunity. The latter fate I afterward learned had very nearly overtaken her the summer before, and her subsequent perform- ances in making leeway did not at all belie her ap- pearance. She had been engaged in a Spitzbergen trip the previous summer, and looked and smelled as if she had not been cleaned since, as the stench of the putrid walrus oil in and all over her was perfectly sickening. 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 bun- dle of white pine sticks, in the rough (to be con- verted into oars and shafts for the lances and har- poons) ; casks for the blubber (at present full of 30 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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, etc., etc. 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 dif- ficulty in collecting the crew, who seemed more in- clined to the worship of Bacchus than that of Di- ana, 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 southeast corner of Spitzbergen ; and, if that should be unapproachable 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 supposed, we soon exhausted the resources of Hammerfest inthe 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 extreme- ly hot, and the musquitoes as numerous and annoy- ing as I ever knew them in Africa or America- There is a large, ugly, harny -looking, red-tiled, and yellow-ochre painted wooden cathedral, which TRADE OF HAMMERFEST. 31 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, rot- ten-looking wooden huts, although the consuls and some few of the principal merchants have excellent and well-built houses. This was quite the busy season here, and a good deal of trade appeared to be going on, as the har- bor was full of small Russian luggers and other coasting craft. This trade consists chiefly in the exportation of dried fish and walrus-skins to Arch- angel and the other ports on the White Sea ; get- ting from thence, in return, rye meal, salt beef, tar, hemp, and cordage. They also export seal and wal- rus oil, fish oil, and seal-skins to Newcastle and Hamburg, in return for cutlery, hardware, stone- ware, dry goods, etc. Hammerfest, in addition to the honor of being the most northerly town in the world, may assur- edly lay claim to another superlative, viz., that of being the most unsavory place in the universe. The immense quantity of cod, ling, and seythe or coalfish, which are caught on the coast of Finmar- ken, 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 Ham- merfest at the time of our visit, and the whole at- mosphere was redolent of semi-putrid fish in conse- quence. 32 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. There are also several extensive hoileries of seal and walrus blubber, and of fisb-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 rip as for the ta- ble. 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 ptarmi- gan and red grouse, being merely, as Mr. Darwin would say, "strongly-marked varieties," altered by geographical conditions, such as the greater cold and the necessity for the protection of a plumage more resembling the country they frequent.* I * The ptarmigan is called in Scandinavia the " field-ripa," or hill-grouse ; and the grouse the " dal-ripa," literally " val- ley-grouse." The first frequents the high, rocky hills, and is nowhere very abundant; it seems to me exactly the same as the ptarmigan, or vrhite grouse of the Scottish mountains. The dal-ripa inhabits the rocky islands and birch-covered hill- sides in great numbers, and, although nearly as gray as the ptarmigan,! 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 every thing except his color. SHARK-MSHERT. 33 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 in the coun- try to which they were transferred. 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 So- roen. 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 Finmarken and Bear Island, where the soundings vary from 100 to 150 fathoms, and the modus operandi is to anchor by long, light hempen cables at about that depth, and then put overboard their lines baited with seal's blubber. "When they get a "nibble," they drag their victim de profundis by means of a windlass, and when he appears at the surface they farther secure him with harpoons, and dispatch him with spears and axes. The arctic shark (Squalus Groenlandicus or Borealis) is very large, and his liver, which is the sole object of his persecution, af- A species of grouse or ptarmigan is also well known to in- habit 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. c 34 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. fords nearly its own bulk of fine oil, amounting, I am told, sometimes to upward of a barrel. (Quaere, does Dr. De Jongh know any thing of SqvMus Groenlandicus f) This little vessel appeared to have been pretty successful, as her sides were quite white and silvery fi:"om 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 amuse- ment. When these men kill a shark, they have a curi- ous practice of inflating its stomach with a bellows and tying the gullet, in order to make the carcass float, as, if it sank to the bottom, all the other sharks would devote their attentions to their de- funct friend, to the neglect of the seal's blubber. About two A.M. on the 1st of July we passed Bear or Cherie Island, so called, I presume, on the lucus a non lucendo principle, because it certainly produces neither bears nor cherries at the present day. I believe the real reasons for its nomencla- ture are, that some of the early Dutch navigators, on their way to China, once saw a bear here, and that an English expedition, sent out by Alderman Cherie, of London, afterward erroneously fancied that they were the discoverers of the island, and tried to supplant 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. MEET THE ICE. 35 Although this was the third time that I have passed close by Bear Island, I had never yet actu- ally been able to see it, as it is generally shrouded by impenetrable mist. One can, however, always tell when you approach it by the enormous quanti- ties of gulls, puffins, guillemots, razor-bills, divers, etc., which use it as a sort of head-quarters and nursery, and afford to the mariner a perfect index to its proximity.* The thermometer here fell to 36°, and a fresh gale of southwest wind sprang up, and carried us at the rate of eleven knots an hour until we sight- ed South Cape, the southernmost promontory of West Spitzbergen, at 1 A.M. on the 2d. 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 ap- pointed rendezvous. We got there in the evening, and found the little harbor 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, inclosed in a bottle, and addressed to Isaac the skyppar, saying we had been there, and would re- turn in a few days. * 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. 36 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. There are some old ruinous Russian 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 cover- ed with deep slushy snow ; we saw nothing ashore but a few Brent geese and Eider ducks. 8d. 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 "Thymen'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 any thing bet- ter, 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 approach- ing 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 among 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 during a calm. They knew nothing of our sloop, and reported an indiflferent "fishing" hitherto ; no vessel that they knew of had killed SEALS ON THE ICE. 37 more tlian thirty walruses ; they themselves had twenty, with forty great seals and one bear ; they also informed us that the north coast of Spitz- bergen, which is usually considered the best hunt- ing-ground, was this year impracticable on account of large quantities of ice being jammed against the coast at the northwest 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 thermometer was only 50° in the shade. We got a boat out, and rowed for about six hours among the ice, look- ing for seals, but only saw three, all of whom man- aged to save their blubber. On such a day as this, in these latitudes, one can see to immense distances with great distinctness, and hills which we know by reckoning and ob- servatipn to be forty or fifty miles ofij 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 great 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 before mentioned, and upon hailing her I was pleased to find her the "Nordbye," of Tonsberg, the same brig I had met last summer among the Thousand Islands, and whose master had initiated me into the exciting sport of harpooning the wal- 38 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. rus. I recognized the portly form of Captain Er- icson — ^very like a "stour cobbe," or large seal himself — on the deck, and requested him to come on board to dinner, an invitation with ;^hich 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 neighborhood of Jan Mayen's Island, and, having been unlucky there, had only lately come to Spitz- bergen as a dernier ressort, in hopes of making up a cargo ; she is an unwieldy tub of 200 tons, with five boats and twenty-four men, and is far too small for the northwestern fishery, as she is un- able to hoist or turn over a dead whale ; while, on the other hand, she is too big for the Spitzbergen seal and walrus fishery, as no one locality is gen- erally 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 had been much damaged, and two or three totally lost ; among 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 express- ed his decided conviction that iron vessels will "never do" for the northern whale fishery, as the CAPTAIN EEICSON. 39 excessive cold renders tte iron brittle, and concus- sions 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 farther in great tribulation on account of having broken all his tel- escopes. The mate, a fine young fellow of twen- ty-two, only two days before had tumbled out of the "crowVnest" at the main - top - gallant - mast- head on to the deck, along with the last telescope, and had broken it to pieces. Upon farther inquiry, I ascertained that he had broken his own nech at the same time, and was picked up dead. To do my friend Ericson justice, I must acknowledge that he 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 invaluable and indispensable here, and not to be replaced nearer than Hammerfest for ten times its weight in gold. We had only three telescopes between us ; but, after a slight inward struggle, I prevailed upon myself to present one of them to Ericson, and I was happy to be able to render such an important service to so good and obliging a fellow. Before parting company, we went on board the "Nordbye" to see a young live walrus ("a leetle boy-walrus, " as Ericson in his broken English call- 40 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. ed it), which they had on board as a pet. This in- teresting 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 intelligent than I could have believed ; the only thing which seemed to destroy its equanimity was pulling its whiskers, or pretending 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 any thing offered it ; but I strongly advised Ericson to give it, if pos- sible, 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 "Thymen'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 impossible, and we therefore had to make up our minds to a continuance of the bull for the present. MEET OUR CONSORT. 41 f We sailed down tlie fiord again on tlie 5th to look for our consort, or to see if slie had left any letters for us at the post-office ; on nearing the Rus- sian 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 2d, and had not met with any great quantity of ice, except among the Thousand Isl- ands ; 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 kill- ed four seals, and these formed the commencement of a cargo which afterward swelled to goodly pro- portions. Our people were of opinion that our best chance of sport lay to the northeast of the Thousand Isl- ands, 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 for- mer 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 diffi- culty in keeping the yacht fi-om running out of sight of her lubberly consort. On the 6th we found the ice getting too thick for the "Ginevra," so we agreed to abandon her 42 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. altogether, and to shift our flag into the "Anna Louisa" for good. We occupied about one half the day in transferring our guns, bedding, provisions, ammunition, etc., from the yacht to the sloop ; we also took with us the yacht's cook and Lord Da- vid's servant James, which made up a total of six- teen souls for the sloop, leaving ten in the yacht ; we took the two new walrus boats with us, and transferred the small old one to the yacht; we farther 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 instructions in writ- ing "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 pro- visions, and in either case to be back without fail at the Russian huts on or before the 6th of Au- gust." I also instructed him to employ his per- sonal leisure in collecting and carefully labeling fossils and shells, and also small bags of gravel from diflferent elevations, as well as some specimens of whales' bones and drift-wood from the highest elevations he could find them on. I appointed the mate to be maitre de chasse, and intrusted him with one of the Terry's rifles and a single-barreled shot-gun, with lots of powder, shot, caps, and cartridges ; we then parted company, and proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable as cir- cumstances would admit of on board the sloop. DESCKIPTIOSr OF A WALRUS -BOAT. 43 CHAPTER III. Preparations. — ^Description of a Walrus-boat, and Implements used. — Harpoons.^Lanees. — The , Haak-pick, or Seal-hook. — Axes. — ^Knives.— Iceranchors.— Compass. The crew are busy' in shaping the rough white pine poles into oars, and shafts for the spears ^nd 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 de- scription of the way in which this pursuit is con- ducted, as well as of the tackle and implements made use of, as it will enable the reader more clearly to understand my account of our own per- sonal experiences afterward. 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 how-shaped at both ends, and should be at once strong, light, swift to row, and easily turned on her own centre ; this lat- ter 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 44 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 steering 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 economizes 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 turn- ed much quicker, and the oars, being short, are less in the way among ice. The harpooner always rows the bow oars, and is, of course, the command- er of the boat ; he alone uses the weapons and the telescope; the strongest man in the boat usually 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 requisite to prevent them THK WALRUS HARPOON. 45 from slipping farther aft on the gunwale than the notches, as if they do the boat will probably be up- set ; it is from this cause that most of the accidents that one occasionally hears of occur. There is sometimes also a "bollard," or little up- right post, in the bow of the boat, for making fast the lines to, but many harpooners prefer to dispense with this, using instead the foremost thwart of the boat. The boats are invariably painted white outside, in order to make their appearance assimilate 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 ma- terial, which would keep its color in spite of dirt and grease. Each boat is usually provided with six harpoon heads, fitting, three on each side, inside of the bow, into little racks covered with curtains of painted canvas to prevent their sharp points and edges from being blunted or accidentally wounding the men. These harpoons are used indifferently for the seal and the walrus, and are, with all their apparent simplicity, the most perfect weapon that can be con- trived for the purpose. When the instrument 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 smaller inner barb, like that of a fish-hook, prevents 46 ADVENTURES. IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. it from becoming disengaged: "The best proof of its excellence is, that' when a walrus is once prop- erly harpooned and the line tight, he very rarely es- capes. Each of these harpoOn heads has grummet- ed round its neck one end of a line of twelve or fif- teen 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 fathoms deep, and even if the wa- ter 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 pressure of twelve or fifteen; fathoms of water. The lines are made of two-inch tarred hemp rope, very soft laid, and should be of tlie very finest materials and best possible workmanship. There are generally four shafts for the harpoons, and it is not customaty to keep m.ore than one mounted, unless when walruses are actually in sight. They are made of white pine' poles twelve or thir- teen 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 pur- pose between two of the timbers of the boat, about THE WHITEFISH HARPOON. 47 fifteen feet from the bow, and on the starboard side. The harpoons are used either for thrusting or darting, and a skillful harpooner will throw them with sufficient force to secure a walrus at four or fi\^e fathoms distance ; when possible, 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 neg- lected, 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 albicans), it is usu- al to carry one harpoon of a diflferent construction, and with fifty fathoms of line attached, for their es- pecial 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 con- trary, is quite tender, gristly, and gelatinous, and the barbed iron, therefore, requires to be driven in until it 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 48 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. "large as a weaver's beam," but as neither I my- self, nor probably my readers, have any notion of what a "weaver's beam" may be like, I will ex- plain that the shaft is a white pine pole nine feet long and one and a half inch thick at the handle, increasing upward to two and a half inches thick where it goes into the socket of the iron. Formi- dable as this weapon is, the iron shank is very fre- quently 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 hav- ing the shaft so disproportionately large is, that there may be buoyancy enough to float the heavy iron spear if it should happen to fall into the wa- ter, 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 lances rendered for the time unserviceable in the dispatching of a single walrus. The lances lie on the thwarts, with the blades protected 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 unneces- sary, 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 THE ICE-ANCHOR. 49 of these implements, 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 any thing goes wrong, or a walrus proves so fierce and mis- chievous that they may wish to be quit of him on any terms. Five or six large sharp knives are for stripping the skin and blubber off the animals, or "fleiising" them, as it is called in the fisher's parlance. An ice-anchor is employed for anchoring the boat to an iceberg, and also to afford Sbfulcrvm, by which, with the help of two double-purchase blocks and twenty-four fathoms of rope (also forming part of every boat's appointm.ents), 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 ammunition, an iron bailing-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 nip- D 50 ADVENTURES IN. THE NORTHERN SEAS. pers, 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 can- ister of powder and caps, spare grummets, a box of matches and brimstone, a canister of coifee, 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 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 oflf, 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 strap- ped 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 occa- sion to make use of them, still the sense of comfort and security they gave one was very great, because I consider that they made one quite able to defy any SEA-FOWL, 51 cold that can occur, even in the Arctic regions, in summer. As for provisions, I never felt any un- easiness on that score, as, even if a seal or a walrus could not be immediately obtained, there were al- ways plenty of eider ducks on the islands and out- lying skerries ; and the sea every where 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. 52 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. CHAPTER 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 su Sloop in the Ice.— Cure for frost-bitten Feet. — Sketch of the Spitzbergen' "Walrus-hunt- er.— Profits of the Trade.— Truck System.— Cold.— Chil- blains. — 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 canvas) fixed at the main-top-gallant-mast- head; but in a small vessel such as we had, the look-out man simply sits on the main gaff or the topsail yard. From 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 lar- ger vessel. As may be supposed, it is rather a cold position than otherwise, that on the topsail 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, because, if the ice is rough, even a large herd of walruses may be in sight one minute UNSUCCESSFUL AT FIRST. 53 and concealed by high intervening icebergs the next. The look-out man, of course, requires to be relieved 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 fir- ing at his head. At first, however, we failed to do much execution, because, at the advice of the har- pooners, we waited until all chance of harpooning the 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 supporting the tusks ; the brain, in reality, lies far back, and the back part of the head is com- pletely buried in the folds of fat or blubber sur- rounding the neck. 54 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. On the 7th the weather continued foggy, with a cold northeast wind, and we made very little prog- ress 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 northeast wind lately prevail- ing and the current, which always sets more or less in the same direction. When going in pursuit of the walruses among the ice, it is sometimes very difficult to get the boats through the ice at the out- er edge of the pack, where it is so closely wedged together, and we generally have to drag them over the ice with great labor for fifty or sixty yards, un- til we get into opener water inside the pack. This morning Lord David shot a cow walrus through the head as she was shuffling off the ice. She im- mediately sank, but floated up again in a few sec- onds, 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 follow- ing them herself, when my rifle bullet penetrated her brain, and she tumbled head foremost off the LAY-TO IN A FOG. 55 iceberg, and instantly sank to appear no more. The two young ones came up again and again, as if look- ing for their dam, but would not allow us to ap- proach 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 farther to the northeast, we sh^U find plenty of more unsophisticated 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 " Black Point," a gloomy promontory, form- ing the southeast corner of Edge's Land, as this di- vision of Spitzbergen is called. Nothing was visi- ble 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 midday the fog got thicker, and we found ourselves running in among 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 Spitz- bergen 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. 56 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. ^th. . The fog is not quite so thick, but a very cold wind is blowing from the northeast, and the thermometer on deck is just above freezing-point. In such weather seals and walruses do not lie on the ice, nor show more than their beads above wa- ter occasionally, as if to inquire if the weather above was getting any more favorable for basking. "We pretty much imitate these sensible amphibia 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 hav- ing 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 to- tally lost among 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 extremity from cold and hunger, having had nothing to eat for several days past but the dry seal-skin mufflings 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 FROST-BITTEN FEET CURE SUGGESTED. 57 feet badly frost-bitten, and the object of tbis otber 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 medi- cine but a box of pills and one of Seidlitz powders, and doubting the efficacy of these in a case of mor- tification, I recommended them to take the man over to Norway immediately, or else to amputate the frost-bitten parts of his feet without farther delay. The master of the sloop replied that he and his crew could not affiard to sacrifice their summer's profits by leaving the ice with their ves- sel only half full, and were afraid to take upon themselves the responsibility of performing the amputation. I then told them them that, as we had just come out, and had already the same num- ber 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 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 ofij that bandages wet with port wine were applied to keep off mortification, and so, as the nearest ap- proach 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 advisable. We heard a few days afterward that by great 58 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 com- pleted, had taken the six men over to Hammer- fest ; and I afterward 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 Spitzbergen 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 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 in- stead, 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 adopt- ed 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 walrus-hunters' profits. 59 every walrus and seal that they possibly can. The usual system I believe to be as follows : The own- ers fit out and provision the vessel, and advance to the men on credit what money they require to buy clothing and to provide necessaries for their fami- lies during their absence : whatever the cargo ob- tained may consist of, one third of the gross pro- ceeds is then set apart for the crew, and divided into shares, of which the captain gets three, each harpooner two, and the other men one each. Thus, if the gross proceeds of a voyage in skins, blubber, and ivory be estimated at $2000, and the number of hands amounts to ten, which is the usual num- ber for a vessel with two boats, the shares will be worth $47i, or about £10 each ; £10 is a much more important sum of money in Norway than it is in Britain ; and so (putting aside the exciting nature of the occupation) it is not suprising that the best seamen and boldest spirits of the north of Norway should be generally found in the Spitz- bergen sealers. These are the true descendants and successors of the gallant Vikings and Berserk- ars, who of old ravaged and conquered 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 60 ADVENTURES IN' THE NORTHEEN SEAS. 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 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, etc., in the markets of Hamburg or Bremen, and are naturally anxious to "realize" at once, I am afraid they are generally induced or intimidated 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 in- stead money wages at double the rate usual in Nor- Avay. 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. 10th, Sunday. Thick, cold, raw fog all day; ropes all incrusted with ice, which falls down clattering on the deck every time any thing 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 alto- gether to be 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 SEAL SHOT. 61 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 11th was just such another day, and we did not see twenty yards from the deck all day. In the evening a big ^al was observed looming through the fog, and looking as large as a walrus in the haze. Lord David shot him dead. When a sin- gle 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 any thing in sight. Our crew are di- vid!ed into three watches of four hours each, but all hands are summoned on deck whenever 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, un- fortunately, he broke his left arm a few weeks be- fore we sailed, so that he is unable to use the oar or the harpoon as yet. He makes a most excellent and careful ship-keeper, and we never have any un- easiness about being lost while we know that he is on deck. It must be rather dull work for him, be- ing on deck alone for whole days, with the topsail aback, while the boats are miles out of sight in the ice. We have 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 visi- 62 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. ble 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 interval, and enabled us to get a beautiful view of the coast, with its enormous glaciers sweeping out into the sea in great semicircular arcs. There was plenty of ice all round, but in very open order. Eyk Yse Islands were visible to the north, among 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 equidistant from the other sloop and ourselves. Lord David went in pursuit of it ; but we perceived from the deck that the steersman had lost the bearings of the seal, and 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 direction repeatedly, he could see nothing for the glare, and he lay still until the boat approach- ed to within about fifty yards, when my bullet per- forated his cerebellum, and he sank motionless on the ice. The pursuit of the great Spitzbergen seal (Phoca PHOCA BABBATA. 63 harbata), although it lacks the wild excitement of the chase of the sea-horse, is a very delightful amuse- ment. 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 can not be harpooned in his sleep, like his more lethargic con- gener the walrus. I imagine this greater watch- fulness on the part of the seals to arise from the greater cause they have to apprehend being " stalk- ed" by the bears while taking their siesta ; howev- er this may be, recourse must be had to the rifle be- fore the harpoon comes into play in the case of Phoca 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 cer- tain 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" 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 propor- tion take the alarm much sooner. Every rifle vol- unteer and every gunmaker's apprentice who reads this will probably exclaim, "Oh, there is no diffi- culty in that; I can hit an orange every shot at 64' ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 100 yards !" This may be true, my gallant volun- teer or skillful gunmaker, but you have not yet taken into account that the boat is heaving more or less from the motion of the -vyaves, and that the slab of ice on which your orange is lying is heaving also ; and this, upon consideration^ you will admit increases the " difHculty" a little ; neither Lord Da- vid 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 kill- ing a seal dead. The rifles we both used were el- liptical, four-barreled Lancaster's of 40-gauge. Dur- ing 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 direc- tion 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 ob- serve that the boat must also keep carefully to lee- ward, as the seal has an acute sense of smell ; and if the advantage of the sun can be obtained in ad- dition, as in the case above related, the moments of Phoca barhata are probably numbered. I always 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 SIZE OF PHOCA BARBATA. 65 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 unnecessary pre- caution, 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 sixty-eight pound shot, while his proprietors, as they delusively con- sidered themselves, were standing within two feet of him. When the seal is fairly dead, all the men except one get on the ioe, and with their knives they strip the skin and blubber, in one sheet, off his body in a very few minutes. The carcass, 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 th« ship. A full-sized Spitzbergen seal, in good condition, is about nine and a half or ten feet long, by six or six and a half feet in circumference, and weighs six hundred pounds or upAvard. The skin and fat amount to about one half the total weight. The blubber lies in one layer of two or 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 mar- ket all over the world ; but, at the time of which I write, oil being unusually cheap, they only averaged E GQ ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. about five or six dollars apiece ; but still the fact of the animals being of some use contributed to ren- der the chase of them much more exciting, as noth- ing can be more distasteful or unsatisfactory to the feelings of a true sportsman than taking the life of any thing 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 im- pressed 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 difl&cult to get possession of them. The most approved plan is not to fire unless the boat's head is directed toward the seal and distant not more than thirty yards ; then, if the men all give way instantly and vigorously, you may be 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 downward. Some people compute that " one half of the seals shot in the water, even with skillful management, are lost;" others say "two thirds ;" and, from our own experience, I am in- clined to think it is two to one on the seal, or there- abouts, I have several times lost six consecutive- ly, and a most tantalizing 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 SHOOTINa SEALS IN THE WATER. 67 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. 68 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. CHAPTER V. Hunting the Walrus. — Windfall. — Maternal Affection of Wal- rus. — Seal's Dinner. — MoUuscse. — ^Whale's Food. — Herd of Walruses. — Four killed. — Escape of a fine Bull. — Cutting up the Blubber. — Walrus Hide and Blubber. — Accommodar tions of "Anna Louisa." — "Whittling" a great Resource.* — Vast_Herds_j5£._Searhorges. — " Jaging" them. — Exciting Sport. — Man killed by a Walrus. — Spitzbergen Gazette of June 16th. — Walrus Veal or Foal. The fog was- as thick as ever again on the morn- ing of the 12th, and we were tantalized by hearing the snorting and bellowing of a great many wal- ruses in the immediate vicinity, although we could not find them for the fog ; but it fortunately clear- ed 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 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 MATERNAL AFFECTION OF WALRUS. 69 he knew very well to whom the harpoon had be- longed. I never in my life witnessed any thing more in-" teresting 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 among 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 re- served my fire, and upon looking closely at the walrus when she came up to breathe, I then per- ceived 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 to receive with pleasure several harpoons which were intend- ed 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 ex- plain to me why he was so anxious to secure the calf, and he proceeded to give me a practical illus- tration of his meaning by gently "stirring up" the unfortunate junger with the butt end of a harpoon shaft. This caused the poor little animal eo emit a peculiar, plaintive, grunting cry, eminently express- ive of alarm and of a desire for assistance, and 70 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. Christian said it "would bring all the herd round about the boat immediately. Unfortunately, how- ever, 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 the 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 ex- pressive of abject terror, and 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" among 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 aldermanic proportions, who looked as if he had lately been attending a civic feast, and found in it, not turtle, but about a bushel of beautiful prawns, evidently just swallowed, and so fresh that we might have re-eaten them ourselves but for an unworthy preju- dice. How animal life must swarm in these cold CLIO BOREALIS. 71 seas to maintain sucTi a multitude of voracious an- imals ! The keeper of the "Talking Seal" in Lon- don 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 thousands of seals here must de- vour. The basis of all this gormandizing is un- doubtedly the Medusae or Jelly-fish, which in places are so numerous as actually to thicken and discolor the sea I Conspicuous among these are the small black animalculae, popularly known to the Nor- wegian fi-equenters of these regions as " Hval- spise" or "Whales' food" {Clio borealis). This singular moUusk may be briefly described as nearly resembling the body of a tadpole, but in- stead 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 animalculae to such an extent that I have no difficulty in believing that the huge Mysticetus, with his enormous open mouth and whalebone brushes, may ingulf a suf- ficiency of them to maintain him. I collected a lot of these winged tadpoles, intending to preserve them in spirits of wine, but somehow that fluid re- duced 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 spirits of wine for their reception, they fought furiously 72 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. in a sort of indiscriminate melee among themselves, and were more particularly virulent against a small pink Jelly-fish which I put into the tumbler beside them. l%th. At 3 A.M. this morning we were aroused by the cheering cry of ' ' Hvalruus paa Ysen" (wal- ruses on the ice). We both got up immediately, and fi-om the deck a curious and exciting spectacle met our admiring gaze. Four large flat icebergs were so densely packed with walruses that they were sunk almost awash 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 lying 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 among 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 fullf" There were plenty more good flat icebergs about, but they always seem 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 LOSE A FINE BULL. 75 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 him- self 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 upset 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 bal- lasted 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 jumping out, when fortunately she righted again. This herd consisted chiefly of cows and young bulls, and they then dispersed or got out of reach among the ice. In the forenoon we discovered a huge bull, with fine tusks, by himself sound asleep on a small slop- ing piece of ice, and I went in Solomon's boat to attack him. The shape of the iceberg would not permit us to approach within stabbing distance of the bull, but as he was not more than five yards fii-om the bow of the boat, I very foolishly did not fire, as I considered 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 76 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. was into the sea like a shot. The rest of the boat's crew were as much annoyed as myself, and anathematized the unhappy Solomon in every lan- guage 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 another of the crew as harpooner instead of him. lAth. Northeast wind, thick fog, and hard frost, all the rigging incased with icicles. Hitherto all our skins, with the blubber attached, 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 casks ; we therefore take advantage of the fog to-day to perform this necessary but un- pleasant 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 oilskin 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 sep- arate the fat from the skin, so as to remove the CUTTING XJP THE BLUBBER. 77 whole of it, and not to cut or shave the skin itself; but, by a sort of moioing 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 twen- ty 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 soon finds its own level in the casks, and when full these are fastened up. I ought to have mentioiied that the skins of full-grown walruses 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 Swe- den, 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 chaf- ing. In former times nearly all the rigging of ves- sels 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, 78 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. where, I believe, they are made into what are known in the hosiers' shops as "dog-skin" and "Dundee kid" gloves. Their value 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 lbs. will carry 200 or 250 lbs. of fat; an ordi- nary walrus may weigh 2000 lbs., but his fat will not exceed that of the seal. A full-sized old bull walrus must weigh at least 3000 lbs., and such a walrus will produce, if very fat, 650 lbs. of blubber, but seldom more than 500 lbs., 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 indiscriminately to- gether, and the compound is always exported into Southern Europe under the name of seal oil. We begin to find some of these long, dreary, fog- gy days intolerably irksome, as our cabin is singu- larly 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, ex- cept where a small dingy skylight three feet square gives us the advantage of another foot. There is a "bunk" on each side of about 5 J x 2^, and one can hardly be said to be lying 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 prefer- AGREMBNS OF THE "ANNA LOUISA." 79 able 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 7x4, 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, etc., 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, cof- fee, and sugar, magazine of powder, bags of shot, etc., etc. Our guns, pouches, and spare clothes hang on nails inside the bed-places and in the corner^. Aft amidships, in a slip of leather nailed to, the wall, hangs a bottle of brandy, the sole stimulant we indulge in ; and side by side with the more gen- erous fluid is a bottle of chloride of lime, with the cork out^ for the purpose of mollifying, in some measure, the awful effluvium caused by the commin- gling of putrid walrus oil and bilge-water. Vain hope ! Add to these little agremens the fact that the thermometer averages 40° in the cabin, and I think it will be generally conceded that we are pay- ing pretty dear for the pleasure of hunting walrus- es 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, eminently adapted for "whittling" and engraving, and in these intellectual and scien- 80 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. tific occupations we find a great, resource. As for reading, it is next to impossible, for I defy any body 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. 15th. Wind round to the southwest, and mild. Summoned on deck at 5 A. M., a large herd of wal- ruses 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 distance by the sonorous bellowing and trumpeting of a vast number of walruses. We soon came in sight of a long line of low flat ice- bergs 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 can not 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 har- pooning distance of a single walrus. Many of them were asleep ; but there were always some moving about who gave the alarm to their sleep- ing comrades by flapping them with their fore feet, EXCITING SPORT. 81 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 to- gether there is always a pretty fair chance of secur- ing some by " jaging" them in the water — that is to say, by perseveringly 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 can not go much faster than the boat, if so fast ; also the calves must come up to breathe much more frequently 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 experience I never saw any thing 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 har- pooner 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 reap- pear again is remarkable : one moment you see a F 82 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 hemispher- ical backs, the next a hundred pair of hind flippers flourishing, and then they are all down. On, on, goes the boat as hard as ever we can pull the oars ; up come the sea-horses again, pretty close this time, and before they can draw breath the boat rushes into the midst of them: whish! goes the harpoon: hirr ! goes the line over the gunwale : and a luck- less junger on whom Christian has kept his eye is "fast:" his bereaved mother charges the boat in- stantly 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 at- AN ARCTIC TEAM. 83 tention to " polishing off" the two live walruses — 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 Da- vid'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-barreled rifled. While we were engaged in cutting up these wal- ruses, there were at least fifty more surrounding the iceberg, snorting and bellowing, and rearing up in the water as if smelling the blood of their slaugh- tered fi?iends, and curious to see what we were do- ing 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. 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 morn- ing's bag, we thought. 84 AD-VENTUBES IN THE NOBTHERN SEAS, The sloop by this time had got a breeze, and sail- ed up within fifty yards of us, which saved us a long row with our fatigued crews and heavy-laden boats. During this morning's proceedings I realized the immense advantage of striking a junger first, when practicable. This curious clannish practice of com- ing to assist a calf in distress arises from their be- ing 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 : About ten days after the exciting chasse which I have just described, the skyppar of a small schoon- er 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 belonging to a sloop from Trom- soe had been upset, two or three days before, in our immediate 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, re- ceived him with his lance full in the chest ; but the shaft of the lance broke all to shivers, and the wal- rus, getting inside of it, threw himself on the gun- DISRATE SOLOMON. 85 ■wale of the boat and overset it in an instant. While the men were floundering in the water among their oars and tackle, the * infuriated animal rushed in among them, and, selecting the unlucky harpooner, who, I fancy, had fallen next him, he tore him near- ly 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 acquaintance 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,btit without receiving any injury beyond being nearly drowned, and having a deep scar plowed in each side pf 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 sec- ond 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 honorable 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 arti- 86 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. cles as harpooner at 20 dollars per mensem. To be a good harpooner requires great courage, activi- ty, and presence of mind ; and it is a common re- mark that "not one man in a hundred is capable of ever becoming a good one. " Jack has been six voyages to Spitzbergen, but has never acted as har- pooner before ; but, being a cool, active, and ener- getic 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 flavor of seal, but slightly insipid. Saw no game all day, but one walrus in the wa- ter. Calm in the evening. SABBATH OBSEEVANCE. 87 CHAPTEE VI. Sabbath Observance. — Rewarded for ditto. — Our first Bear seen. — Kill him. — Lose the Sloop. — Quantities of Eggs. — Drift-wood. — Comes from Siberia. — Can not be in situ. — Geology of Thousand Islands. — Red Snow. — Caused by Mute of Alca Alle. — Bear Battue, and its Consequences. — Deplorable Effects of smelling Brandy. Sunday the 17tli was calm, witli 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 appear- ance of a fat seal or a troop of walruses floating past is eminently tantalizing, and severely tries our respect for the fourth commandment. I am sorry to state that the greater part of the sealing vessels make little or no distinction between the seventh day and the rest of the week, although some of them compromise with their consciences by' refi-aining from searching for animals with the boats, merely attacking those which come within sight of the ves- sel. 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 88 ADVENTURES IN THE NOETHERN SEAS. that is, that they are no gainers by it in the long run ; for, whether it was attributable to our ener- gies, mental and bodily, being recruited by a day of rest, or to the fact of the animals, the objects of pursuit, having time to settle during twenty-four hours' respite from bullets and harpoons, somehow Monday always was with us the most successful day of the week. Verily a day of rest once a week is of essential importance to man and beast, even if on no other grounds than those of physical requirements. "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, with- out being deemed presumptuous, to suggest that this might be more than merely accidental?) that we saw our first bear a few minutes after this Sun- day had expired. We were smoking our pipes on deck at midnight, 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, exclaim- ed, " 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 SEE OtJR MEST BEAR. 89 walking 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 exclu- sion of pairs of walrus tusks of fabulous length and thickness. We 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 opportuni- ty of getting some dry drift-wood for fuel. We care- fully 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 pret- ty close to the island, and observed our "friend in white" quietly pottering about, evidently in search of something — "gathering eggs," Christian explain- ed to us. Multitudes 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 researches. We got a small cliff between us and the bear without his perceiving us, and jumped ashore with our ri- * 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 sobriquet, as " old Eric ;" or in some roundabout way, as " the party in the brown jacket," " the old gentleman in the fur cloak," etc. 90 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. fles, in expectation of getting a shot at him from the rocks ; but, on gaining the top of the cliff, to our great dismay we saw the bear a good hundred yards at sea, and making great play for a neigh- boring 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 bullets ricochetted on the water close past his 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 rug." While so satisfac- torily 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, think- ing there might perhaps be another bear about the rocks : there was none ; but I saw, to my great un- easiness, that a dense fog had come on, and the sloop was nowhere visible : the current was carry- ing the ice past the island at the rate of five miles an hour from northeast to southwest, so that look- ing for the sloop was perfectly hopeless, and it ap- MULTITUDES OF SEA-FOWL. 91 peared as if we should have to bivouac for a day or two on the island. The fat grease of Ursus mari- timus had not looked particularly appetizing, so I began to inspect the culinary resources of our in- sular 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 split eggs were strewed about in numbers, but, unfortunately, every one which I opened contained a well-developed and odoriferous chick, and, although this may have suited the palate of U. Maritimus, 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 strewed in prodigious quantities on all the coasts and outlying islands of Spitzbergen. While gathering wood, I found a very good walrus har- poon lying among the sand near some old bones of sea-horses. It had evidently been deeply implant- ed in some poor walrus who had come here to die 92 ADVENTUBES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. of his wound. It was somewhat lighter than those we had in use, so we ground it sharp, and after- ward used it at the capture of many walruses. I found a very large pine-tree (I think Ahies excelsa) with the roots on, but much water-worn and worm- eaten, as if long at sea ; this tree, as well as thou- sands of others I have seen, lay far above high-wa- ter mark. Lord Dufferin, in his clever and delightful "Let- ters from High Latitudes," states that this drift- wood is "brought to Spitzbergen by the Gulf Stream ;" but I think his lordship must have in- serted this remark without due consideration ; 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 exer- cise 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 can not come with- in the influence of the Gulf Stream. There are cer- tainly pine forests on the south of Cuba and in Florida, the refuse of which might possibly, by the course of the currents, be directed toward Spitzber- gen; but it is obviously not from these compara- tively limited areas that the vast quantity of pine drift-wood found on the shores of Spitzbergen is de- rived. I once found on- the beach, near Hammer- fest, a large piece of mahogany much water- washed, and drilled *as full of worm-holes as it could be FINE DRIFTWOOD. 93 without falling to pieces — in fact, perfectly honey- combed. 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, etc., 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 expla- nation 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 coun- try, must carry down enormous quantities of drift- wood, partly loose and partly imbedded in ice, and that this is carried out to 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 pos- sibly be in situ, i. e., might have composed part of great forests at one time growing in Spitzbergen it- self; but, although I do not at all wish to give any opinion upon the very doubtful and debatable sub- ject 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, 94 ADVENTURES INI THE NOBTHBEN SEAS, 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 Isl- ands, 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 pres- ent state of barrenness, have borne trees even in a temperate climate. 3. It is all much water-worn, as if from long ex- posure 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 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 in- lets and -skerries on the south, southeast, and south- west of Spitzbergen (I do not include Hope Isl- and), is composed of a rough, coarse-grained trap * This might have been done since it came to Spitzbergen, and so I do not lay much stress on this argument. GEOLOGY OF THOUSAND ISLANDS. 95 rock, which in places imperfectly assumes the co- lumnar 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 protu- berances, are much worn and rounded, as if they had been half made into houlders abeady. They, no doubt, are so ; for thousands of boulders, quite smooth and rounded, and formed of the same rock, half cover the islands. These are mostly of an av- erage size of about a cubic foot, and very seldom exceed two feet and a half in diameter. They are curiously packed and leveled in some places, as if they had been roughly made into a causeway for walking on by human agency. This singular ap- pearance I conceive to have heen 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. Among these native boulders I was a little surprised to find a few very round and smooth boulders of red gran- ite, of about one cubic foot downward in size, as there is no granite nearer than the inaccessible peaks of the primitive ridges in the centre of Spitz- bergen, distant forty or fifty miles. There were also some boulders of a hard reddish stone like por- phyry, and some small weather-worn blocks of a very hard white limestone, of a description different from any limestone rock which I h^ve any where seen.m situ in Spitzbergen. It seems to me that all these interlopers must have traveled either from 96 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. the northeast part of Spitzbergen, or from some un- known country in that direction, as it is clear that they do not belong to this, part of the country, and they are evidently traveled and ice-borne blocks. I saw for the first time on this island the singu- lar appearance called "red snow," a description of which is familiar to all readers of arctic voyages. "With deference to some of these distinguished ob- servers, 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," etc. ) to account for this appearance, I may state that all the red snow which has come under my obser- vation has been simply caused by the coloring mat- ter 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" afterward grow on the drop- pings., 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 eifort to regain the sloop. We therefore rowed out for about three miles, when, not being able to find her, and being afraid of losing the island our- selves, we rowed back again, and had made a large fire, and were about to breakfast upon bear-steaks ACCIDENTS FROM FOG, 97 and eider-ducks, when the sloop appeared in sight, about three miles off, and in a totally different di- rection 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 hours' sleep. Many poor people have been left to perish mis- erably on these bleak and desert islands by acci- dents arising from fog, ice, currents, and hrandy. 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 afterward 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 car- casses. They found a perfect flock of bears — up- ward of fifty — congregated on the island, holding a sort of carnival on the remains of the walruses. The crew of the vessel consisted, as is usual, of ten men, of whom the skyppar and seven others land- ed to attack the bears, after having anchored their , sloop, securely as they thought, to a large ground- ed iceberg close to the island, and given the two men left on board strict injunctions to keep a good look-out. They had a most successful "battue," and killed twenty-two or twenty-three of the bears, the rest G 98 ADVENTURES IN THE NOKTHERN SEAS. making good their escape to sea; but this chase occupied many hours, and meanwhile 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 inten- tion of smelling it, of course ; but from smelling they not unnaturally got to tasting, and from tast- ing they soon became helplessly drunk. While they were in this happy state of oblivion to bears, icebergs, 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, when they had flensed all their bears, 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 themselves. 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 alter- native 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. HAZARDOUS VOYAGE. 99 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 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 help- less condition of the sloop, and imagining her to be abandoned, sent a boat on board to take posses- sion ; but, finding the two worthies asleep in close proximity to their beloved cask, they were cruel and hard-hearted enough to throw the latter over- board, 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 recep- tion they met with from their justly exasperated comrades and the owners of the vessel. * I saw this boat myself on the island, turned bottom up, with all her oars, lances, harpoons, etc., just as they had been left five years before. 100 ADVENTURES IN THE NOETHERN SEAS. CHAPTER VII. Northeast Gale. — ^Bears' Grease. — Errors in tlje Charts. — Ge- ology. — ^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 liow attempted to beat to the N.E. against both wind and current, with the intention of re- suming our cruising ground near Ryk Yse Islands ; but in the afternoon the wind increased a good deal, and the barometer gave indications of an approach- ing gale, so our people advised that we should re- main among the islands, as they said the gale of N.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 distant, 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. V^ih. The storm continues with unabated force, and we have 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 THE THOUSAND ISLANDS. 101 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 conse- quently very difficult to divide it from the fat with- out 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 among 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 condi- tion sometimes affiards upward of four times ,that quantity. I believe the fat of Ursus maritimus is not suit- able for the manufacture of "bears' grease ;" prob- ably it has a tendency to turn the hair white. A heavy fall of snow commenced in the evening, and continued during the night. 'iOth. Gale a good deal moderated and clear. Got out both boats and coasted about the lee 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 win- ter ; the fourth died. This cluster of islands is exactly of the same for- ^ 102 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. mation 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 containing fossil pectens and other shells. No ice to speak of has been driven to this direc- tion by the gale ; and as plenty of floating ice is in- dispensable 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, nearly qne 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 hundred miles farther to the N.E. than the charts make it. This latter grave error is notorious among 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 GEOLOGY OF BLACK POINT. 103 whicli inclose 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 promontories 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 de- tritus brought down from the sides of the mount- ains by the action of frost and avalanches : these 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 ^ides of East Spitzbergen. The granitic peaks of the central range are much higher, but they are every where quite inaccessible, and are only to be seen here and there peeping out from among the glaciers. Black Point is composed of a dark gray or mud-colored limestone and sandstone of a soft and shaly de- scription, 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 horizontality of the stratification ; in the lower part of the prec- ipice there is, among 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 mentioned. The limestone contains a great number of fossils, many of which I col- lected. Black Point and "Whalefish Point are both very 104 ADVENTURES IN THE NOETHERN SEAS. deeply furrowed from top to bottom, and these fur- rows bdSing generally full of snow, while the dark gray ridges between them are bare, give the mount- ains a sort of ribbed appearance, which renders them very conspicuous 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 lime- stone 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 northeast, the detritus brought down from the mountains, instead of being perpetually washed away from the base of the cliffs, is allow- ed to accumulate ; and flowing each year, or each flood, over the top of the layer already deposited, it gradually encroaches on the sea and forms a mud- dy 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 assume a more permanent shape. These plains are in some places three to four miles broad, and, although their sur- face may not have undergone any of these natural top dressings for ages, they are generally so very FORMATION OF SUBALPINE FLATS- 105 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 satu- rated by the winter's snow. The water in these bays is generally very muddy, from being so heav- ily charged with sediment washed off the hills by the melting snow, and they are unquestionably be- coming 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 rapid- ly as in Spitzbergen, and more particularly around the two gulfs of Stour Fiord 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 pres- ent causes to remodel the surface of the earth, I should strongly recommend him to take a trip to Deeva Bay, and he may rest assured that he will come back a wiser man. On the 21st we were becalmed off Black Point, and, leaving the sloop there, we took to the boats and rowed for about seven miles up Deeva Bay, to where two good-sized islands stretch several miles 106 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. into the bay, 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 north and northeast 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 impossible 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 smelled 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 "fast" ice arises from the sound or vibration made by one's feet being com- municated 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 be- fore we got up to them. The white bear, as is well known, subsists prin- cipally 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, * Ice attached to the shore is so called. THE SEAL OFTEN ESCAPES. 107 in the use of both of which organs U. maritimus is unsurpassed by any wild animal whose acquaint- ance 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 toward 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 close under the hapless seal, when one jump up and one blow of his tremendous paw generally settles the business. The seal can not go fast enough to es- cape 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 can not be very easy, even for an animal of such prodigious strength as the Polar bear, to keep hold of a six-hundred weight seal dur- ing the first contortions of the latter, and a furious struggle must often take place. That the seals oft- en 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 arid restless when they * 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. 108 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. are on the ice, as very many of these seals in all probability never saw a mail or a boat in all their lives. When there are bears in the neighborhood the seals are always much more difficult of access, and the hunters, consequently, entertain a deep antip- athy to "Gamle Eric," and never omit an oppor- tunity of putting a bullet into him, even if in cir- cumstances, where they can not get possession or make use of him when dead. We hunted round all the open sides of these isl- ands 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 upward above the sea. The bones were a good deal decay- ed, and were partly overgrown 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 among 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. Deeva Bay is marked in the charts as being un- EXPLORE DEEVA BAT. 109 explored at the farther 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 be- calmed, I thought this a favorable opportunity for continuing the exploration of it to the end. I left the sloop at four in the morning on the 2 2d, and rowed up the west side of the bay. These lower hills bordering the fiords of Spitz- bergen 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 Sy- ene ; 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 characterizes them. About half way up this side is a glacier almost extending into the water, and pushing 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 the enor- mous 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 once rented the shootings of Glen-Turritt, in Perthshire, and in that valley I weU 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 Spitz- 110 i«|liU)VENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. bSBgen, I have no longer any doubt or hesitation in believing that the mounds are the lateral and ter- minal moraines of ancient glaciers, which filled the glen in times when the climate and appearance 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 harpoons and conical bullets) on fields of ice, drift- ing about among a "wintry archipelago" 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 ex- ponents of the past, show that this is more than mere hypothesis, for most of the shells now inhab- iting the Arctic seas, although no longer found alive in British waters, are dug up in large quanti- ties in the Pleistocene beds in some parts of Scot- land, and particularly in my own immediate neigh- borhood 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 promontory, 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 was the first large piece of "fast" ice I had seen, and the day being bright, MANY SEALS SHOT. Ill and the ice perfectly smooth and level, its appear- ance was most beautiful. It was covered with snow of dazzling whiteness, showing off to great advantage 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 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 open- ed 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 contemptuously 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 successful. With- out the boat going 100 yards fi?om the spot, I shot dead fifteen seals of the very largest size ; but, al- though I took the utmost pains not to fire until the boat's head was directed straight toward the 112 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. seal and within thirty yards of him, still I had the perverse bad luck to lose twelve out of the fifteen, and generally had the additional vexation of seeing them sinking out of reach of the harpoon just 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 sti-uck ; three of them sank in water so shal- low that we easily felt the bottom with the harpoon, but it was so muddy that we groped for them un- availingly 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 Bay with their obese carcasses, that I was on the point of giving it up, when Christian suggested that if I would take in hand to harpoon as well 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 the harpoon than I had expected, and henceforward I always harpooned seals for myself GLACIER. 115 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 fi^om one side to the other. On reaching the east side we landed, and boiled some coifee and ate biscuits. The spot where we landed was on an immense 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 Spitzbergen 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, with my glass, I discov- ered that some of the loose pieces were in motion, and observed several seals lying on them and div- ing 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 116 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 mo- raine 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 gla- cier being so far distant from the moraine, the ex- istence of which had so evidently been caused by great immediate pressure 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 stom- achs of several of them containing 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 Spitz- bergen seas, for we tried often with hook and line, and never caught a single one. SEE AN IMMENSE BEAR. 117 CHAPTER 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. 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 ap- proaching 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 snufiing his way up the wind to the carcasses 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 carcasses 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 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 standstill, as the bear will easily outrun any man. I then thought I would lie down be- 118 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. side the carcasses 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 decided 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 toward the carcasses, and pushed the boat into a little creek, which fortunate- ly existed in the edge pf the ice exactly eighty yards on our side of the carcasses. 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 bot- tom of the boat, while I alone watched the motions of Bruin by peeping over the gunwale through a large double-barreled opera-glass, which I generally carry in preference to a telescope for sporting pur- poses, on account of its greater quickness. Strange sights has that large, old, battered opera- glass seen in its day, for, besides its legitimate oc- cupation 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 amphitheatre at Seville. It has stalk- ed red-deer on the hills of the Highlands, scaly crocodiles on the sand-banks of the Nile, and read the hieroglyphics on the tops of the awful temples and monuments of Thebes and Karnak. It has SEALS CHAFFING THE BEAR, 119 peered through the loop-holes of the advanced trenches at the frowning, dust-colored batteries of the Redan and the MalakoflF. It has gazed over the splendid cane-iields of the West Indies, from the tops of the forest-clad mountain-peaks of Trini- dad and Martinique ; over the Falls 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 scan- ning 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 uncertain 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, toward the carcasses. I perceived half a dozen of live seals capering around the bear in the water, as if they were mak- ing 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 120 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. seals, he scrambled out quite coolly, and began to shake the wet from his shaggy coat like a New- foundland dog ; the instant he concluded this op- eration 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 toward the bear, while 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 inclined to fight it out, as he advanced a few steps to meet me, growling most horribly and showing his teeth, but on my ap- proaching a little nearer he seemed to think discre- tion the better part of valor, 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 upward of eight feet in length, almost as much in circumference, and 4 J feet high at the shoulder; his fore paws were 34 inches in circumference, and had very long, sharp, and powerful nails ^ his hair was beautifully thick, long, and white, and hung several inches over his ' feet. He was in very high condition, and produced nearly 400 lbs. of fat ; his skin weighed upward of TJRSUS MAETIMXJS. 121 100 lbs., and the entire carcass of the animal can not have been less than 1200 lbs. When he was skinned his neck and shoulders were like those of a bull, and his whole appearance 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 re- peated blows of his enormous fore paw ; and after seeing the size and muscular development of this individual, 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 rep- resentatives of his species in the Zoological Gar- dens, as the specimens there must have been caught at a very early age, and captivity, as well as the un- suitable warmth of the climate, prevent them from attaining to half their proper size. I believe Ursus inaritimus, in a state of nature, to be the largest and strongest carnivorous animal in the world, but, like all other wild animals (with the exception of rare occasional cases), he will never face a man if he can help it ; and I believe the sto- ries of their extraordinary courage and ferocity, which one reads in the accounts of the early navi- gators of the Polar seas, to be the grossest exagger- ations, if not purely imaginary. Even at the pres- ent day, many ridiculous fables respecting them are 122 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 fe- rocious 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 univers- ally adopted for killing him was based upon this well-known habit of the animal, and consisted in having a spear mad6 with a cross-piece about two feet from the point, and, when the bear, according to his usual practice, charged, the operator present- ed this ingenious implement toward 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 were so infatuated as to make a regular practice of so obligingly committing sui- cide after the manner of the ancient Romans, my friend replied, 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 farther doubt of the entire veracity of the story ; but I must confess that my subsequent experience in Spitzbergen has no way tended to confirm my belief in this very remarkable statement. FEROCITY OF THE BEAR EXAGGERATED. 123 Scoresby relates an amusing case of a bear climb- ing into a boat and sitting coolly inside of it, while the crew, whom he had ejected, hung on outside un- til another boat's crew came up and dispatched 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 al- most any large wild animal with which I am ac- quainted. He is generally found either in the wa- ter or among loose ice, and, as he can not swim nearly so fast as a boat can be rowed, he is com- pletely at your mercy, and you have only to select your own distance and shoot him through the head. Even if attacked on land, I conceive that a cool fel- low with a gun runs very little risk, because, al- though 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 quar- ters. 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 acci- dents 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 invul- 124 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. nerable than the Polar bear, or than most other large carnivorous w^ild animals, and not nearly so much so as either the black rhinoceros or the Af- rican buffalo. It was late before I returned to the sloop, vv^hich had sailed several miles up the fiord to meet us. Lord David had also just come on board, and, aft- er talking over the day's adventures as usual, we turned in for the night. 25d. We had only been in bed two hours, 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 toward 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 rea- son 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 accordingly manned a boat — only SHE-BEAR AND CUBS. 125 one, on account of tlie 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 become loose, and was floating down the fiord with the tide near- ly entire — at least sixteen or twenty square miles of ice in one almost unbroken sheet ; but, as the fiord increased in width toward 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 run- ning down this passage very hard indeed. A nar- row strip of "fast" ice still remained attached to the shore all along Avhere the shallowness of the wafer had prevented it from floating. We had a row of several miles along the shore before we over- took 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 ofi^ from the hiUs, 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 with- in about 500 yards of the bears before they per- ceived 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 inspection seemed to convince her that it was time to be off. She set ofi' at the top of her speed, with the two cubs at her heels, along the smooth surface of the ice. Lord David, al- though an excellent runner, could not keep up with them ; so he got into the boat again, and we rowed 126 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. with might and main to keep in sight of the bears, but they got far ahead of us, and, the weather be- ing 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 among 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 pa- tience and forbearance with her cubs, always wait- ing, 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 ; nev- ertheless, 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 up- braiding their mother for dragging them through such a disagreeable place. We had got the boat into a long, narrow channel among the mud, 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 farther would she go. This seemed as if it would turn the fate of the day in favor of the bears, as we did not think it possi- ble to overtake them on foot among the mud ; but CAPTTJBE TWO LIVE BEARS. 129 there stiE 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 paralyzing her; we then scrambled through the icy mud up to where she lay, and dispatched.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 coUey-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 among the mud, bit- ing, struggling, and roaring, until they were quite exhausted. I before mentioned a strong instance of maternal affection on tSe part of a walrus, and this old bear had also sacrificed her life to her cubs, as she could have escaped without difficulty if she had not so magnanimously remained with them ; but I am sorry now to have to record the most horrible case of filial ingratitude that ever came under my ob- servation. 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 difference with one another — began to devour their unfortunate and too-devoted I 130 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 recognize in it the jacket of an acquaintance — per- haps their 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 forever to the fresh breezes and the icy waters of Spitz- bergen. , ^ THE ICE DISPERSES. 131 CHAPTER IX. The Ice disperses. — ^Lose a Bear and Cub. — ^Pot 600 lbs. of Bears'-grease.— Skins. — Slow going. — Seals- attracted by Whistling. — Glaciers on the Coast. — Noises from them. — Submarine Bank. — Shooting "Walruses.— Walruses fighting. — Walrus Tusks. — Awkward Customer. — Ivory. — Story of Mermaids. — Osteological Peculiarity. — Cook loses his Watch. — Shoot a Bear. — Cold Bath. "While this bear chasse was going on, the sloop had been carried several miles down the bay before the immense sheet of ice which I mentioned as hav- ing 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 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 132 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 marher 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 hear we had seen, we had be- gun 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:th, was a fine day, but dead calm, and we were still drifting about close to Black Point. Some ice appears to be coming down from the northeast at last, so that we may hope, to fall in with walruses to-morrow. 2bth. Southeast wind and thick fog in the morn- ing, "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 gener- ally held on the part of the crew as constituting a claim to a bottle of rum. There is only one tee- SEALS ATTRACTED BY "WHISTLING. 133 totalef among them, and I think he is about the hardest fellow of the lot — ^Abraham, the steersman of my boat. Th£ old she-bear is very lean and poor ; but the three last killed, including her, yield altogether about 600 lbs. of fat. Corpo di Bacco I what a thousand pities it is not worth 3s. &d, 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 be- tween Halmanne (Half-moon) Island and the main land, but finding the passage jammed with ice, we were obliged to lose half the day going round out- side the island. 2Qih. Going on a wind under favorable circum- stances, the "Anna Louisa" 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 perfectly 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 134 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. boat, it is customary to whistle, or make a noise by rapping gently on the gunwale of the boat with a thole-pin, or any other small .bit of stick, for the purpose of attracting him to come to the surface. I was skeptical about this at first, but was at last compelled to admit that "there was something in it." Of course, it is not always successful ; but the practice is so universally followed by the seal-hunt- ers, and so thoroughly 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 ex- ceptions, 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 three 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 intp the water for one and a half or two miles in regular semicir- ciilar arcs. The third or northmost of these three glaciers is one of the largest and most remarkable in Spitz- bergen, or perhaps in all the world. It has a sea- ENORMOUS GLACIER. 135 ward face of thirty or thirty-two Englisli miles, and protrudes in three great sweeping arcs for at least five miles beyond the coast line. It has a precip- itous and inaccessible cliiF of ice all along its face, varying from twenty to one hundred feet in height ; pieces from the size of a church downward are con- stantly 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 car- rying large quantities of clay and stones imbedded 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 ex- actly resembles a great forest of pine-trees thickly covered with snow. This part of the glacier must have undergone some great disturbance, arising either fi'om its slid- ing over a rocky bed, or from its being forced through a narrow ravine in the underlying hills. Whatever the disturbing cause may be, it is actively at work still, because we frequently saw enormous slices of the smooth division split up and cave in toward the disrupted part ; and there is a constant succes- sion of tremendous booming reports, exactly resem- 136 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS, bling 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 pre- sented the same appearance since they first saw it. Of course, this glacier has no visible terminal moraine above water ; but it may possibly have some connection with an extensive submarine bank, which lies opposite the whole length of the front of the glacier, and extends 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 favorite resort of the seal and the walrus, particularly the latter, for which I am led to sup- pose that the bank produces, in unusual numbers, the mollusca on which they feed. About eight in the evening we came up within two or three miles of a small schooner, and observ- ing 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 (al- though 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 WALRUSES. 137 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 ab- staining 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 harden- ing the lead for the bullets by an admixture of zinc, we could penetrate the hard crania of the wal- ruses easily enough when struck in the right place. It was a beautiful sunny night, and we had a most agreeable and exciting chasse. The water swarmed with walruses, and in about three hours we had se- cured 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 among them I noticed one enormous old gray 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 with- in nine or ten yards while we were fast to two oth- ers, 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 colored, fi^om being nearly devoid of hair ; their 138 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. skins are rough and rugose, like that of a rhinoce- ros, and they are generally quite covered with scars and wounds, inflicted by harpoons, lances, and bul- lets which they have escaped from, as well as by the tusks of one another in fights among them- selves. I have fi-equently observed them fighting with great ferocity on the ice. They use their tusks against one another very much in the manner that game-cocks use their beaks. From the ani- mal's unwieldy appearance and the position of his tusks, one is apt to fancy that the latter can only be used in a stroke downward ; but, on the contra- ry, they can turn their necks with great facility and quickness, and can strike either upward, downward, or sideways with equal dexterity. I have little doubt but that in the amatory season these con- flicts are often fatal. Old bulls very frequently have one or both of their tusks broken, which may arise either fi?om 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 el- ephant and the boar, fof plowing his food out of the ground, with this difference, that the operations of the sea-elephant — as he ought to be called, in- stead of the sea-horse — are carried on at the bottom of the sea. I have frequently opened the stomachs of wal- ruses, and found their food to consist of quantities TUSKS OF THE WALRUS. 139 of sand-worms, starfish, shrimps, and the shells Tri- dacnte and Cardia, vulgarly called clams and cockles. I believe they also eat submarine algae or sea-weeds, 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 eye-teeth, produced, as I believe, by the ne- cessity the animal has for long tusks, in order to obtain his food in the way he does. They are very firmly and strongly imbedded, 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 protuberance is the size of a man's skull, and through it runs the pas- sage by which the animal breathes, the blow-holes lying between the roots of the tusks. The part of the tusks which is imbedded 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. The calf has no tusks the first year, but the sec- ond 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. 140 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. Tusks vary very much in size and shape, accord- ing 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, however, is extremely rare, and I never, to the best of my belief, saw a pair nearly equal to them among more than one thousand walruses, although we took the utmost pains to secure the best, and always in- spected the tusks carefully with the glass before we fired a shot or threw a harpoon. Cows' tusks will average fully as long as buUs', 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, some- times even overlapping one another at the points, as is the case with the stuflfed specimen in the Brit- ish 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 among the hunters that those walruses which have wide-set tusks are the most savage and dangerous, and more particu- larly 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 found- USES OP THE IVORY. 141 ed, 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 inward or toward his breast. , I remember once going on board another small sloop, and see- ing 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 con- tinued, pointing to the bottom of the boat hanging on the davits, "and see what the scoundrel did." A piece had been torn out of one of the planks, and the hole was patched with sheet lead. Wabus-tusks are composed of very hard, dense, and white ivory. Their small size rendering them inapplicable for many ivory manufactures, 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 arti- cles. 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 mustache, together with his long white tusks, and fierce-looking, blood-shot eyes, gives Bosmarus tri- checus altogether a most unearthly and demoniacal appearance as he rears his head above the waves. 142 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 connected with the osteological structure of the walrus, which I do not recollect to have observed a mention of in any of the printed accounts of the animal. I dare not amplify this allusion, but I fancied that I should be the first to direct the attention of scientific men to the circumstance. On mentioning it, however, 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. 27th. The cook went out this morning to officiate as harpooner pro tempore, and while darting the harpoon at a seal which Lord David had wound- ed, 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 ex- pected 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 amuse- ment of Lord David and the crew, he began to be- wail the loss of his watch, which had been "such a good one, and had cost him no less than six dol- lars;" nor was he to be comforted until Kennedy GET NEAR HOPE ISLAND. 143 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 the coast, where the water is too deep for walruses, as these animals can not descend in more than about twenty- five fathoms, and they prefer fifteen or even ten fathoms. We discovered our mistake by getting a glimpse of the mountains of Hope Island, and im- mediately stood in to the westward toward the shore of Spitzbergen, now distant about twenty- five miles. In the afternoon we put off in both boats to hunt among the ice. I had shot two seals, besides an- other 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 off, and, the ice being tolerably open, it soon became obvious that his minutes were num- bered, and that we were sure of him. He stood on the iceberg coolly looking at us for some time, and at last he slid deliberately backward into the wa- ter, 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, when I shot him through the front of the head and killed him. 144 ADVENTUEES IN THE NOETHBRIT SEAS. 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 Finmarken, although I have always imagined that those individuals must have got out of their reckoning, 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 better of it, and stuck to my trusty rifle instead of trying any ex- periments of that sort. While flensing the bear, one of my boat's crew was stg-nding incautiously on the brink of the ice- berg on which we all were, when suddenly several feet of it gave way underneath him, and he went over head and ears into the water, to the great mer- riment of his fellows, but very much to his own dis- comfiture, and I should think discomfort, forasmuch as the temperature was just about fi'eezing-point, and we did not reach the vessel for several hours afterward. This is an accident of very frequent oc- currence to a novice ; an old hand always takes the precaution of smashing down the hollow or under- rained edges of the ice with a haak-pick or the butt of a lance before he ventures to stand upon it. A EACE FOE A WALEUS. 145 CHAPTER 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 Icabergs. — 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. 28iA, Foa in tte morning confined us to the sloop during the early part of the day. When it cleared, a schooner was in sight not far oflF, and a herd of walruses on the ice about equi- distant from the two vessels. We lowered a boat with all dispatch; but the schooner's people, see- ing us do so, lowered away also, and we had a rath- er 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 bn our oars, so as not to spoil the chance for them ; but the walruses took the alarm, and neither of us got any. 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 ex- pressed our regret at being unable to oblige him ; K 146 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAB. but, as he seemed a very decent fellow, and spoke tolerable English, we invited him below, "liquored him up, " and then proceeded to extract all the in- formation 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 be- ing killed by the walrus. Secondly. Three vessels for Hammerfest, and one for Tromsoe, had gone home full, one of them con- veying the frost-bitten skyppar and his five com- panions. All four vessels intended returning im- mediately, 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 Fiord; 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 new har- poon which he had on board. I did not see it, but from his description it seemed to be a most ingen- ious implement, and was invented and constructed by the blacksmith in Hammerfest. .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 ex- pected that the chance of losing a fish by the bar- DISINTERESTED ADVICE, 147 poon "drawing" would be very mucli lessened. The skyppar seemed to have a good deal of confi- dence in it, but he had not as yet had any opportu- nity of testing it. Fifthly. He had killed ten walruses last night, and all by " jaging" 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 ev- ery body else is shooting ; 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 would be killed on the whole if no- body were to fire. This may be all very true in theory, but practi- cally I find that every body shoots whenever they find that they can not get within harpooning dis- tance, although they all strenuously 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 reg- ular professionals. This is readily accounted for, as our rifles, charged with five drachms of powder and a bullet hardened by an admixture of tin, gen- erally smash the walruses' skulls to pieces ; where- as the rifles these men use, being mostly light, old-fashioned ones, on the polygrooved principle, charged with a spherical bullet of soft lead, pro- 148 ADVENTURES IN THE NOETHEEN SEAS. pelled by a small charge of indifferent powder, do little or no harm to a walrus, unless they hit him on the back of the head, just as the occiput is ex- posed at the moment the animal is commencing to dive. I have found many of their bullets imbed- ded in the heads of walruses, and ifiattened out like bits of putty, without having even reached the bone. A walrus swimming in the water is not unlike a hippopotamus ;* but he 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, except, 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 * 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 conducted ; 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 practiced by the an- cient Egyptians thousands of years ago. PHOCA HISPID A. 149 {Phoca vitulina), called by the hunters the " Stein- Cobbe, " from his habit of occasionally lying on the 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 con- geners Phoca harbata 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 harbata, and his carcass, in consequence, having less specific gravity in proportion to its bulk, he floats much longer after he is killed in the water, so that they are seldom lost after being shot. I have fre- quently 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 f ), 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 prodigious numbers by the 'whalers among the vast ice-fields around Jan Mayen's Island, far to the west of Spitzbergen. These seals, although existing in such enormous 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 * The great Spitzlbergen seal is never known to lie on the rocks or land. 150 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 in- credible distance from their last breathing-place — whence the name of "springers" applied 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 phocoe. Lord David shot two of these seals on the 29th ; but we generally regard it as a bad omen 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 after- noon 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 clean- FEROCITY OF YOUNG BEAR. 151 ing skulls of bears and walruses all the afternoon. The latter process is a decidedly unpopular occu- pation, 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 can not add to the pleasure of the operator. Our cargo altogether is beginning to get so ex- ceedingly high, that the chloride of lime is quite overpowered or extinguished by the effluvium, and we are compelled to have recourse to the refine- ment of burning pastilles in the cabin before we lie down to sleep. Fancy pastilles in a sealing vessel ! SOth. Our young white bears have now become brown, and are in a fair way to become black with dirt, and tar, and grease, so we took them out to- day, and, tjdng the end of a rope round their mid- dles, 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 ir- l-eclaimable young demon I ever saw in my life. He was so savage and tyrannical toward 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 persevering manner ; we found to-day that 152 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHEEN SEAS. he had very nearly eaten his vv^ay out, so we patch- ed 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 quan- tities of water. They are visibly getting larger and fatter. Blst, Sunday. It having been dead calm during the night, we have made little or no progress. Very little ice to the south and west, and too much to the north and east, where it is also jammed too tightly together for boats readily to penetrate among it. The vast accumulation of drift-ice in the Spitz- bergen seas consists partly of flat tabular slabs of all sizes, from that of an acre downward, which have composed part of the winter's growth on the shal- low 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 quantities of dark-colored mud or clay that the sea is in places sometimes discolored for many miles around by their washings. This was one of the finest and wsirmest days I ever knew in Spitzbergen. 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 un- tTPSET OF AS ICEBERG. 163 dermined and honeycombed, or "rotten," as the sailors call it. It always seems to decay fastest "between wind and water," so that enormous cav- erns get excavated in the sides of the bergs. Nothing can exceed the beauty of these crystal vaults, which sometimes appear of a deep ultrama- rine blue, and at others of an emerald green: color ; they look as if they were the fitting abodes of mer- maids 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 monotonous and mel- ancholy sound. In moderately calm weather, many of these excavated bergs assume the form of gi- gantic mushrooms, and all sorts of other fantastic shapes ; but directly a breeze of wind comes, they break up into little pieces with great rapidity. Christian and myself very nearly got a danger- ous 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 sud- denly, and without the least warning, became de- tached under water, and the berg, in consequence, losing its equilibrium, began to rock so violently that we had some difficulty in scrambling down again to the boat. Immediately a'fter we had got off it, the berg capsized altogether with a tremen- dous noise and splash, breaking up into half a dozen pieces as it did so. August 1st. Although still bright and warm, I 154 ADVENTUEES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 suc- cession of loud booming reports from the edges of the smooth glaciers falling in toward 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, medu- sae, and the little black-winged tadpoles before men- tioned. The "flensing" of a seal or walrus is, in one re- spect, a most horrible sight, for, immediately the skin and blubber is stripped off, the carcass begins to shrink and quiver so violently as even to seem as if it was struggling under the hands and knives of the operators. This shocking appearance is ow- ing to the contraction of the muscles, caused by the sudden cold; the "subject" is, in fact, undergoing the well-known process of crimping. Whenever a life is taken, there is an immediate assemblage of those vultures of the north, the beau- tiful ivory gulls (Zari/s ehurneus,niveus, glacialis), which seem to be guided to their prey by the same wonderful instinct as the vultures of Africa or the THE IVORY GULL — "PORTAGES." 155 corbeaux 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, disagree- able scream until the flensing is concluded, when they make an immediate onslaught on the carcass ; but so greedy and rapacious are they, that they al- ways commence by fighting and squabbling among themselves, as if the huge carcass of a seal or a wal- rus 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 interminable ice- field extending all the way to the pole. Several square miles of this ice became detached, and gradually broke up into fragments 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 them- selves, 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 long or of frequent occurrence. 156 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS, The greater part of this ice was out of sight be- fore night, owing to the strong current which runs from the northeast 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 realize the existence of such a cur- rent, for vessel, and boats, and floating ice. all go along together, and it is only on approaching any of the large grounded icebergs that one becomes fully alive to it ; but then it appears as if the boat and the small ice were stationary, and the ground- ed 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 traveling 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, dur- ing June, July, and August. After the end of August the Arctic current entirely overcomes the remnant of the Gulf Stream, which has been strug- gling 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 increasing cold, comes down in such quantities as to defy the ef- WINTER ICE. 157 forts of the now vanquished Gulf Stream to dis- solve it. It rapidly sweeps round the coast, over- lapping first Black Point and the Thousand Isl- ands, then Hvalfiske Point and up Stour Fiord, where it meets with another stream of ice coming in by Thymen's Straits; lastly, enveloping South Cape, it extends up the west coast until it meets, about i^rince Charles' Foreland, another vast body of ice, which has traveled 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 out- side of the shallow bays and gulfs, were it not thus crowded and encumbered with heavy drift-ice, con- tinually swept down from the colder regions to the north and east. Once the Arctic current fairly gains this pre- ponderance over the Gulf Stream, it is quite incon- ceivable 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 understand 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 among the Thousand Islands at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour ! Woe betide the luckless vessel which at this crit- 158 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. ical 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 en- trapped. On my first visit to Spitzbergen, my yacht had a very narrow escape from being shut into a little bay, near Hvalfiske Point, -into which we had en- tered 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 wait- ing to the last moment, I ordered all hands into the boats, and with some difficulty we succeeded in tow- ing 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 helow 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. 159 CHAPTER 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 com- pany again. — Medical Treatment of sick Men. — ^Water up. — News. — Old Acquaintance. — Gradual Extinction of the Walrus. — They are receding farther North. — Nova Zembla. — ^Illness of young Bear. — Attempt to escape. — Aged Bull- Walrus. — ^His probable Reminiscences. — Coal and Fossils. — Commander Gillies' Land. — Northeast 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 northeast while we were seven or eight miles absent from the sloop on the 2d. I had killed one large seal, and was looking for- ward 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 com- pass, and 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 by the people on board the sloop ; we had hit her off to within half a mile I 160 ADVENTURES IN THE NOKTHERN SEAS. 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 beipg sur- prised by fog among the ice when at a distance 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 inaccessible 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 re- join us until after midnight. They had been close to Eyk Yse Island 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 masthead, as the bright sun and the blue sky were distinctly visible above the dense vapor which seem- ed 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 MEET THE "GINEVRA," 161 stench from the hold. We generally breakfast to- gether at any hour from four to eight in the morn- ing, according to the weather and the distance we contemplate rowing ; dine separately whenever we come on board ; and sleep whenever there is noth- ing 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 notice if any game is reported in sight. We found this very disagreeable at first, but have now got quite accus- tomed and even attached 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 demolition of the consul's bull, the last of which tough but oth- erwise 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 advantage of a northwest wind which was blowing to pay a visit to the rendezvous at Hval- fiske 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 half way between Black Point and Hvalfiske Poinfe Upon signal- ing 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. L 162 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 considered the best place in all Spitzbergen for geese and reindeer. They had also carefully eaten all the hind quarters of the deer themselves, and had left nothing but ten lean fore quarters for us 1 Geese had they none, but they had managed to kill some hundreds of eider-ducks ; from the fact of there being no drakes among them, I concluded these had been killed, on their nests. It was a long time before they had succeeded in kill- ing 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 improved 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 de- voted to the chasse of that animal. MEDICAL TEEATMENT. 163 I was very glad to find that my sailing-master, Mr. Wood, had devoted great attention to making a collection of shells, fossils, gravels, and other geo- logical 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 venison my crew had been kind enough to leave us, likewise all the eider-ducks "except twenty, and, instructing Mr. Wood to go up Stour Fiord as far as the val- leys where we had found reindeer the previous sea- son, to kill as many as they could, and then meet us at Hvalfiske Point on or before the 21st, we parted company, and bore up once more for the walrus districts to the northeast. 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 unfortu- nate men through a course of chloride of lime ! A jar of this had been sent from the chemist's, along with the medicines, for the purpose of counteract- ing the smell of the putrid blubber. It was fortu- nate the mistake had been no worse, for there also happened to be among the medical stores a jar of arsenical soap for preserving skins, and our nauti- 164 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. cal -i^sculapius doubtless looked upon it also as a mild aperient, or some other beneficial drug ; prob- ably he was keeping it in reserve, in case a perse- verance in the chloride of lime treatnient did not ultimately succeed. I at once put a stop to his homicidal proceedings, and administered to the two patients "Duse pil. caL et op. haust. cap.," follow- ed, after four hours' interval, by two Seidlitz pow- ders. 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 scur- vy, and I was not aware whether, in prescribing as above, I might not be acting with as great a viola- tion of professional custom as Isaac with the chlo- ride of lime ; but, except the drugs from the Ham- merfest apothek, whose ^{orwegian names and looks quite puzzled me, I had no medicines but the pills and Seidlitz powders, and to them I should unhes- itatingly have had recourse if any thing had been the matter with myself "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 indi- cated any thing but confidence in my medical treat- ment ; I am afraid that it even betrayed a slight suspicion that I had poisoned him, in revenge for his losing the big bull-walrus whose escape I have before narrated. hth. We are still in the same place where we parted from the "Ginevra," as we can make no HEAR THE NEWS FROM NORWAY. 165 progress to the northeast with both wind and cur- rent against us. This is the more vexatious and tantalizing, as the brief Arctic summer is slipping fast away, and this is such a splendid day that we keep fancying many walruses must be being killed in the direction of the bank and Kyk Yse Island. We moored to a flat, tabular iceberg, to fill up the water-casks. Even sea-ice, as is well known, makes drinkably fi'esh 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 fi'esh water. 6ih. We met a small schooner, and heard from the master of the great battle of Solferino, and also that Oscar, king of Norway and Sweden, was dead. His demise does not seem to affect very much his loyal subjects in this sloop. The Norwegians are in general very democratic people, and not fond of kings and nobles ; they also very much dislike the Swedes, and most jeal- ously resent any interference or attempt at su- premacy on the part of that people. This skyppar, Daniel Danielson, who gave us the above intelligence, had piloted my yacht fi-om Hammerfest to Tromsoe when I was grouse-shoot- ing among 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 skillful, brave, and successful of all 166 ADVENTUEES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 Hammerfest to refit some twenty days ago, on account of the leakiness of his vessel ; but, even at that early peri- od of the season, he had taken with him a cargo of sixty walruses and a hundred seals, and now he was back again among the ice in hopes of filling his vessel a second time before the autumnal gales set in. When the walrus trade was first systematically followed from Tromsde 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 Spitz- bergen in the course of the summer. This sys- tematic and wholesale 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 Spitz- bergen, and less than two full cargoes was consid- ered 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 beard- ed seals are annually captured in the seas about THE WALRUS RECEDING FARTHER NORTH. 167 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 amphibious 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 grad- ually receding into more and more inaccessible re- gions farther to the north. We learn from the voyage of Ohthere, which was performed about a thousand years ago, that the wal- rus then abounded on the coast of Finmarken it- self: they have, however, abandoned that coast for some centuries, although individual stragglers have been occasionally captured there up to within the last thirty years. After their desertion of the Fin- marken coast, Bear Island became the principal scene of their destruction ; and next the Thousand Islands, Hope Island, and Ryk 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 wal- ruses, however, these latter districts are only acces- sible in open seasons, or perhaps once in every three or four summers, so that they get a little breath- ing time there to breed and replenish their num- bers, or undoubtedly the next twenty or thirty years would witness the total extinction of Rosmarus trichecus on the coasts of the islands of northern Europe. The walrus is also found around the coasts of 168 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. Nova Zembla, but not in such numbers as at Spitz- bergen ; and lie undergoes, if possible, more perse- cution in those islands from some colonies of Rus- sians or Samoiedes, who, I am told, regularly win- ter 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 extremities ; we there- fore 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 availedhimself of his liberty by eating, or trying to eat, every thing he could get hold of, and then turned his attention to exploring the vessel. He looked down the hatchways and climbed on top of them ; hunted through all the boats ; clambered along the gunwales and out to the end of the bowsprit, 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 mo- ment when nobody happened to be looking, and getting over the taifrail into the little boat hung up astern, he slipped into the water and made play for the shore, distant about ten miles. A boat be- ing lowered, he was soon overtaken and recaptured, AGED BULL-WALEUS. 169 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 discover- ed 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 approach 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 awak- ing, raised his head and prepared 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 conven- ient manner possible, he rolled like a great hogs- head from the top to the bottom of the inclined plane, and the boat arriving at the foot of the ice- berg at the same moment as he did, we easily har- pooned and secured him. This was a case decidedly illustrating the occa- sional 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 170 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. teeth, and his rugose, scarred, and almost hairless hide, he had evidently attained to extreme old age ; and I think it not improbable that he may have been a lazy and peaceful denizen of the Spitzbergen ice-floes at the time when the immortal Nelson vis- ited these shores as a midshipman in Lord Mul- grave's expedition in 1773. We saw nothing else all day but seals in the wa- ter. We sent a boat ashore in the afternoon to col- lect fire-wood, and one of our sailors picked up a good pair of walrus tusks on the beach. We also gathered some pieces of limestone 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 mark- ed in the charts as "Commander Gillies' Land," which lies sixty or seventy miles to the northeast of Spitzbergen. I was anxious to ascertain some particulars about this distant country, but I could elicit no information 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 improbable 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 FOa AGAIN, 171 sea-horses frequenting this part of the Spitzbergen coast come down from the northeast ; and I have often suspected that Gillies' Land, or some other un- known country in that direction, must be the grand emporium which supplies them. A great many- are known to exist about the northeast corner of Spitzbergen, which, as I mentioned before, is rarely accessible. No vessel has ever succeeded in circum- navigating Spitzbergen, and, altliough separate voy- ages have been made which overlap one another in this direction, still, very little indeed is known about those parts of the Spitzbergen archipelago marked . in the charts as "Nordost Land" and "New Fries- land." On the 9th and 10th there was a dense fog, with both barometer and thermometer high. Rather dull work. We have read all our books ; we can not see forty yards from the deck ; and the smell from the hold is getting almost intolerable. It changes silver to the color of copper, and cop- per to that of iron, and actually turns white paint hlack. On the 11th a slight breeze sprung up, and, clear- ing off the fog, enabled us to ascertain the very un- satisfactory 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 direc- tions around, but no seals or sea-horses in sight. The fog retiu-ned as bad as ever on the 12th, but the 13th was a trifle clearer, and, being in among 172 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. the ice, we discovered two big seals in different di- rections. 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 caper- ing about in the water, popping up his head close to us, and looking at our proceedings exultingly, as if he was thinking with Charles IX. that "the smell of a slaughtered enemy was sweet." I pun- ished him for indulging in such unchristian -like emotions by shooting him through the head. THE WALRUSES DISAPPEAR. 173 CHAPTER 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 north- em Voyagers. — Scoresby's Opinion. — Open Polar Basin a mere Chimera. — ^Dr. Kane. — North Pole. — Scheme for reach- ing the Pole. — ^Parry's Sledge Expedition, and why it failed. — Alexei Markhoff's Expedition, and his difficult Return. The 14th was Sunday, and continued foggy, but looked a little more promising; and accordingly, on the 15th, it had cleared away, and we had a fine day, with northwesterly 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 appre- hensive that there were few or no walruses remain- ing in this neighborhood, as we had heard.no hel- lowing ; and if there had been any walruses around we could not have failed to hear them, as the weath- er was mild, and there was plenty of good ice. This day's proceedings completely proved that our ap- prehensions were well founded ; for, except the one we killed (and 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 174 ADVENTURES IN THE NOBTHERN SEAS. 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 among the Thousand Islands ; but it seems to us that among so many islands, and so many hundred miles of rugged shores, we stand but a bad chance of find- ing them with our slow-sailing vessel. About this time of year the walruses usually con- gregate 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 feed- ing. They do not usually do this until near the end of August, by which time most of the vessels have departed 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-hunter prays for by day and dreams of by night, because they know that if they are fortunate enough to find the wal- ruses under these circumstances, they may be ena- bled to kill a small fortune's-worth of them in a few hours. I never saw a walrus on terra firma myself, but I know that frequently on these occasions, 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 FRIGHTFUL MASSACRE. 175 the end of August, 1858, 1 visited a small island^ which I think is the southwesternmost of the Thou- sand Islands, for the purpose of inspecting the scene of the latest important massacre of this sort which had taken place, and the details of which were aft- erward related to me by one of the perpetrators. 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 by-gone years. In August, 1852, two small sloop s sailing in company approached the island, and soon discovered a herd of wabuses, numbering, as they calculated, from three to four thousand, reposing upon it. Four boats' crews, or sixteen men, pro- ceeded to the attack with spears. One great mass of the walruses lay in a small, sandy bay, with rocks inclosing 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, creeping along shore, got between the sea and the bay full of walruses before mentioned, and immediately com- menced stabbing the animals next them. The wal- rus, although so active and fierce in the water, is very unwieldy and helpless on shore, and those in fi'ont soon succumbed to the lances of their assail- 176 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. ants ; the passage to the shore soon got so blocked up with the dead and the dying that the unfortu- nate "wretches behind could not pass over, and were in a manner barricaded by a wall of ca,rcasses. Con- sidering 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 informant'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 themselves were drenched with blood and exhaust- ed with fatigue. They went on board their 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 lethar- gic were the animals, that many hundreds more re- mained sluggishly lying on other parts of the island at no great distance. Their two small sloops, already partially loaded, could only carry aw;ay a small portion of the spoil, but they trusted to being able to return fi-om Ham- merfest with other vessels to convey away the re- mainder. The result, however, was a very striking illustration of the truth of the adage, '■'■L'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 find- ASPECT OF THE FIELD OF BATTLE. 177 ing the island surrounded by many miles of heavy and impenetrable drift-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 hap- pened to be one of the first to revisit the island the ensuing season, and that he cut out about a hund- red pairs of tusks. The skins and blubber, of course, were quite useless by that time, and thus six or seven hundred walruses were destroyed with- out benefit to any body. When I visited this island six years afl;erward, there still remained abundant testimony to cor- roborate the entire truth of the story. The smell of the island was perceptible at several miles' dis- tance, and on landing we found the carcasses 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 diflferent times, that a. ship might easily load with bones there, and it grieved me, as an agriculturist, to see the materi- als of so much excellent bone-dust Ijdng unappro- priated. I believe the walruses have since discontinued their visits to the island — probably on account of the overpowering smell of the remains of their slaughtered kindred. M 178 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. The morning of the 16th was beautifully bright and clear, but the game have so completely desert- ed 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 fi:om Ryk 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 whiteness, 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 every thing entirely : a chilling blast of wind comes from the eternal ice-fields to the northeast ; thick fog, 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. OPEN POLAR BASIN A MERE CHIMERA. 179 17th. The other vessels have now all gone south- ward, and most of them have gone home altogeth- er, 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 sker- ries to the north of Spitzbergen reach is about 81°, and very few people have ever succeeded in pene- trating to a higher latitude than that, as it is now pretty generally believed that the accounts some of the -early Dutch navigators give of having sailed to 83° or 84° are either apocryphal, or founded upon erroneous observations. Scoresby,who seems to have been one of the most accurate and painstaking observers, and a thorough- ly practical as well as scientific seaman, who had spent his life in the Polar seas, admits never hav- ing been farther north than 81° 30' ; and I believe with him that this is about the closest authentica- ted approximation which ever has been made, or which ever will be made, toward the pole by water. From much reading on the subject, and much conversation with intelligent practical men, well ac- quainted with those seas, as well as from my own little opportunities of observation during my two visits to Spitzbergen, I may be permitted to express my thorough conviction that all idea of a great * We afterward reached 79°, inside of Stour Fiord. 180 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. open sea around the pole is entirely chimerical, and that nothing exists within a radius of six hundred miles of the pole but vast masses of eternal and im- penetrable 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 argu- ments in his book do not seem to me to be of the slightest avail against the overwhelming amount of evidence in a contrary direction. Hopelessly impossible as all attempts to sail to the pole must ever continue to be, I think, if there were sufficient inducements to undertake the , at- tempt, that it is possible enough to do it by land, or, to speak more correctly, by ice. The distance from the extreme north of Spitz- bergen 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 shel- tered harbor as far to the north as they could get, and pass the remainder of the fine weather in kill- ing a quantity of reindeer and wild-fowl for provis- ions 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 win- SIR EDWAED PARRt's ATTEMPT. 181 tering in other parts of the Arctic regions, and plenty of hardy volunteers could be got in Trom- soe and Hammerfest to act as hunters and harpoon- ers to the expedition. The dogs would require to be brought from Greenland or Siberia, with men who understood the management of them. During the early spring the party would have to exercise their teams, and to get them into as thor- ough a state of condition and discipline as possible, and, if practicable, they should lay out some depots of provisions as far as they could on their intended roiite to the north. If they then were to take ad- vantage 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 nionth or six weeks from the date of their departure, and that without undergoing any hardships or priva- tions exceeding those inevitable to Arctic explor- ing expeditions. The fourth expedition of Sir Edward Parry, in 1827, was sent out with a view of trying to reach the pole by sledge-traveling ; but, as is well known, it failed, because they did not winter in Spitzber- gen, and they were consequently unable to take to their sledge-boats until the 22d of June, a period at least two months too late, and when the midsum- mer's sun had loosened and softened the ice, and rendered it utterly unfit for sledge-traveling. Par- ry's sledges were, farther, drawn by seamen instead 182 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. of dogs, and the pace at which men can drag a heavy sledge is so slow that they can not convey a suffi- ciency of fuel and provisions for a long journey, and Parry's men were consequently upon short al- lowance from the commencement of their arduous labors. In spite of these tremendous disadvantages, how- ever, the gallant Parry and his crews persevered for more than a month, and actually attained the lati- tude 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 observations gave them the most dishearten- ing 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 rail- way stations in America ; for while, during the last three days, with incredible labor, they had gone about ten miles to the front, the Arctic current had driven the ice fourteen miles to the rear underneath their feet I At this rate of traveling, it is capable of demonstration that they would have reached the south pole sooner than the north, aijd Parry, was therefore obliged — but one can well understand with what heartfelt reluctance he did so — to give it up. I believe, however, that that distinguished navi- gator always maintained, to the last day of his life, that it was perfectlj^ possible to make a sledge ex- pedition to the north pole successfully. ALEXEI MAKKHOFF's EXPEDITION. 183 In this belief the late Dr. Scoresby also concur- red ; and certainly no two men can be named who were more entitled to^give an opinion on the sub- ject. It may also be remarked that Arctic sledge-trav- eling has becoine very much better, understood since the days of Parry ; and one has only to read the narratives of Dr. Kane, Sir Leopold . M 'Clintock, and others, to see what can be performed by zeal- ous and resolute men with well-appointed dog- sledges. In Muller's "Voyages from Asia to America" there is an account of a sledge-journey which seems to me to go a long way toward 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, drawn by dogs, on March 10th, from the mouth of the River Jana, in latitude 70° 30'. They traveled 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 theif steps. Mark- hoff seems to have made the dangerous error of mis- calculating the quantity of his provisions, or of overestimating the endurance of his dogs ; for, on his return journey, he fell short of provisions, and 184 ADVENTTJBES IN THE NORTHEEN SEAS. 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 return- ed to Ustianskoe Simowie, the place from Avhich he had started, on April 3d. As Alexei Markhoff had thus traveled upward of 400 miles in seven days, and upward of 800 miles in twenty-four days, there can surely be no abso- lutely insuperable reason why other people, better provided than he was, should not be able to travel 1200 miles in thirty-six days, or even in less time, especially as modern science has done so much in the way of condensing 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 expedition. HALr-MOON ISLAND. 185 CHAPTER XIII. Whales' Bones. — ^Rapid Elevation of the Land. — ^Early Whale- fishery. — Shallowing of the Sea. — ^Trench plowed by an Ice- berg. — ^Last Day at the Sea-horses. — Successful Stalk and double Shot. — ^Lose two Harpoons. — Very bad Luck. — Dif- ficulty of shooting Walruses. — Gale. — Wrecks in Spitz- bergen. — ^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 proceedings. 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 Half- moon) 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 boat- loads of fire-wood from our respective islands if we should get nothing better to load them with. I landed upon one of the islands, and ascended to the highest point to look out ; there was some ice vis- ible in different directions around, but I could dis- cover nothing alive upon it, so I set the boat's crew 186 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. to load up with drift-wood, quantities of which, of excellent quality and in every stage of preserver tion, strewed the shores of this island. While they were so engaged I walked about and geologized. The island was in every respect sim- ilar 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 de- pression of the island, about ten feet above the sea-level, I counted eleven enormous jaw-bones, all lying irregularly and mixed indiscriminately with many vertebrae, ribs, and pieces of skulls. Of course it will be understood that these bones which I men- tion in different parts of this narrative were not fossilized. We found them in many parts of Spitz- bergen, and at all elevations up to that of two hundred feet above the sea. I brought home many specimens, 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 chronological data for determ- ELEVATION OF THE LAND. 187 iniBg the time wliicli the land whereon they were found has been in emerging from the sea and at- taining 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 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 century as the rate of eleva- tion. ^ From the position of the eleven jaw-bones, etc., which I have just mentioned, and from the fact of so many lying together in a slight hollow, I am in- clined to believe that these are the remains of whales killed by man, and that they were towed into this hollow (then a shallow bay) for the purpose of be- ing flensed there. We learn from the accounts 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 hays of Spitzbergen 188 ADVENTURES IN THE NOETHERN SEAS. 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 nearly the same fate as I have arrived at by the other example. The enormous numbers of whales which, in the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centu- ries, frequented first the bays, next the coasts, and lastly the banks lying outside the coasts of Spitz- bergen, have now entirely deserted these waters alto- gether. Nobody ever thinks of going to the neigh- borhood of Spitzbergen now to catch whales. Dur- ing the whole summer we only saw three individu- als of the Mysticetus. M'CuUoch and other com- mercial 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 undoubtedly par- tially attributable to that cause, I believe the prin- cipal reason to be that the seas around Spitzbergen have become too shallow for them : this is the gen- eral belief of the sealers frequenting the coast, only they generally put the cart before the horse by say- ing that '■'■the sea is going hack." I have .heard the same remark made by the sail- ors and fishermen on the west coast of Norway, where Sir Charles Ly ell ("Principles of Geology," LAST DAT WITH THE SEA-HOESES. 189 p. 506) has shown to demonstration that the coast- line is rising at the rate of four feet per century. On this island I observed a farther most inter- esting 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 plowed up among the boulders. It was about twenty feet above the sea-level, and extended from northeast to southwest, being exactly the line in which the current-borne ice travels at the pres- ent day, so that I presume 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 unex- pectedly, 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 wUl 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 sterns toward us, but the remaining villain seemed to be acting as sentry; however, he permitted us to ap- proach 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 determined that he should pay for his alert- 190 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS, ness -with his life, when suddenly a bull with much better tusks lifted his head above the sentinel's back ; so, quickly changing my aim, I shot this oth- er bull through the head, and he tumbled forward on the ice, so dead that he lay with his head doub- led 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 jgtate described by the historian Gib- bon (in a Latin. note) as having been the last dy- ing position of the prophet Mohammed. To make room in the boat for his skin and blubber, we threw out a proportionate quantity 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 leeward, which is the very best possible position for either shooting or harpooning a walrus. I 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 according- ly 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 backward, and the edge of the ice giving way underneath him, he sank like a shot, only, as it were, a quarter of a sec- ond before the harpoon swished into the water aft- er him. This mishap was my own fault, and I bit- RIGHT AND LEFT SHOT, 191 terly anathematized my own impatient folly in fir- ing 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 be- neath him in his dying convulsion, 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, 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 favorably for us, two being close together to the right, and the other two about five yards to the left. I silently motioned to Christian 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 complete and more beautiful than it looked. My exultation was, however, a lit- tle premature, for one of the harpooned walruses 192 ADVENTURES IN THE NOETHERN SEAS. was selfish enough to spoil this very pretty thing by breaking loose and escaping. As we afterward found, this had happened through the line having got twisted round the animal's body and cutting it- self against the edge of the harpoon. I then finish- ed ofi^ the remaining "fast" one by shooting him, in doing which I unfortunately smashed the fore part 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 fire-wood to make room for them, and yet the boat 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 h^id 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, unluck- ily, 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 gained the sea. The rowers ran the boat against the ice, and Christian and my- self jumped out and ran down the sloping ice to intercept the walrus ; not being able to see his head, I fired an unavailing shot into his shoulder, and Christian, getting to the brink of the ice just as the wabus was staggering in, thrust the har- LOSS OP A HAKPOON. 193 peon into his posteriors ; the line ran to the end, and then, the boat 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 harpooner for the loss of this walrus ; but probably, 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 approaching" 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 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 pro- tectors were gone, I made sure of getting the one first wounded, but after getting close to him once N 194 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHEEN SEAS. or twice more, we lost sight of him among 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 believe how extremely difl&cnlt it is to shoot an old bull- walrus clean dead. The feont 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. 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, can not be seen unless the animal is very close to you, and the difficulty is enormously increased by the back of the head being so im- bedded in fat as to appear as if it were part of the neck. WRECKS IN SPITZBERGEN. 195 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 fi'om the southwest, and lay-to all day ; as it increased toward the even- ing, and the motion aggravated the smell from the hold to an intolerable extent, we took shelter to the leeward of Halmanne Island, and came to an anchor there about midnight. The gale continued on the 20th, so we remained in shelter, and sent both boats ashore for fire-wood and water. The wood we procured on this island was mostly part of the remains of a schooner from Hammerfest, which had been lost in this bay 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 lubberly pro- ceeding naturally was that it all ran out, and the vessel drove ashore and went to pieces. From what I have heard, I am inclined to sus- pect that a good many of the shipwrecks which happen in Spitzbergen are caused willfully, in order to defi^aud the insurance-offices. These vessels are principally insured in Hamburg, and I believe the 196 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. rate of insurance is as high as seven per cent., al- though one would think that even that was little enough for the unavoidable risks of such a danger- ous voyage, without taking into consideration the impunity with which such nefarious proceedings as I have alluded to may be committed in those dis- tant waters. The 21st being Sunday, we staid on board, and I wrote up the last few pages of this Journal. About 3 A.M. on the 22d we were aroused by a report of many white whales being alongside. 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, showing up their heads and backs, and spouting. They were of a brilliant, shin- ing, snowy whiteness, and when they were near us we could see them swimming 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 approaching 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 behind the blow- holes. 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 DESCRIPTION OF BELUGA. 197 he sank about eight feet beneath the surface, and we instantly 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 tow- ed him along to the sloop. Many others now ap- peared close round the boat, the old ones white and shiny, like immense shapes of blanc-mange, and the young ones of a dusky gray in color. I could easir ly 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 difficul- ty, by means of two strong tackles attached 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 color 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 extreme- ly small. The skin was of a curious, gristly, ge- latinous consistency, and cut very readily with a knife ; it was about half an inch thick, and firmlj- attached to the underlying blubber, which was about two and a half inches thick, and measured about 500 lbs. when packed in casks. We kept it sepa- rate fi:'om the seal, bear, and walrus blubber, as it is of much superior quality to any of these, and pro- duces a far finer oil. 198 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. This was not a full-sized specimen of Balcena al- bicans, 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 spec- imen, 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 quan- tities 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 Hal- manne .Island, and cruised about all day. The ice has all been driven away again to the northeast by the late gale, and we were unwilling to go north again so late in the season, as the chances of bad Weather are now considerable. We held a council of war, therefore ; and, as it was clear we could do little more with the walruses this season, we de- termined 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 harbor at Hvalfiske Point about 9 P.M. on the 23d. SMEERBNBEEG, QR BLTJBBEE TOWN. 199 CHAPTER XIV. Smeerenberg, or Blubber Town. — ^Agr6mens of ditto. — ^Dis- covery of Spitzbergen. — Barentz. — Whale-fishery. — At- tempts to colonize the Country, and to make it a penal Set- tlement. — They fail.— The West Indies versus Spitzbergen. — Russian Robinson Crusoes. — Wintering Establishment. — How conducted. — Awful Mortality. — ^Final Tragedy.— Death of eighteen Men from Scurvy and Hunger. — Ingen- ious Counter-irritant. — Russian Bath. — Cricket. — Boats sewed together. — Post-of6.ce. — Signs of Deer. — KUl 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 men- tion to the intelligent reader that Spitzbergen never has been inhabited, unless we include under that term the flourishing summer settlement of Smeer- enberg, or New Amsterdam, near Hakluyt's Head- land, which was the rendezvous and boiling estab- lishment of the Dutch whaling-fleet during the palmy days of the Spitzbergen whale-fishery in the seventeenth century. Smeerenberg (Anglice Blubber Town), indeed, arrived at such a degree of civilization and refine- ment that "hot rolls" were to be had every morn- ing for breakfast ; and, if report speaks true, even 200 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS, the charms of female society were not wanting to "emoUify 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 mountains") 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 northeast passage to China, a chimerical project, which in those days caused the sacrifice of even more lives and treasure than the search after a northwest passage in later times. Barentz himself, and a number of his crew, lost their lives on this expedition ; and the re- mainder only escaped by taking to their boats, after passing a winter of incredible hardships on the coast of Nova Zembla, where they had got be- set, and were compelled to abandon their vessel. In the early part of the seventeenth century Spitzbergen became the seat of the most flourish- ing whale-fishery that ever existed, as many as be- tween 400 and 500 sail of vessels, principally Dutch and Hamburgers, resorting there in a season. It then became obvious that it would be very advan- tageous if something in the shape of a permanent settlement or colony could be founded in Spitz- bergen ; and the merchants engaged in the trade offered rewards to their crews, to induce some of ATTEMPTS TO- COLONIZE SPITZBEEGEN. 201 them to make the hazardous experiment of trying "whether human life could be supported there dur- ing 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. . Accordingly, they procured *'a grant" of these culprits — probably sheep-stealers, papists, or some such atrocious criminals — and of- fered 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, and at once acceded to the 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 aw- ful gloomy hills, already white with the early snows, and felt the howling gales of northeast 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 cbuntry ! 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 202 ADVENTURES IN THE NOETHBRN SEAS. •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 to- gether. They were discussing the respective merits of hot and cold countries — the West Indies versus Spitzbergen ; and one fellow was urging that, al- though "neither rum lior tobacco grew in Spitz- bergen," still, the continual "blow-out" of fat rein- deer which it seemed to afford might be considered as a point in its favor. 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 coun- try!" Soon after the failure of the criminal plan, the experiment of wintering in Spitzbergen was invol- untarily 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 division 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 appear 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 exhausted, they manufactured bows and ar- rows, spears and harpoons, of drift-wood. They pointed their weapons with bones and pieces of RTTSSIAK ROBINSON CEUSOES. 203 their now useless gun, and twisted their bowstrings out of reindeers' entrails. They made traps and nets for birds and foxes. With these rude and im- perfect weapons they not only provided themselves with food and raiment, but kept off the assaults of the Polar bears. It is almost incredible ; but these men not only survived, but preserved good health for six long years. It seems extraordinary that such energetic 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 deso- late 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 Cru- soes had killed such quantities of bears, deer, seals, and foxes, that the proceeds of the skins and blub- ber made a small fortune for them. Other parties of winterers were left on these des- olate shores, both accidentally and intentionally ; and although in some cases they all miserably perished, still the possibility of maintaining life throughout the horrors of a Spitzbergen winter was 204 ADVENTTTEES IN THE NOKTHERN SEAS. made manifest, and a company of Russian traders in Archangel organized a regular wintering estab- lishment, 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 Spitz- bergen. The men were paid by a share of the pro- ceeds, and were supplied by their employers with provisions, consisting principally of rye meal, salt pork, and tea. They had a sort of head-quarters es- tablishment at Hvalfiske Point, which was under the charge of a superintendent or clerk, who dis- tributed 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 labors 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 winter in Spitzber- gen. In 1858 I was informed there was still living at Kola, in Lapland, an aged Russian who had actu- ally wintered thirty-five alternate seasons at Spitz- bergen. Many of these hardy fellows, however, succumbed to scurvy and the hardships they en- dured ; and many hundreds must have thus miser- FINAL TBAGEDT. - 205 ably perished, as the traveler in these awful soli- tudes frequently comes 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 rein- deer they had killed and subsisted on while living. They seem to have killed an immense quantity of animals, of. different sorts, and the consequent prof- its 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 a 'prodigious quantity of heavy drift-ice surrounded Hvalfiske Point and all the southern coast of East Spitzbergen. The men belonging to the Russian establishment had all come in from the various out- posts, and were assembled at the head-quarters to the number of eighteen, waiting to be relieved by the annlial vessel from Archangel. By a concur- rence of bad fortune, this vessel was lost on her voy- age 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 sup- posed that the care of relieving them might safe- * I forget the precise date, but I tHnk it was either 1850 or 185i: 206 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. ly 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 ves- sel 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, traveled along the shore to seek for as- sistance from the Russian establishment ; but, on approaching the huts, they were horror-struck to find its inmates all dead. Fourteen of the unhap- py men had recently been buried in shallow graves in front Of the huts, two lay dead just outside the threshold, and the remaining 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 surround- ing the coast prevented them from getting seals or wild-fowl 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 an- other, and were buried by their surviving compan- ions, until at last only four remained. Then two A MELANCHOLY PICTtJEE. 207 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 jour- nal — had only sufficient strength remaining to push his dead companion out of the bed on the floor, and had soon afterward expired himself, only a few days before the Norwegian party arrived. The Russians had a large pinnace in the harbor and several small boats on shore, but the ice at first prevented them reaching the open sea, and latter- ly, 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. Every thing 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 testified to their success as hunters. We likewise found a curious implement, like a miniature wooden rake, the use of which con- trivance was a complete enigma to me until our 208 ADTENTUKES IN THE MORTHERN SEAS. pilot explained that such were commonly used by the Russians when they suffered from entomological annoyances. The huts were all formed of logs dovetailed into one another at the corners, and were tolerably en- tire except the roofs, which had been flat and cov- ered 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 description, in which I suppose they had enjoyed the national luxury of parboiling themselves, and then rolling in the snow at a temperature 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 gen- tle 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. They may even' have been' tantalized 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 BOATS SEWN TOGETHER. 209 and rude wooden balls they had used still lying on the mossy ground. Altogether there was some- thing inexpressibly sad and desolate about the re- mains 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 fire-wood, we took the liber- ty of appropriating some pieces of one of the out- houses, 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 fire-wood. This boat, instead of being fastened to- gether with metal nails or rivets, had been sewed together with twigs or withes of twisted birch, and was even then surprisingly strong, the birchen withes 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 Hvalfiske Point on the evening of the 23d, and were surprised not to find the yacht in the harbor ; 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 O 210 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. entering the door, I pointed out to Kennedy my name and that of my yacht, which — more Britan- norum — 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 harbor, 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 oflf alone, thinking the distance was only two or three miles, and that we might 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 hiUs ; it was dead level, and beautifully green, with mosses slightly intersprinkled 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 lit- tle frequented by deer in the summer months, al- though 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 win- ter hair. We saw vast flocks of Brent or Bernacle geese {Aims Bernicla) pasturing on the plain, but as these birds in the winter get the benefit of en- larging their minds by a European education, they took quite as good care of themselves as they do when they are "down South." The walking KILL THREE GEESE "WITH BALL. 211 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 toward the shore, intend- ing to follow it up until we should find the harbor mentioned by Mr. Wood's letter. The shore was also very bad walking, and after traveling much farther than we had expected, and seeing notliing of 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, olaserving 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 among 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 were 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 dependiug on the shot.) We then walked about a mile or so farther, until we found a sheltered corner among the rocks, 212 ADVENTUEES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. with lots of drift-wood lying about it; here we agreed to pass the 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 neighboring 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 topmasts, but stiU 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. 2Ath. While we were asleep the crew got the an- chor 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 Christian 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 knots an hour, a rate of speed which seemed to us little short of miraculous, after the performances of the "Anna Louisa." The yacht's crew were all in good health and AMUSING "WALEUS-HUNT. 213 spirits. They had killed seven fat reindeer and one seal, after an expenditure of between five and six hundred rounds of ammunition. The British sail- or is generally a most enthusiastic but lamentably unsuccessful sportsman, and we were exceedingly amused by the way they described their sporting exploits. The mate told me "he never saw hani- mals 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 which the infuriated monster ran right ashore in its frantic efibrts " to get at Mm."" Their description of a walrus-hunt, however, was quite the most refreshing sporting narrative I ever listened to. This unlucky animal, the only one they had seen, floated alongside 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 contained 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 admin- 214 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. istering one of these to the walrus "m Ms loins,'" that naturally suggesting 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 fan- cy 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 forward" on the beach. There they thought they were sure of him ; but he contrived to get past them, and finally sunk in deeper water. They then "swept" for him nearly a whole day with a weight- ed rope, but could not recover him. An afiair which might have had a termination any thing but comical, however, was, that they had burst the gun I had bought at Hammerfest for them to shoot fowls with. They seemed to attribute this catastrophe to the low price (four and a half dol- lars) 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 ex- BURSTING OF A GUN. 215 pensive 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 se- curity whatever against such accidents ; so that I was inclined to attribute this mishap to careless loading. The explosion had very nearly deprived my valued sailing-master, Mr. Wood, of his left arm ; and as it was, the arm had been burned and lacera- ted in a painful manner, but was now healing. 216 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. CHAPTER XV. Bitter Cold. — ^Reiudeer-shooting. — ^Three right and left Shots. —Delight of the Sailors. — Black Fox. — Ponche h. la Spitz- berg. — ^Description of the Reindeer. — High Condition he at- tains. — Excellence of his Flesh. — His Ignorance of Man. — Anecdotes. — Fine Valley. — Unexplored Channel. — Near Heinlopen Straits. — Unjust Attack. — Marrow-hones. — ^Ice- borne Boulders. — Good " Bag." — ^Two singular Mountains. — Thymen's Straits. — Meritorious Deer. — ^Receipt for Ka- bobs. — Splendid deer Forest. — ^Rejoin the Sloop. Bt seven in the evening "we had reached the an- chorage 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 (thermometer 16° in the companion-way). After hauling the boats high and dry out of the reach 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 among ground which had been hunted a few days previously (as we afterward ascertained) by a boat's crew from EEINDEER-STALKINa. 217 Ericson's brig, and lie consequently saw nothing, and returned to the yacht about midday. I walked five or six miles, when I reached a high glen among the hills, and close to the line of per- petual 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 in- tense frost had frozen the beastly, splashy, muddy, mossy compound 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 in the mean time, and I did not follow them, as I now observed two much finer stags on a hill a mile off. I stalk- ed up a little gully, which allowed me to approach 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 over head, 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 218 ADVENTirilES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. to the edge of the glaeier. They were not much alarmed, and had recommenced 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 ly- ing 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 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 ly- ing 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 assisted in that deplorable business at Pe- tropaulauski, and he seemed to think that if they had had a few four-barreled rifles on that unhappy occasion, the Roosians would not have had so much the best of it ! PONCHE A LA SPITZBERG. 221 I had now shot all the deer which I could dis- cover 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 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 val- ley, we indulged in a '■'■ponche a la Bomaine,'''' or rather ^'ponche a la Spitdierg,'''' by saturating cup- fuls of snow with rum ; and I can strongly recom- mend that cordial to any one under similar circum- stances. In this valley I observed some singular conical- shaped masses of trap or other Plutonic rock, which had abruptly burst up through the lime- stone 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 reindeer (Cervus Tarandus) abounds in most parts of Spitzbergen, and in every valley which af- * A good skin of this rare animal is, I believe, the most yal- uahle fur in the -world. 222 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. fords 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 reindeer of Lapland, nor are their horns quite so fine ; but they attain to a most extraordinary degree of condition. This seems to be a sort of provision of nature to enable these animals to exist through the long Polar win- ter, 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 ex- traordinary ; and as scarcely any grass exists even in the most favored parts of Spitzbergen, this must be chiefly attributable to some excessively nutri- tious 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 im- proving 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 parts, and at least three inches thick over the haunches and on the brisket. We had no EXCELLENCE OF EEINDEEE FLESH. 223 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 reindeer is 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 ILapip* {Ccelogenys, or Cavia Paca). Unlike the flesh of most wild an- imals, the venison of the reindeer 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 colored, and acquires a rank and unpleasant taste and odor. 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-shore, I imagine they congregate in great num- bers, and at that time they travel over long distances of ice and land in search of food. The hair of the reindeer is very long, thick, and close, and is of a slaty-gray color, verging into white about the stem and belly. The hinds have horns * After a somewhat extensive experience in that line, I am inclined to award to the Lapp the pahu of being the best cu- linary animal in the world. 22.4 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 wintered. The deer I had killed on the 26th were reasona- bly 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 in- dividuals which had been reared in some remote part of the country, and had never seen a human being, nor any thing else which could 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 ac- customed 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 posi- * There are no wolves in Spitzbergen ; and I am inclined to doubt whether the Polar bear ever meddles with the reindeer, unless he may fall in with a sick or wounded individual near the sea-shore. now UP TO THE HEAD OF STOUR FIORD. 225 tion within shot of them, he knocked over four of them with a round from his four-barreled rifle ; the survivor then stood snuffing his dead companions until Kennedy had time to load one barrel, and to consummate this unparalleled sportiag feat by pol- ishing him off likewise. Another time we broke one of the fore feet of an old fat stag from an unseen ambush ; his compan- ions 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 actually began to graze on his three remaining legs as if nothing had happen- ed of sufficient consequence to keep him from his dinner ! On the 26 th, we again started at four 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 farther 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 exten- sive flattish valley, which I knew to be one of the best places in the country for deer. Here we left * It is erroneously marked in the charts as if it continued straight north. P 226 ADVENTURES IN .THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 continued three or four miles farther 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 maybe a bear. "We found a good deal of ice, but no seals ; and, on entering the gut, there was such 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 ex- tremely 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 almost impracticable for walking, and I had to give it up. Christian had been sixteen seasons in Spitzber- gen, but he had never beep 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 favor 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 NEAR HEINLOPEN STEAITS. 227 likely to be caused by the mere return of the regu- lar tide down Stour Fiord. The day was tolerably clear, but there was 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 eastward, nor any thing but low, flattish, rugged hillocks of a coarse red-brown Plu- tonic rock, with many small glaciers lying among them. The surface of these rocks was much smooth- ened and polished, as if by the passage over them of much heavy ice in by-gone times. There was not a particle of vegetation to be seen, and the as- pect 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 impression 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 cha,rts at all correctly, we undoubtedly were close to them now; bjit 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 fiord to look for deer. In the first valley we came to we espied some small troops of deer feeding within half a mile 228 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. of the shore. We landed, and I killed nine of them without much trouble, and, as these were thorough- ly unsophisticated animals, I might easily have shot as many more, but I got disgusted with such a bur- lesque 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 bal- ing-ladle of the boat, topping up with broiled mar- row-bones — a very different article, O my dear read- er, from the bestial compound of brains and lard rammed into old bones which you have often eaten in London, and imagined, in the innocence of your heart, to be real ona/rrow. When standing on the rocks up the small sound, I had observed a large bay on the opposite side of the fiord to be full of floating ice, and we now sail- ed 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-col- ored stones lying on different pieces of this ice, and HILL WITH BAUDS OF COAL. 229 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 else- where. 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 farther 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 appar- ently composed of the same shaly, sandy limestone as mostly all of the lower hills . of East Spitzber- gen ; 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 sub- stance, 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 perpendic- ularly, instead of participating in the otherwise uni- form 45° slope of the hill. At the left-ha'nd ; or southwesterly side of the hill I could perceive that 230 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. the lower band gradually thinned away to nothing. This hill is very conspicuously placed, and can not fail to be recognized by any future visitor to the upper part of Stour Fiord. 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 singular- ly grand and picturesque appearance. 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 de- tritus, covered with beautifully variegated mosses, while the upper third was composed of a series of bright russet-colored columns of rock, arranged per- pendicularly, and looking exactly like a number of half-decayed trunks of enormous trees bound togeth- er in a sort of Titanic fagot. 21th. 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 divides East Spitzbergen into two nearly equal halves. When there is ice in this strait it is a great thor- oughfare 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 vio- LONG ROCKY PROMONTORY, 231 lent current running through, it ; so I preferred go- ing 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 northwest corner of the straits what appears to be a bank with 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,! found, to my surprise, that it was not a submarine 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, published two centu- ries 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 constructed, and that it has since been gradu- ally 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 promontory 232 ADVENTUEES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. and about six miles into the straits it fell calm, and we encountered such a strong current from the east- ward that we could make no head against it, and, it being now 9 P.M., we went ashore in a little sandy bay to spy out the land, and see whether it afforded any thing for supper. I took my rifle and my glass, and ascended to the top of a neighboring hillock, and from there I soon discovered our even- ing 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 announced 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 Ms 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 con- ducted 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 Cru- soe, 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 kabobs. 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 RECEIPT FOR KABOBS. 233 wooden skewers, and thread upon these alternately pieces of meat, fat, and heart, each cut to about the size and thickness of a dollar ; broil upon the glow- ing 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 knowl- edge of this most interesting plat I was indebted to a one-eyed Arab cook, yclept Hadji Mohammed, whom Sir F S— and myself had on an ex- pedition 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 windward of the fire by hanging the boat's sail upon the har- poon shafts ; and then, lighting our pipes, we lay down to sleep on the beach, "Plemis Bacchi,* pinguisque ferinse, " like the pious JEneas 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 alternate- ly, to mind the boat and keep up the fire, and I could observe, in my waking moments, that the sen- tinel always' seemed to be whiling away the tedious hours by renewed attacks upon the carcass of the stag. * For " Bacchi" read " backy," and tlie quotation will be more applicable. 234 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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, when stalking the stag the evening before, I had observed some bones of a whale protruding from the moss at a good elevation. The height above the sea proved to be about forty-two feet, and the entire skeleton of a very large whale lay there partially 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 extract a piece of a jaw-bone,* tolerably sound, and as large as a man could carry. I sent my 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. From 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. For several miles about me, both to the east and west, there extended the most beautiful piece of country, to the eye of a deer-stalker, which I ever beheld. To the east there lay a low flat plain, * Now in the Museum of the Geological Society. BEAUTIFUL DEEK-FOEEST. 235 green with succulent mosses, and not less tlian ten thousand acres in extent ; this plain gradually con- tracted 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 dikes of trap rocks, affording admirable stalking-ground. From the plain up to the rocky hill whereon I stood was a slope or talus, beautifully carpeted with mosses ; before me stretched a level plateau, or table-land, and above that a number of grand sheltered cor- ries, 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 cover- ed with a brilliant Turkey carpet, being red, brown, green, yellow, 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 an- chor as soon as Lord David should return on board, and drop down to a well-known anchorage at the southeast corner of the straits, and I would meet him there; but now, as there was nothing to be done 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 an- 236 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. chor. "When we saw from the heights, therefore, 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 aston- ished 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. DEAD WALRUS FOUND. 237 CHAPTER XVI. Dead Walrus found. — ^Bears nearly escape, but are caught. — Gale and Ice. — Mynherr Holmengreen. — Presents more. KaffiroTum. — 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 Subsistence. — ^Divergence of White Bear from original Stock. — Probable Origin of the Walrus. — And of the Seal. — Of the Cetaceans. — Changes in the South African Antelopes, caused by Desiccation of that country. The "Anna Louisa's" people had also killed a few reindeer on the extensive plains near the Rus- sian huts ; and they had found a bull- walrus float- ing dead in the water, and of course added his blubber 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 determined ef- fort to escape, and had very nearly succeeded. One day, while all hands except 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 238 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 add^d insult to injury, and still farther embittered the cook's feelings by devouring great part of a haunch of fat venison which was hanging on deck ready for din- ner. 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 acci- dentally met them coolly traveling along the shore in the evening; and although at first they were nearly shooting them for wild bears, at last it oc- curred 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 had now grown much too big and strong to be handled with im- punity. We determined to have one more last look at the edge of the main ice pack to the northeast, 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 northeasterly wind came on early in the morning, but the "Ginevra," in which we still continued, easily beat up against it, MTNHERE HOLMENGREEN. 239 and got close to Black Point about 10 A.M. on tlie 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 recognized 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, honored us with an immediate call. He said his vessel, with Holmengreen's and our two, were now the only remaining ships in the Spitz- bergen 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 hund- reds on one of these islands ; but the men most in- discreetly attacked them to windward, and the wal- ruses 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 sur- prised to find him a stout, well-dressed, benevo- lent-looking, elderly party in a brown wig ! Alto- 240 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. gether he had much more the appearance of a well- to-do London merchant than a Spitzbergen walrus- hunter ; and yet this man is said to be one of the pluckiest and most skillful 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 our harpooners, who car- ried the meat, to say, with my compliments, that if they had any sugar to spare, it would be an accept- able 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 will bring back the deer?" I replied, "Of course not; give the deer, and then ask for some sugar." Nor was my confidence misplaced, for they sent us enough sugar to last us to Hammerfest, and the mind of Mr. Quirk, the steward, was set at rest. SOth. 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 barome- ter would not rise, and the ice began to sweep round tis ; . so Mr. Wood said that he must get the yacht WE AEE DRIVEN AWAY BY ICE, 241 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 held a council of war, and discussed three alternatives which we had before us : First : 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 walruses, 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 else- where, 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 harbor 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 westward. Second : We could go home to Hammerfest "holus-bolus," as Mr. Wood expressed it, and, Third: We could send the sloop over to Ham- merfest, and go round to Ice Fiord ourselves in the yacht for a few days. The advantages of the last plan were that the sloop's crew could be paid oflp, 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- merfest. We were also assured of getting plenty Q 242 ADVENTtJRES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. of reindeer, and maybe white whales, in Ice Fiord ; but as that part of the coast is clear of ice in the autumn, we must bid good-by to the sea-horses for this season. ' After some deliberation, we decided on adopting the lasl/mentioned plan, and it seemed to give gen- eral satisfaction to all concerned, including the masters of the two schooners, who were resolved to remain to the last, and therefore 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 be- longing 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 let- ter for me, in which he expressed a hope that I would give him a passage to Hammerfest, as it would save the expense and delay of sending him by steam-boat from Tonsberg, in the south of Nor- way, to Hammerfest, in the extreme north. The man thus luckily avoided a voyage of about 3000 miles. ekicson's cargo. 243 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 Spitz- bergen seals, 62 walruses, 4 bears, and 35 reindeer ; a cargo which will afford but a miserable remu- neration for eight* months' time of a brig carry- ing twenty-four men, and constantly manning four boats, and five upon an emergency. 31st 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. Very long, low, and dangerous reefs of rocks run out many miles from the land all along the coast, from South Cape to Ice Fiord. The mountains are much higher and steeper than in East Spitz- bergen. 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. * Allowing one month to reach Tonsberg. 244 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. Many of these mountains have a singularly striking resemblance, on an enormously exagger- ated 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 terminates in an absolute point. Othfers, again, have the uppermost strata slightly overhg,nging, or projecting over those immediately below. The 1st of September was a fine calm day, with only occasional gusts of wind fi-om the valleys on the coast. We saw two huge Mysticeti, or "right whales," lazily rolling on the surface and blowing sonorous- ly, at one or two miles' distance. They remained so long above water after each dive that it looked as if there would be no great difficulty in harpoon- ing them, and only our want of proper tackle com- pelled us reluctantly to abstain from making" the experiment. The sea here swarms with incredible numbers of minute Meduste, on which these whales were prob- ably feeding when we saw them. These animalcula? also seem to be affording an inexhaustible banquet to gulls and guillemots by the thousand. The lat- ter are the only things we ever take the lives of parasiticaij gulls. 245 without intending to make any use of them after- ward; but they afford such admirable marks for rifle practice, that the slaughter of them is perhaps justifiable, as affording a means to the end. It is very amusing to watch the proceedings of the parasitical guUs, of whom two or three species exist here — Larus parasiticus and Larus glaucus ; the latter is called by the Dutchmen the "Burgo- master," from his tyrannical and rapacious selfish- ness. Neither of these birds ever seem to take the trouble to pick up any thing for themselves ; but as soon as they observe any other gull in posses- sion of a morsel which he is not able to swallow outright, they dash at him and hunt him through the air, until the victim is obliged to drop what- ever he has secured, and the ravenous burgomaster then appropriates and swallows it himself I have watched many of these nefarious 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 ex- pected 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 altogether, and then L. parasiti- cus and L. glaucus would be compelled to have re- 246 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. course to a more reputable mode of life to obtain a subsistence. The sailors are very fond of playing off a certain practical joke on the gulls which are always hover- ing about 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 se- verely criticised; but I will "take a header" into the deep waters of controversy at once, and unhesi- tatingly avow my belief that an attentive study of the Arctic animals is capable of mightily strength- ening the theory of progressive development, first suggested by the illustrious Lamarck, and since so ably expounded and defended, under somewhat AE.CTIC ZOOLOGY. 247 modified 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 to pieces ; the Atheist ! the Lamarckian ! the disciple of ,the atrocious author of the ' Ves- tiges,' " etc., etc., etc. I acknowledge with humility my presumption in entering upon so profound a question in Natural History; but, although I make no pretensions to the character of a scientific naturalist, still I have had opportunities such as few have enjoyed, of ob- serving 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 sub- ject, the more do I become convinced that Almighty God always carries out his intentions with regard to the animal creation, not by "direct interposi- tions" of His will, nor by "special fiats of crea- tion," but by the slow and gradual agency of natu- ral causes. It might naturally be expected that in such in- clement regions, and where so little vegetation ex- ists as in the Arctic zone, there mtist 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 animalculse — which, although too small to be seen in detail without a microscope, are yet in the aggregate so numberless as to discolor 248 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. the ocean — to the huge walrus and the vast mysti- cetus with his congeners. All this life hangs to- gether from link to link in a beautiful chain : thus the diflferent animalculse prey on one another ; the shrimps and small fishes prey on the larger animal- culse ; 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 imagination to suppose that this variety was originally created, not as we see him now, but by individuals of Ursus arctos in Siberia, who, finding their means of subsistence running 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 im- possibility in supposing that the brown bears, who by my theory were the progenitors of the present white bears, were accidentally driven over to Green- land and Spitzbergen by storms or currents. In- dividual bears of U. arctos are found frequently of a silvery gray color, and such bears are known in PROBABLE ORIGIN OP WHITE BEAR. 249 Norway as "silver bears." Then it stands to rea- son that those individuals who might happen to be palest in color would have the best chance of suc- ceeding in surprising seals, and those who had most external fat would have the best chance of with- standing 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 transformed into the variety at present known as Ursus maritimus. It may be urged against this that "there is no reason, if my theory is true, why brown bears are not still occasionally taking to a Polar life, catch- ing seals and turning white" (?) The answer is easy ; the ground is already occupied by the varie- ty 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 occasion- ally 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 ex- pedition, 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.* * It will lie 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 250 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. I think the appearance- and the very existence of the walrus are among the strongest and most in- contestable proofs to be found in the handwriting 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 tmcalled-for interpositions of the Divine wiU. There are very few or no animals in the world which seem to me to constitute so clear and well- defined a linh bfetween two different and distinct races ; and I can hardly understand how any re- flecting and unprejudiced person can attentively study the habits of the walrus when alive, or even attentively examine his skeleton when dead, with- out coming to the conclusion that he forms a plain and unmistakable link between animals inhabiting the land and the cetaceans or whales, ^^^r^ 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, nevertheless, I think the walrus must have originated in much the same sort of way as that by which I have attempted to explain the origin of U. maritimus ; only, for the creation 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 pf so distinguished a naturalist, I never would have ventured to give to the world my own humble opinions on the subject. THE WALRtrS. 251 of the walrus I must claim the indulgence of my opponents to grapt 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 ^rst. 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 174) that, "Even in so ex- treme 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 selec- tion 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 certainly a very extreme case to put, and there is much less difficulty in believing that the thing should have come to pass in a more gradual manner— by steps, as it were. Suppose, then, the case of a bear {or any other large land animal, existing or extinct) living on the borders of the/then existing Polar sea. We can" 252 ADVENTUEES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. easily fancy that in the struggle for existence per- petually going on, this bear — or whatever he was — may have been compelled to take to the sea-shore and prey upon shell-fish among 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 ac- quire 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. Natural selec- tion would now come into play, and as those an- imals which had the best and longest teeth would succeed best, so they would have the best chance of transmitting these peculiarities to their descend- ants. The tusks of the walrus are not, as I men- tioned before, a pair of extra teeth,[bcit merely an 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 generation to generation he would be able to stay longer below. As he would have very little use for his legs, they * I stated, ar>0, that we had seen the white bear dive for a short distance just like a walrus. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SEAL AND WALRUS. 253 would soon become abortive as legs, and grow more into the resemblance of Jins ; the hind legs would somewhat 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 abortive, 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 can not 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, al- though, of course, only 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 ap- pearance or in their habits, as one would be apt to suppose by looking at the clumsily stufied specimen of a walrus in th« 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. For 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 can not remain under water for nearly so long a period as the seal, neither can he sustain the 254 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. pressure of the water at any thing like the depth to which the great seal can descend : the walrus goes ashore on the beach or rocks, and the Spitzbergen seal, although he basks on ice — ^both fixed and float- ing — ^is never known to go on land or even to lie on a half-tide rock ; the wabus is gregarious and the great seal solitary, even two seldom being found together ; the young Walrus lives with his dam for two seasons, f while the young seals are believed 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 obtain- -ed by plowing 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 farther intermediate link between the walrus and the whale, but I can not presume to hazard any opinion on that point ; he may have diverged fi'om the walrus, or he may have sprung more di- rectly fi'om some other^race of animals living or extinct, without the intervention 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, * We always ibund one-year-old calves witli their mothers, i. e. calves of the preceding season. DEVELOPMENT, 255 or some allied animal now extinct, has been the pro- genitor of the whales and other cetaceans. \hL "^ It is needless to recapitulate the description of the manner in which I humbly conceive it possible that these mighty animals might have been devel- oped, as the cases hypothetically put before must have explained my meaning suflSiciently ; 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 Tiatwral se- lection 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 corroborative of my views, taken fi'om my own observations of many other animals in widely dififerent parts of the earth, * I will content myself with one. In a district of South Afi-ica, 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 feqt in height and 2000 lbs, in weight to the diminu- tive bluebuck of 8 lbs, or 9 lbs, weight and twelve inches high. Some of these varieties are confined to a particu- 256 ABVENTUBES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. lar range of rocky mountains, the banks of a par- ticular river, or a particular series of flats; in other places as many as six varieties may be seen at one coup cTceil, and as many as ten or twelve in the course of a morning's ride. Of several varieties which inhabit the vast Kalahari 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, Color, 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 peo- ple, either among naturalists or among the cplonists 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 originally brought into being separately and distinctly as we see them now? That one variety was specially created for this pet- ty locality, 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 observation of nature lead one to a very different conclusion. DR. LIVINGSTONE. 257 Dr. Livingstone has shown that vast portions of South Africa, which formerly used to be well-water- ed, have been for long, and stiU are, undergoing a rapid. desiccation,* and it seems to me that that im- portant fact alone is sufficient 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, color, horns, and other distinctions. Nay, farther, I entertain no doubt that they are undergoing these said changes at this moment^ but by such a slow and gradual process that it is quite imperceptible in the brief space of human life, or even within the period since natural history began to be studied. 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. * My own personal observation in South Africa abundantly confirms that remark of the doctor's. E 258 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. CHAPTEE XVIII. Horn and Bell Sounds. — Ice Fiord. — Pickled Keindeer's Tongues. — Arctic Foxes. — Geology. — Raised Beaches. — Fossil Cannon-balls. — Awful Avalanche. — Begins to get dark at Night. ^ — Reach Hannnerfest. — Sell our Cargo. — Take Leave of our Crew. — Sail home. — Equinoctial Gales. — Leith.— " Glut" of Bears in the British Market. — Conclu- sion. — 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 little, and then it fell almost calm again until we came opposite to the entrance of Bell Sound, where we experienced just such another squall from the northeast. Going close-hauled, it was as much as the yacht could do to stand up against it tinder close-reefed mainsail, foresail, and staysail ; but this squall car- ried 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 with heavy sleety rain. We beat up the fiord in the teeth of this, and anchored in a sheltered bay in the evening of the 2d. The sporting season seemed to be about come to an end ; but we were now obliged to stop here for !i i ICE FIOBD. 261 a few days to fill the water-tanks, and gather fire- wood 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 harbor 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 northwest corner of Spitz- bergen, and runs through the channel between Prince Charles' Island and the main land. Immense flights of geese, both of the gray and brent varieties, winging their way to the south, warn us, however, that it is nearly time to leave the re- gions of the ice. In the numerous fine valleys entering from Ice Fiord we found such quantities of reindeer that we might have loaded the ship with them, if we had been, in the language of "BelFs Life," ^^ gluttons''' for that description of sport ; but, as we had more venison on board than all hands, including the young bears, could eat in a month, we contented ourselves by picking out a few of the old stags with the best horns we could find. The tongues of the reindeer are particularly de- licious, and we salted a small keg of these for dis- tribution among our friends at home. We have now secured splendid specimens of all the Spitzbergen animals worthy of a sportsman's attention, except the narwhal and the black fox. These are botji very rare, and we never had the 262 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHEEN SEAS. satisfaction of adding the long spiral horn of the one, or the beautiful skin of the other, to our col- lections. On a proinontory of sandy beach near our an- chorage there were always a lot of gulls resting, and a small white fox, apparently half mad with hunger, continued the whole day making unavail- ing efforts to stalh 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? All the geese and eider-ducks, and I should imagine also the gulls, leave Spitzbergen in September. 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 hibernp,te 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 in- stinct 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- FOSSIL CANNON-BALLS. 263 bergen more than the total absence of pehhly 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 Ryk Yse Islands and Ice Fiord, nor among the Thousand Islands, any thing 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 others I have observed great accumulations of coarse rhomboidal gravel, both on the beach and at diflferent 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 comp6sed of a friable, crumbling limestone, which in great part has a sort of brown tinge, as if impregnated with oxide of iron. They are perfectly chock-full of fossils, so much so as to look as if they were actu- ally composed of fossils in some places. I gather- ed many specimens, and I also picked up, in the bed of a torrent, three stones so exactly spherical, and so highly ferruginous-looking, that my Petropaulauski man-of-war's-man stoutly maintained that if the "other stones" I gave him to carry were the fossils of clams and cockles, these must undoubtedly be ih.Q fossils of cannon-shot of different calibres. There is a good walrus-boat lying on the beach in a small bay here. This boat was found two 264 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. years ago floating bottom up, and with two of the harpoonJines broken, from which it is concluded that a walrus had upset her and drowned the crew. On the fourth, while we were busy on deck mak- ing preparations to depart, we saw a tremendous 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 mil- lions 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 se- cured them firmly in case of bad weather, and made every thing else as snug as possible for the return voyage. We have some difficulty in stowing the venison, of which 160 fat quarters now encumber the deck. At an average of 40 lbs. a quarter, this amounted to 6400 lbs. 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 September we got the anchor up, and bade adieu, with profound regret and heartfelt reluctance, to the gloomy fiords and enchanting ice-floes of Spitzbergen. As those desolate shores faded from our view, I repeated to myself the sublime lines of Longfellow, * * Discoverer of the North Cape. CROSS TO HAMMERFEST. 265 " There we hunted the -walrus, the narwhal 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 difference of climate between this part of Spitzbergen and the east coast-7-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 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 Hammerfest harbor at dusk on the evening of the 11th. To our great surprise and annoyance, we found that the "Anna Louisa" had only made her num- ber twelve hours before us. We found a great accumulation of letters and newspapers, and read nearly all night. 266 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 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 any thing to sell — but still we realized a sum which went a long way toward paying 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 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 excep- tion, I never met with a more hard-Avorking, docile, uncomplaining, and good-humored 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 prin- ciple of getting for themselves one third of the cargo, we gave the skyppar a handsome additional gratui- ty, 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 conten- tion," and gave rise to a furious dispute among ARRIVAL AT LEITH. 267 them. • The men who had houses and families wished a division of the actual victuals (the '■Hpsa corpora, " as the Rev. Mr. calls the oatmeal which I have annually the honor of paying him for), whereas the men who lived en gar^on contend- ed that the obvious intentions of the munificent donors had been that the provisions should be sold en masse, and the proceeds 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 improb- able that these gentlemen settled the matter some- what 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 experienced northeast winds all the way from Leith to Ham- merfest, it was quite to be expected in the nature of things that we should have southwest 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 possession of our cargo of venison, and at last cast anchor in Leith Roads on Sunday, the 2d of October. For the first few days the climate of Scotland seemed oppressively hot, and I could sympathize 268 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. with the feelings of the young bears, who appeared ready to melt into oil at this unwonted temper- ature. With the view of disposing of these interesting 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 neighbors to enjoy the Scandinavian diversion of a '■'■ shall f but the prob- able difficulty of obtaining heaters occurred to me as one objection, and the possibility of being brought in for heavy game damages SiS, another ; so eventu- ally I disposed of them to M. le Directeur of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and I wish his im- perial majesty joy of his purchase. I had the satisfaction of seeing them in that establishment some months later, considerably grown, but their naturally amiable dispositions not improved by their being confined in one of the warm, dry dens used for the tropical Carnivora. They did not, like the lion in the story, recog- nize and welcome their old shipmate with trans- ports of joy. In conclusion, I beg to direct attention to the fol- lowing fac-simile of an engraving executed by Lord David Kennedy on one of the cabin-beams of the GAME-LIST. 269 "Anna Louisa," as it contains a concise summary of our game-list. a -D LORD DAVID KENNEDY and JAMES LAMONT HiEED ttis Sloop ANNA LOUISA, not A 1, In the Summer of the Tear 1859, And killed in SPITZBEEGEN 46 WALRUSES, 88 SEALS, 8 POLAR BEARS, 1 WHITE WHALE, 61 REINDEER. TOTAL, 204 HEAD. D D N.B. — In addition to the above, we sunk and lost about 20 Walruses and 40 Seals. APPENDIX. APPENDIX. A' LIST OF THE SPECIMENS OF EOCKS, FOSSILS, ANIMALS, &e., SENT TO THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY AND NOW IN THEIR MUSEUM. From Black Point. — Grayish, fine-grained, laminated sand- stone, sometimes micaceous. Brownist, fine-grained, micaceous, shaly sandstone, ■weather- ing white. Pebbles of hard coal. Brownish-gray limestone, with Ifttcula, Aviculqpecten, and Spirifer. Gray hmestone with calcareous veins. "With a trace of calamite ? Fossil wood with attached coaly matter. Frora Thousand Islands. — More or less rounded fragments of Compact red syenitio rock. Gray compact silicious limestone with corals, Aviculopecten, Streptorhynchus, &c. Brownish argillaceous rock. Yellowish fossUiferous silicious limestone. White fossiUferous limestone. Black flint with chalcedonic vein. White flint or chert. Purplish semitransparent quartz rock. Greenstone. Thin-bedded, gray, compact, silicio-argillaceous rock, with a large Aviculopecten. s 274 APPENDIX. Hard compact sandstone. Red, iighly eilicious limestone. Greenstone, coarse-grained, with weathered face. From Ryk-Yse Islands. — Rounded fragments of gray compact limestone with FenestellcB and corals. From Ice Sound. — Fiae-grained, compact, dark gray sand- stone, weathering ferruginous. , Ferruginous nodules (exfoliating) of the size of cannon balls. From Island, BeU Sound. — Weathered fragment of argillo-si- lioious dark gray rock, with Mnestella and corals. Hard reddish ferrugpous rock, with pebbles of Lydian stone. Fossils, from 200 feet above the sea, and 350 yards inland. (See Mr. Salter's Appendix.) Brownish-gray, micaceous, compact, fine-grained sandstone pebbles, with trace of the cast of an Aoiculopecten ? From BeU Sound. — Fossils from 400 feet above the sea level. (See Mr. Salter's Appendix.) From Moraine in Deeva Bay. — Brown claystone, weathering reddish-purple. Different Localities. Ferruginous nodule, small. Hard ferruginous sandstone with small feri'uginous nodule. Sihcious conglomerate. Boulder of conglomerate, or coarse pebbly grit ; pebbles of white and dark gray quartz and Lydian stone, cement cal- careous. White quartz rock. Stem-like piece of brownish fine-grained sandstone (? cast of a ripple-mark). APPENDIX. 275 Light-gray friable sandstone. Dark-gray mudstone (calcareo-argiUaceous) with impression of shell. Water-worn fragment of tortuously laminated calcareous slate. Pebble of gray argillaceous limestone with calo-spar vein. Bouldered piece of gray silicious limestone with Productus and corals. Gray silicious limestone with Orthis and Productus, with weathered surface. White crystalline limestone with Spirifer cristatus and cor- als, having a weathered surface. White silicious limestone with corals, ^EWmmfes, and shells. Black silicious limestone with calcareous veins. Weathered fragment of white encriaital chert with coals, Sryozoa (?), and Productus. Black flint with whitish mottlings, splinters. Red sihcious 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 fo- liaceous coral (Stenopora). Recent Shells (determined by S. P. Woodwaed, Esq., F.G.S.). 1. Fi-om the Thousand Isles. Buccinum undatum, var. {cyaneum ? ?). 2. From Bell Sound, at about high-water mark. Fusus despectus, L., var. {=F. borealis, PhUippi). Buccinum glaciale, L. (=-B: angulosum=LB. polar e. Beck). Margarita undulata (= Ghoenlandica) inside z, Buccinum. Buccinum scalariforme ? Balanus crenatus, var. Scoticus, probably. Fusus Kroyeri, Moller. -27Q APPENDIX. Cardium Islandicum (=ciUatum). Cardium Groenlandicum (broken). (very fine). . Saxicava arctica. My a ZTddevallensis (tnmcata, var.). Astarte borealis, Chemn., var. {=semisulcata, Leach ; =lac- fea, Broderip). Mya truncata, var. Uddevallensis. JPecfen Islandicus, Kullipore, with Saxicava. 3. From Bell Sound, at about 1 J to 2 miles inland, and 400 or 500 feet above the sea level. Buccinum glaciale (IJ to 2 miles inland, 400 and 500 feet high). 4. Prom the Moraine of a glacier in Deeva Bay. Astarte borealis (var. semisulcata). compressa, Mont., var. striata. Mya truncata, var. Uddevallensis. Boirais. 1. Fragment of vertebra of Whale, rotten. Bell Sound. Haifa mile from the sea. 100 feet above the sea. 2. Fragment of bone. Half a mile from the sea at BeU 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. Near- ly burled at 70 feet above high-tide mark. 6. Fragment of bone of Whale. Bell Sound. Buried in bank 50 feet above the sea. APPENDIX. 277 t. Half a caudal vertebra of Whale. Balmna mysticetus (?) Bell Sound. A little above higli--water mark. 8. Caudal vertebra of Whale. Found among the boulders at high-water mark. Colored ferruginous. 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. Description of the Gkavels from Spitzbeegbn. By J. Peest- wiCH, Esq., F.G.S. 1. Gravel from Bell Sound, 60 feet above high-water mark. Gray gravel of small subangular fragments of dark-gray argil- laceous and quartzose slaty rocks, some portions calcareous, and a few fragments of gray sandstone, 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). Among these subangular fragments therfe are, however, a few small round pebbles of a dark-gray limestone, and a few perfectly angular fragments of slate. There are no shells, nor any characters on any of the frag- ments in the gravel to indicate a beach-origin. The mass, in fact, looks much more like the smaller fragments of a moraine. None of the fragments, however, are scratched or striated. 2. Gravel from Bell Sound, 20 feet above high-water. Dark- colored grit, clean and uniform in texture, consisting of small subangular fragments of a black hornblende 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 grayish-green gravel of flat angular fragments of greenish mica slate, with a few pieces of quartz. None of 278 APPENDIX. 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, halfway between high and low water. Ordinary clean and weU-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 gray sandstone, and some gray 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. Suban- gular small fragments of micaceous slates, with a few flat an- gular 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. ITbte on the Fossils from Spitzbbegen, By J. W. Saltee, Esq., F.G.S. The specimens of fossils brought by Mr. Lament 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 ; and these are the same as those from the small island in the same Sound. One is a large JProductus, which I can not identify completely with any British species. It may be a large varie- APPENDIX. 279 ty of one of our common shells, P. semyreticulatus^ or even a form of P. Costatus. In any case it is of a Carboniferous type. The specimens from the island ra BeU Sound are much more numerous ; and in a gray 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 de- pressed. 2. Pro3uctus costatus, Sowerhy, very large, and deeply bi- lobed. Abundant. 3. Produotus, the large striate species above mentioned. 4. P. MumboMtii, D'Orbigny, two or three specimens. 6. P. mammatus, Keyserling (?), or an allied species, with- out large scattering 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 VerneuU, who described that species ia " Eussia in Europe." Von Buch quotes the Productus giganteus from the South Cape and from Bell Sound : this is not noticed at aU in Prof. Koninck's list (1849, op. cit., p. 633). 6. Gamarophoria, a large species, not unlike in shape to the Bhynchonella acuminata of the Carboniferous limestone, but ribbed throughout. ~ T. Spirifer KeUhavii,Yon'Eu(^. Several specimens.. This, more than any other shell, tends to connect the Spitzbergen formation with surrounding districts. Sp. Keilhavii was de- scribed in the Berlin Trans, for May, 1846. The specimens were brought home by Keilhau from the rocks of Bear Island, in 74° 30' IsT. 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 280 APPENDIX. found there which, occurred at Bear Island. And, inasmuch as the Producti are the common British species P. giganteus and P. Cora, there can be no doubt whatever of the formation to which Spirifer Keilhavii . belongs. Count Keyserhng de- scribed 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 Car- boniferous rocks of North Albert Land — Captain Belcher's farthest 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 Brussels (Bulletin, vols. xiii. and xiv.) 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 resum6 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 Palseozoic rocks (Trans. Sect., p. 211). One species only which appears to me of Permian date oc- curs in a loose block (without definite locahty), and will be presently noticed. It would be somewhat remarkable if aU 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 bj M. Robert in his voyage. 8. FenesteUa, two species, one with very large meshes. 9. Sponges (?) ; large, stem-like and cake-Uke in shape. Specimens without definite localities : 10. Spirifer cristatus, Schloth. S. octoplicatus of the mount- ain hmestone is now regarded as the same species. 11. StreptorJiynchus crenistria, or an alKed.form. 12. Zaphrentis Ovibos, Salter (?). Probably an Arctic spe- cies. 13. Stenopora; a large branched species, like S. Tasman- iensis of Lonsdale. This occurs at Bell Sound also. APPENDIX. 281 14. Syringopora, large fragments. 15. A new genus, in all probability of the Mnestellidm, con- sisting of tbick stems branching regularly from opposite sides, the smaller branches also opposite, and coalescing also with their neighbors so as to form a quadrangular net-work. But for this coalescence it might be a gigantic Thamniscus or Ich- thyorhachis. 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 associ- ated with the coal, slabs were obtained with numerous shells and some fragments of plants. 16. Nucula, abundant ; and among these is a small 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 southeastern side of Spitzbergen,* contains the only truly Permian species which I have seen among these specimens, viz., 19. Spirifer alatus, Schloth., a common fossU of the Zech- stein. 20. Produetus, a small species. (P. Horridua of De Ko- ninck's list, but apparently too deeply lobed.) 21. Stenopora, a large foliaceous flattened species. Spirifer octoplicatus {cristatus), above mentioned, also oc- * 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 traveled block, I think it not improbable that it does not belong to Spitzbergen at all, but may have been transported by the drift-ice from Commander Gillies's Land, or some other unknown country to the north- east."— April 21, I860.— J. L. 282 APPENDIX. curs in similar whitish limestone. These may possibly have all come from the locality whence M. Robert's original speci- mens were found ; but it would appear that they are not by any means the prevailing fossils of the island. The general aspect of the fossUs is unquestionably carbon- iferous, and some of the species have a wide diffusion. Pro- ductus 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 range.* P. Sumboldtii is found in Russia and South America. Our P. mammatMS ? is probably distinct from the Russian species, but it is, at all events, the same as one in Captaia Belcher's collection.f The size of the fossils, both of the shells and Bryozoa, is re- markable, and, taken in conjunction with the presence 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.| * To Australia (M'Coy). t It is closely and finely striate, and has spines along the hinge-line only. J Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. THE END. 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