THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

THE DUKE OF ORLEANS AT THE HELM OF HIS
MOTOR LAUNCH.

HUNTERS AND HUNTING
IN THE ARCTIC

BY

THE DUKE OF 'QRLEANS

TRANSLATED BY
H. GRAHAME RICHARDS

WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON

DAVID NUTT, 57-59 LONG ACRE
1911

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION . . . ix

TRAPPERS . . . i

BEARS . 50

BEAR CUBS .88

REINDEER 106

THE WALRUS 128

SEALS 174

MM1 4111

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE DUKE OF ORLEANS AT THE HELM OF HIS MOTOR
LAUNCH Frontispiece

TO FACE
PAGE

PRITCHETT ISLAND (FRANZ JOSEPH LAND) — THE OLD
MORAINE OF BRAGANCA BAY xx

THE ' BELGICA ' AFTER AN ICE PRESSURE (KARA SEA) xxiv
MY YOUNG CAPTIVE (JAN MAYEN) 14

Fox TRAPS BEFORE THE VOGELBERG (}AN MAYEN) —
PETRELS AND BODIES OF SEALS ON A FLOE . . 20

HOUSE OF WINTERERS AT GRIPPER ROADS (GREENLAND)
— THE YOUNG MUSK-OX 40

A VISITOR (GREENLAND ICE BANK) .... 52

TRAMP ACROSS THE ICE BANK IN SUMMER — WOUNDED
BEAR 56

A DOUBLE COUP 64

HALLALI ! 76

PURSUIT OVER THE GREENLAND ICE BANK — BEAR
WOUNDED .84

FEMALE BEAR AND CUB SWIMMING — DEAD FEMALE
BEAR AND CUB 88

FEMALE BEAR FOLLOWED BY CUB — CAPTURE OF THE
CUB 98

SHIPPING A BEAR-CUB — BEAR-CUB ON ITS MOTHER'S
BODY 136

vii

viii ILLUSTRATIONS

TO FACE
PAGE

A REINDEER AT LOWE SOUND no

GLACIER ON THE SOUTHERN SHORE OF BRAGANCA BAY
(VIEW OF THE GREAT MORAINE) 116

SAILOR CARRYING A REINDEER — NORTHERN SHORE OF
LOWE SOUND 122

THE WALRUS OF GREENLAND — MY TWO OLD MALES OF
1905 (KOLDEWEY ISLAND) 138

WALRUS HOISTED ON TO THE ICE (GREENLAND ICE
BANK) 144

FOOT OF A GLACIER — PRITCHETT ISLAND (HAMILTON
CHANNEL) . . . 150

WALRUS ABOUT TO ATTACK (HAMILTON CHANNEL) . 158

APPROACHING A WALRUS. FRANZ JOSEPH LAND
(HAMILTON CHANNEL) 166

A CORNER OF THE 'BELGICA' — MY CABIN . . .182

THE BOAT FETCHING A DEAD SEAL — APPROACHING
SEALS 192

OUR PRISONER . . 202

INTRODUCTION

I CONSIDERED an account of my first two
expeditions to the Arctic regions worthy of
publication, because each was interesting in
its own way.

Exceptionally favourable conditions attended
the first, permitting us to cross the Greenland
ice-belt at 76° latitude, a region up to that
time deemed impassable, and to attain, in the
78°, the French Islands, never before reached
even with sledges.

On the other hand, danger and misfortune
dogged my second expedition without inter-
mission : the drift in the Kara Sea, repeated
strandings and struggles with tempests, com-
bined to form an experience which should
prove useful to any who think of navigating
these little-known waters.

My last voyage was made under easy and

pleasant conditions. It was a circuit, in the

ix

x INTRODUCTION

course of which I hoped during the same summe
to cross again the Greenland ice-belt, and t
touch at Spitzbergen and Franz Joseph Land
so that I might obtain a complete view of th
ice-fields and lands of the European section
of the Arctic.

Success attended this enterprise, but i
seems to me useless to narrate at length al
my experiences, as they would probably prov
wearying to all except sailors.

Taking advantage, then, of the many occa
sions on which I have been able to stud]
hunting in the Arctic, I have introduced int<
this volume some descriptive extracts fron
my diary of 1909, adding thereto memoranda
of my 1904, 1905 and 1907 voyages.

As I have in my preceding works given <
detailed description of the ice-fields, I thinl
I have already painted a sufficiently vivic
picture of the Polar lands I have visited, a;
well as of the habits of Polar animals and th<
methods of hunting them, a sport which wil
very soon be a thing of the past.

In effect, the hunting of marine mammals
of such considerable importance during th(
past three centuries, may already be considerec
a thing of the past from the commercial stand-
point.

INTRODUCTION xi

With the exception of seal-hunting in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence and in the neighbour-
hood of Jan Mayen, where it is still undertaken
by a few American and Norwegian vessels
with fairly remunerative results, the hunting of
amphibious animals is now only undertaken
by small sealers from Tromso and Hammerfest,
which, with considerable difficulty, contrive to
collect a cargo of two or three hundred skins
in a season.

As regards whale-hunting, apart from three
or four Dundee whalers commanded by ener-
getic and experienced men, such as Captain
Robertson, whom I had the pleasure of meeting
in the Greenland ice-fields, who still find the
industry a fairly lucrative one, it may be said
to be quite extinct.

In a short while baleinopteres, which are
still hunted around the Faroes and off Spitz-
bergen, but are rapidly being destroyed by the
inventions of modern fishers, will, too, have
disappeared.

Re-reading, in the course of my expeditions,
the accounts which remain to us of ancient
whaling, I was astonished that that splendid
period of hunting, which, inaugurated by our
own Basque sailors, lasted for nearly three
centuries, should have been permitted to pass

xii INTRODUCTION

away without France having taken a greater
share in it.

Men, indeed, were not lacking, for during
that same period younger sons of French
adventurers, as pioneers in Canada's woods
or as filibusters in the Antilles, displayed a
courage and endurance which have never been
surpassed by the explorers and sailors of other
nations. The glory of our famous privateers,
Jean Bart, Duguay-Trouin or of Du Casse,
has tended rather to obscure and make us
forget the exploits of many others of our race.

Where, for example, may one hope to find a
more admirable display of courage and energy
than the life of the Canadian Le Moyne d'lber-
ville presents ?

Despatched in the month of August 1697,
by Pontchartrain to attack the English in
Hudson Bay, he pushed his way north accom-
panied by, but separated from by the ice,
three other vessels, and, arriving alone in the
bay in his frigate called the Pelican, did not
hesitate to attack three of the enemy's vessels
he found there, although two of them equalled
his own in equipment, while the third was
almost double his strength.

' Dlberville/ says Father de Charlevoix,
in his ' History of New France, ' ' holding the wind,

INTRODUCTION xiu

ranged alongside the two frigates and bombarded
them, seeking to disable them. At that moment
he perceived the third ship called the Hamp-
shire approaching, armed with twenty-six guns
on each deck and manned by a crew of two
hundred and thirty men. D'Iberville did not
shirk the fight, but bore down under full sail
and riddled the Hampshire's waterline.

' He then tacked back and bore down again
on the nearest English ship. Just as he was
about to board, she lowered her flag. He im-
mediately gave chase to the third vessel called
the Deringuer, which fled to the north-east,
but was, however, obliged to abandon it,
because his top hamper was badly damaged,
two pumps had burst, his tattered shrouds were
entangled, and he had received seven shots on
the waterline/

This was by no means d'Iberville's first
feat of arms.

In 1686, when he was twenty-five years of
age, he was sent from Quebec against the
English at Hudson Bay, and boarded and
captured a twelve-gun ship with two bark
canoes and eleven men.

Two years later, at the head of fifteen
Canadians, he held a little fort against three
English ships, repulsed their attacks, and

b 2

xiv INTRODUCTION

killed or took prisoners one hundred and twenty
men.

The following year he repeated his first feat
of arms by attacking and capturing an enemy's
vessel in a single boat.

Of his campaigns in Newfoundland, which
he almost entirely cleared of the English, I will
say nothing, nor of the three expeditions in
Louisiana preceding his death at Havana
of yellow fever. If you would know more of
this man, you will find in M. Pierre Heinrich's
work, ' La Louisiane sous la Campagnie des
Indes/ a resume of the services rendered to
France by d'Iberville and his ten brothers,
grandsons of a Dieppe hotel-keeper who became
the progenitor of heroes, an examination of
which reveals the prodigies accomplished by
our American colonists. One's eyes become
moist with tears of gratitude on reading how
all the children of one family successively
sacrificed their health or gave their blood for
the honour of the Motherland !

No, our country has never lacked courageous
and adventurous mariners ! For every little-
known feat of arms I could relate, there are
hundreds of others which should live in our
memories, for they stand as France's glorious
patrimony.

INTRODUCTION xv

To men such as those I have just
mentioned, the hardships and dangers of a
fishing expedition could have been no more
than sport.

If, as is evident, officers and men were not
wanting then, it is necessary to look elsewhere
for the reason of our abstention from the
exploitation of Arctic resources. The truth is
that the Antilles and the Indies appeared such
Eldorados to both our merchants and colonists,
that all available capital flowed there. As a
result, French shipowners found it difficult to
obtain sufficient funds to organise whaling com-
panies such as the Anglo-Muscovite Company
or the North Holland Company. It is, indeed,
curious that Richelieu and Colbert, who did so
much for the development of the French Navy,
should not have encouraged those commercial
enterprises which our neighbours found so
profitable.

While, however, French shipowners quickly
abandoned fishing in the bays of Spitzbergen,
our privateers, profiting by the war following
the accession of William of Orange to the Eng-
lish throne, did not remain inactive. Between
the years 1689 and 1697, they sold at Dunkirk
prizes to the value of £22,000,000, of which a
large proportion consisted of enemies' whalers.

xvi INTRODUCTION

The French sent an expedition to Spitz-
bergen in 1693. The result reflects so much
to our credit that I must mention it here. Four
frigates took part in the expedition under the
command of M. de la Varenne, who remained
in the Bay of Smeerenberg with two vessels,
while two others commanded by two Basques,
MM. de Suhigaraichipe and de Harrismendy,
and probably manned by Basques accustomed
to the Arctic, pushed their way north to
cross the ice along the northern shores of
Spitzbergen.

They overtook the Dutch whaling fleet,
which sought sanctuary in Treurenberg Bay
near the northern entrance to Hinlopen Strait,
a dangerous point always threatened by ice,
where Nordenskjold was ice-bound and com-
pelled to pass a winter at the risk of dying of
hunger. I myself have experienced the dis-
comfort of an eight days' imprisonment amid
the ice. But the Basques knew no fear. Ignor-
ing the fire directed at them from an elevated
fort at the entrance of the bay, the two French
frigates, towed by their own boats, approached
the Dutch vessels, which, to the number of forty,
were ranged in a semicircle, each carrying from
ten to eighteen guns and manned by crews of
fifty men.

INTRODUCTION xvii

To the French captain's command to sur-
render, the enemy replied with insults and a
cannonade.

Le Favor y and L'Aigle replied so effec-
tively that after a fight lasting five hours the
Dutchmen gave way, and, cutting their cables,
commenced to leave the bay towed by their
boats and assisted by the drifting land ice,
which threatened to enclose friend and foe alike.

The French, who had only two boats avail-
able, the others having been destroyed in the
course of the fight, succeeded with these two
in taking thirteen whalers. Of these they
sank three and brought the remaining ten via
Smeerenberg to France.

Had the whole French fleet been at Treu-
renberg, all the Dutch vessels would have been
taken. The Commander was blamed for his
inaction, but Louis XIV, 'when the report of
the expedition was presented to him, expressed
complete satisfaction with the services of the
officers and men of the Favory and L'Aigle and
commanded : ' de ne par les oublier quand il y
aurait lieu de leur faire plaisir/ *

It is a remarkable thing that Versailles,
keenly interested as it was in Spitzbergen and

1 See Dr. Hamy, Bulletin de geog. hist, et descript., Paris,
1901, or No Man's Land by Sir Martin Conway.

xviii INTRODUCTION

whaling, should have made no effort to encourage
French fishing expeditions instead of remain-
ing satisfied with the destruction of Dutch
whalers. Probably the presence of English
and Dutch cruisers in the northern seas
rendered the success of such expeditions very
doubtful. On the other hand, the soap makers
of Marseilles procured with ease vegetable oils,
which rendered them immune from the periods
of compulsory idleness such as English manu-
facturers suffered from time to time. There
was, therefore, little inducement for the French
shipowner to run the risks which inevitably
attended whaling expeditions.

Be this as it may, we must turn to the days
of Louis XVI before we find an organised at-
tempt made to encourage the whaling industry.
By this time whales had long since deserted the
bays, and the question now was one of deep-sea
rather than of shallow-water fishing, of which
the Americans were past masters.

' In 1784,' so Captain Jouan informs us in
his interesting work on fishing, ' Louis XVI,
who was deeply interested in maritime enter-
prises, equipped six vessels at Dunkirk at his
own expense. He manned these vessels with
sailors from Nantucket, bringing them to France
at great expense.

INTRODUCTION xix

' The shipowners of Nantucket, attracted by
the facilities the French government offered,
established themselves and their families in
Dunkirk and despatched their ships to many
seas. The success attending these ventures was
such that French shipowners commenced at
last to follow their example.

' In 1790 we had forty whalers at sea. This
certainly was not a great number, but it augured
very favourably for the future of the French
whaling industry.

' The destruction of our navy, however, at
the beginning of the Revolution, left our little
whaling fleet defenceless against the attacks
of English privateers, who destroyed it com-
pletely, and until the Restoration whale fishing
was wholly neglected in France/ l

Our whaling industry has never completely
recovered from this disaster. Although towards
1850 certain privileges were granted, French
whalers, hampered by the all too strict laws of our
maritime code, have never become numerous.
They have, in fact, never exceeded thirty, while
the Americans possessed six hundred and
fifty whalers and vaingloriously boasted that,
ranged at equal distances in a circle around

1 La Chasse et le Peche aux animax marines, par Henri
Jouan (Gernier-Baillers).

xx INTRODUCTION

the world, the vessels would not be lost to
sight of each other.

Again, although our sailors of Brittany and
Normandy have always fished off the coasts of
Iceland and amid the shoals of Newfoundland,
an undertaking quite as arduous and dangerous
as whaling, it is curious that no French Company
has ever attempted to exploit the seals of Green-
land, or the sea-elephants of the Antarctic, to
be found in thousands off Kerguelen Island,
which a Frenchman discovered.

I recently learnt with great pleasure that a
young French captain, Rallier du Baty, who
accompanied Charcot on his first southern
expedition, manned a simple Boulogne fishing
smack of forty tons and visited Kerguelen
Island. After having hunted the sea-elephants
for a year, he sailed for Australia to sell his
cargo of oil and skins, thus crossing the Atlantic
and Indian Oceans.

A nation whose sailors are so regardless of
danger would not, without a very good reason,
have permitted such a period of maritime enter-
prise, so commercially profitable to our neigh-
bours, to pass without participating in it, even
though the wholesale extermination of animals
be cruel.

The naval predominance of the English

INTRODUCTION xxi

may explain, but it cannot excuse this neglect ;
France should vindicate herself were it only
from considerations of moral benefit. If a
nation wishes to retain its vigour and to endure,
it must nourish a liking for things maritime in
its children and induce them 'to go down to the
sea in ships.' The sea will always be the best
school of discipline and energy. In Norway,
where we might almost say every man begins
life as a sailor, the beneficial effects of this
training are clearly to be seen.

It is at sea that I have experienced the most
powerful and poignant emotions of my life,
where I have always been most keenly conscious
of the presence and protection of God ; and
it is when I have been face to face with the
dangers of the sea that I have seen social
distinctions vanish, he alone commanding who
had proved himself worthy to command.

If the perusal of these pages shall serve to
awaken in the breasts of young Frenchmen a
desire for the sea, all too neglected nowadays,
I shall be profoundly happy.

In the following pages, maritime descriptions
will necessarily occupy an important place ;
indeed, there is no comparison between deer-
hunting as I have known it in Africa and the
Indies, and the hunting of Polar animals.

xxii INTRODUCTION

In these days, however, when the railroad
passes right through the game preserves of
Central Africa, enabling one to shoot lions and
elephants without leaving the train, I advise
the disciples of St. Hubert to seek their sport in
tropical forests rather than in the ice-fields,
which are less easy of access. Polar hunting
is in reality only shooting practice ; it lacks
the emotions of a tramp through the forest and
the surprises of a forest hunt. An expedition
to the frozen seas with the sole object of hunting
would very soon degenerate into nothing more
than a useless massacre.

Only sailors can enjoy these northern hunts ;
nevertheless, the numerous incidents which
result from the pursuit of game while a vessel
forces a way through the pack-ice towards
one of the Arctic lands, lends diversion to the
severities of scientific investigation, which is
the real object of the expedition.

I have never embarked for Polar seas, which
possess an indescribable fascination for me,
without great heart burnings at the thought of
leaving behind, for an indefinite period, all those
who are near and dear to me, and who have
assisted me to endure the life of an exile. On
each occasion I have watched the approach
of the moment of departure with increasing

INTRODUCTION xxiii

anguish ; but, the parting once over, I have felt
exultation only on finding myself alone with my
companions, sailing towards the new adventures
and dangers awaiting us.

To the true sailor there is perhaps nothing
so attractive as a cruise in northern seas, con-
fronted as he is with the dangers of the ice,
menaced as he is day and night with fogs and
gales.

The weather changes in a single hour in
Boreal regions, and one's impressions undergo
similar modifications.

A day of fog and threatening ice, which
depresses and makes one anxious, is succeeded
by a bright clear day of open ice and renewed
enjoyments.

A ray of sunlight transforms everything,
making a fairyland of a desolate, dead world.

I do not fear responsibility, and know a no
more delightful position than that of commander
of a ship. On all my voyages I have surrounded
myself with the most competent and experienced
men, without whose assistance scientific work
would have been impossible. Nevertheless, I
have always retained command, and have
desired to be kept au courant, day and night,
with all that transpired aboard. A Polar
expedition must be conducted in this way, for

xxiv INTRODUCTION

then one feels oneself to be the very soul of this
group of men, resolute, faithful, and united by
common danger ; then, too, does one keenly
enjoy the contest between the strong ship and
the ice, the fog and the tempests. Those
primitive instincts inherent in man reawaken,
filling one with the ardour and enthusiasm
which inspired the earliest navigators.

The age of maritime discoveries has passed
away, and it was only by wholly unexpected
good fortune that at this epoch I was permitted,
with God's aid, to plant the flag of my country
on a new land ; but the attraction of the
northern solitudes remains ever the same, and
in commencing my return journey last autumn,
it was not without deep regret that I saw the
frozen Arctic disappear astern. For six years
those regions had granted me forgetfulness of
my position as an exile, had taught me, too,
many new emotions pleasant and otherwise.
The sadness which comes of long isolation
sometimes preyed upon me ; inevitably there
came moments of disillusion and days of despair.
Those frozen seas taught me to love, even while
doubting them ; to them I have given part of a
wandering exile's life, part of my innermost
self. When I bade them adieu, I bade farewell
to a never-to-be-forgotten period of my life.

INTRODUCTION xxv

Whatever the future may be which Provi-
dence has in store for me, those repeated struggles
with the ice and sea have not been useless. They
have at least served to enable me to understand
and love the humble sailors who so cheerfully
risked their lives for me each day ; they have, I
hope, tended to develop the man I aspire to
be, so that should God one day see fit to impose
greater and more onerous burdens upon me, I
may not prove wanting on finding myself at the
helm of a ship larger and more difficult to
navigate than my old BELGICA.

HUNTERS AND HUNTING
IN THE ARCTIC

TRAPPERS

DURING the winter months only is the hair of
the white bear thick and in good condition,
whilst in summer the skin of the white or blue
fox becomes grey, mangy in appearance, and
quite worthless from the marketable point of
view. For these reasons the fur hunter is
compelled to pass the winter in the northern
regions.

The custom that arose among the English
and Dutch whalers of the seventeenth century,
of leaving men to guard the boilers and other
apparatus established at Spitzbergen, combined
with the fact that numerous shipwrecked sailors
survived winters on these coasts, proved con-
clusively that it was physically possible for Euro-
peans to endure the rigours of a Polar winter.
So, when the last of the whales quitted the bays

2 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

and journeyed northwards, and the whaling
industry, following in the wake of the cetaceans,
was transported to higher seas, Russian trappers,
engaged by the furriers of Archangel to ex-
ploit the animals of the region, occupied the
Spitzbergen coasts. Judging from the number
of ruined huts, and the crosses marking the
sepulchres of those who succumbed, these
trappers must have been very numerous.

There were, indeed, terrible winters when the
ice, unmelting, delayed the relief ships des-
patched in the spring, compelling the trappers to
remain two consecutive years at their posts,
often dying of hunger and scurvy. Then, as
now, the success or failure of a wintering de-
pended on the character of the leader. Instances
might be quoted of sailors, well furnished with
all the necessaries of life, but badly disciplined,
dying of scurvy ; while others, deprived of
almost every resource, but governed by efficient
leaders who were wise enough to maintain moral
health by physical activity, have survived the
dangers and hardships of several winters in
those inhospitable regions. In illustration of
this, M. Leroy, a member of the Imperial
Academy of Science, St. Petersburg, published
a brochure in 1750 recording the adventures
of four Russian sailors stranded at Spitzbergen

TRAPPERS 3

in 1743, who contrived to subsist on neighbour-
ing resources until 1749.

The sailors in question were members of a
walrus expedition to western Spitzbergen. One
day their boat was carried away in the surf,
and they were left stranded on what appears
to have been Edge Land. The boat disap-
peared amid the ice and was never seen again.
Examination revealed that the men had with
them no more than one gun with twelve charges,
a hatchet, a knife, a small boiler, some matches
and twenty pounds of flour, in addition to a
quantity of tobacco and their pipes. Inevit-
ably, despair seized them when they realised
that fate had marooned them. The dauntless
courage of a quartermaster named Himkof,
however, inspired them with renewed hope.
Himkof induced them to prepare for the
approaching winter without loss of time.

A hut was constructed from timber cast
ashore ; twelve reindeer fell to the gun ; clothes
were made from the skins ; lamps were moulded
from clay, the fat of the reindeer provided oil,
the men's shirts wicks. From the bolts of a
ship's planks floating in the surf, spikes were
fashioned ; the bolts being made red hot and
hammered into shape between two stones.
Bows and arrows were also manufactured, and

B 2

4 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

even needles to sew the skins together, the
tendons of the reindeer providing thread.
Armed and fortified in this way, the men made
war on the bears. For six years they lived on
the island, during which time only one of the
four died. Their signals were observed by a
passing Russian vessel in 1749, and the men
returned to Archangel in excellent health,
carrying with them a small fortune in fat and
skins.

Not for an instant had Himkof lost heart.
He had called his companions to prayer, allotted
them daily tasks, and kept them constantly
occupied. That alone saved them.

In concluding his little history, M. Leroy
adds that when the vessel bearing these men
drew up alongside the quay at Archangel,
Himkof s wife, who was awaiting her husband,
fell into the sea when she recognised him on the
bridge and was drowned. Excessive joy, the
writer asserts, caused this sad fatality.

The fate of other sailors who have been
cut off in this way has not always been so
happy.

In 1850, according to Lamont, who visited
the spot and viewed the hut, eighteen trappers
met at Whale Point, the southern extremity
of Edge Land, to await the arrival of the vessel

TRAPPERS 5

sent to transfer them to Archangel. This
vessel disappeared at sea, and an enormous ice-
berg, which had remained floating to the west-
ward of Spitzbergen throughout the summer,
prevented other vessels from bringing relief
to the trappers. At the same time this berg
drove southwards the seals and birds on which
the hunters might have sustained themselves
during the winter. In the month of August,
several Norwegian fishermen, who had also
failed to embark, came to the Russian station
seeking succour. They found all the trappers
dead. Fourteen had been buried by their
companions, two lay before the door of the hut,
inside were the remaining two, one on the floor,
the other on the bed. On the body of the latter,
who had acted as leader and who could write,
was discovered a note-book which contained a
detailed account of the awful sufferings of those
who had died one after the other of hunger and
scurvy. The leader was the last to succumb,
and he had died only a few days before the arrival
of the Norwegian sailors. The sailors took
advantage of the loosened ice towards the end
of August, met the ship sent to the relief of the
Russians, and returned to Hamburg with the
note-book referred to. When Lamont visited
the place eight years later, he found the hut

6 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

of the unfortunate Russians, their arms and
other belongings, exactly as they had been
left.

Andersen, an old and experienced winterer,
whom I met at Jan May en, once gave me at
Tromso an old portrait of Christian IV of Den-
mark, which he had discovered in an abandoned
hut at Spitzbergen. The portrait was hung on
the wall between two human skulls. These
skulls on either side of the portrait of the great
law-giver probably commemorated some lynch-
law tragedy of the northern wilds. For it is
not only scurvy, hunger, cold and the bears
which menace the trapper ; he has also to
fear his own kind. The primitive law of Might
even to-day prevails in Spitzbergen, and fre-
quently unfortunate hunters, enfeebled by the
hardships of a long winter, have been assailed
and murdered in the spring by the crews of
fishing vessels, who robbed the trappers of the
skins they had collected. Chance has betrayed
many of these assassins, but who can tell how
many similar atrocities have never come to light?
One of the most remarkable instances of retri-
bution that has ever claimed my attention is
the following:

About the year 1830 a Russian vessel
returned to Archangel minus its captain. The

TRAPPERS 7

crew reported that he had been carried away
with two of the sailors during a tempest ; such
incidents are of common occurrence in these
regions and the statement was accepted without
question. The world went on its way and the
matter was forgotten.

Ten years afterwards a Norwegian fisherman
discovered on one of the Spitzbergen coasts a
human skeleton, and a metal tobacco box, on
which had been scratched certain words in a
language he did not understand. He brought
the box to Tromso, where the Russian Consul
translated the words and announced that the
box had belonged to the captain of the above-
mentioned Russian vessel, that his crew had
abandoned him, that his two companions had
died of starvation, and that he himself was on
the point of death.

The tobacco box was sent to Archangel, where,
notwithstanding the lapse of years, several
members of the crew were discovered, brought
to justice, and condemned to expiate their
villainy beneath the lash in the Siberian mines.

Nowadays it is not the custom to spend
the winter on any of the Spitzbergen islands
except those to the east, such as Hope Island
and Kong Karl Island. The annual destruc-
tion of the bears on these islands is so enormous

8 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

that in a short time they will inevitably be
completely denuded of furred animals.

I found that the five hunters stationed on
Hope Island, which I visited in 1909, had killed
eighty bears without counting the wounded
animals which had vanished, to die away over
the ice.

Bears are so rare even in the winter on the
western coasts of Spitzbergen that the exploita-
tion of them has been abandoned. Very shortly,
too, the coal-miners will have destroyed the
few foxes and reindeer remaining. It is inter-
esting to note that it was in this neighbourhood,
Ice- Fjord, that that famous old trapper, Stara-
chine, passed thirty winters from the years
1810 to 1840 and never once lacked game.

Trapping will soon be a thing of the
past in the European section of the Arctic
regions.

During my last voyage I met, at Jan May en
and on the coasts of Greenland, two groups of
wintering Norwegians who merit some mention
in these records.

For long I had desired to visit Jan Mayen,
and my anticipations were finally realised
when, on June 21, 1910, I approached the
huge cone of Beerenberg, which, rising from a
sea calm as a lake to a height of almost eight

TRAPPERS 9

thousand feet, kissed to virgin whiteness by
a brilliant sun, is one of the most gorgeous
spectacles one can imagine.

The island of Jan May en is about thirty
miles long, lying from south-west to north-east,
and is formed of two separate masses of rock
connected by an isthmus. The southern portion
presents nothing but a series of peaks of ancient
craters, which rarely rise higher than about
eighteen hundred feet. The northern half is
triangular in shape, and possesses about ten
miles of coast line from which, in one enormous
mass, rises the crater of Beerenberg. East
and north the mountain declines in a series of
peaks supporting glaciers which fill the deep
gullies and finally drop sheer to the sea. The
narrow tongue of land connecting the two parts
of the island is about a mile and a half wide.
To the north, a chain of hills about five hundred
feet high forms the isthmus. To the south, it
extends a vast waste of cinders and lava, almost
completely filling what was formerly a lagoon.
This lagoon contains but little water even in
winter, and in summer is quite dry. The
plain is several miles long and is completely
covered with flotsam, from which the bay it
borders derives its name.

The two craters seem to rise like sentinel

io HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

towers north and south of the isthmus ; the
northern is known as Vogelberg, the Mountain
of Birds ; that to the south, the Eier Busch, or
Island of Eggs, is composed of slopes of cinders
and lava.

Altogether, the island is but a collection of
craters, dominated by a giant volcano whose
white summit is lost in the clouds. The volcano
has long since been extinct and we have no
record of its last eruption. Since the discovery
of the island by Dutch whalers in the seven-
teenth century (1609-1610), it has manifested
no activity. Occasional clouds of sulphurous
smoke arising in the vicinity of the Island of
Eggs proves, however, that internal fires still
exist.

The island possesses no permanent inhabi-
tants. In the days of the great whaling ex-
peditions, the Dutch established an important
station, traces of which are still to be seen
between Vogelberg and the northern lagoon,
the water of which is drinkable. Six sailors
were left here in 1630 in charge of some appara-
tus ; they all died of scurvy before the re-arrival
of the fleet in the spring. In these days, when
whales have almost completely disappeared,
Jan Mayen no longer attracts the fishers.
Captain Swensen told me that fur hunters

TRAPPERS ii

occasionally wintered there because the foxes
are very numerous.

It is both remarkable and unaccountable why
the mortality from scurvy has always been so
great on this island. The climate is by no
means rigorous, although the loneliness must
be terrible.

All the morning the weather had been clear
and cold beneath an obscured sky ; we made
four knots through a sea as smooth as oil,
numerous birds flying and swimming about the
ship. Petrels and guillemots were numerous,
and I also saw three woodcock, several maca-
reux and mergules, one or two grylles, and a
stercoraire.

At noon the weather cleared completely and
revealed a magnificent view to us.

Directly before us Beerenberg reared its
white cone, rising majestically above a bed of
clouds which encircled it at mid-height. It
dominated all and seemed to belong to another
world ; the rest of the island, with its peaks and
craters, being dwarfed to insignificance by this
grand and imposing mass.

At two o'clock we passed South Cape, which
is an enormous split rock. It is a curious
coincidence that the last cliff I saw on leaving
the Faroe Islands, and the first I sighted at Jan

12 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

May en, should both have vividly called to my
mind Etretat.

At four o'clock we doubled a huge basalt
column, isolated and separated from the cliff
to which it belonged. This column is known
as ' The Lighthouse/

To the east, a little boat with red sails met
our eyes. It lay off the Flotsam Shore and
seemed to await us. This is another remarkable
rock called the ' Pilot Boat ' from its great
resemblance to that class of vessel. The cliffs
along which we made our way were volcanic,
and thousands of birds nested in them. As we
passed they left their nests in flocks to wheel
and swarm about the ship. In the hollows of the
cliff rare herbs and mosses were to be seen, but
there were no signs at all of reindeer or hares.

Still nearer we approached ; Vogelberg, sur-
mounting the irregularities of the isthmus
like some high tower, now took definite shape.
White and rugged as it is, it has all the appear-
ance of some old chateau dominating and
defending the isthmus. While I was examining,
through the binoculars, the thousands of birds
which make it their nesting-place, a man sud-
denly appeared above the crater line and stood
silhouetted against the sky-line. I announced
this fact to Merit e, who was incredulous. He

TRAPPERS 13

had eagerly desired to set foot on a desert
island, and this discovery at once disconcerted
and disappointed him. Soon where there had
been one man, two, three, then four appeared.
They were evidently fur hunters from Tromso
who had wintered on the island.

Merite's disappointment quickly merged into
curiosity. The idea of inspecting the traps,
and of questioning the trappers as to the manner
in which they hunted foxes and other animals,
excited him greatly.

At half-past six we anchored in eight fathoms
of water near the Flotsam Shore, in direct north
to south alignment with a high basalt column,
part of which rests in the lagoon. On the maps
this is known as ' Saul/ We dined, and at half-
past seven set out for the shore. The beach
before us presented no indentations. It is
composed of cinders and fragments of worn
lava, and extends smoothly for several miles.
The waves beat directly upon it, forming a surf
which renders disembarkment always difficult,
and sometimes quite impossible.

As we neared the beach we found the sea
covered with thousands of petrels, who dis-
played no fear at our approach. They floated
on the surf in serried ranks, and as each wave
retired, they fluttered forward into the boiling

14 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

foam, chattering and fishing. Each receding
wave brought them an ample supply of the shell-
fish on which they live. We forced a passage
through them without disturbing them in the
least, and beached our boat. At that moment
I perceived a young grey seal lying on the sand
some few yards from the sea. Intercepting its
retreat, I took it into my arms while the men
busied themselves in dragging the boat high and
dry. We all caressed the little animal ; indeed,
it seemed to have found its way to the spot to
accord us a welcome to this desolate island.
One of the sailors finally took charge of it.

We afterwards set out to explore the isthmus,
having it in mind to visit the Austrian station of
1882, where we expected to find the fur hunters.
Scaling a small dune composed of blackened
cinders and lava, we saw before us a large plain,
quite flat and smooth, which formerly must have
been the bottom of the lagoon. Numerous
tree-trunks, some with their roots intact, some
smashed to fragments, and others stripped of
their bark, covered the ground. Here, in fact,
was an almost inconceivable collection of debris,
which either the ocean had gathered together
or the ice had brought from Siberia or America
in those distant ages when this now dry soil
had been the ocean bottom. The upheaval of

TRAPPERS 15

land, which in the Arctic regions takes place
very slowly, had first transformed the bay into
a lagoon. The lagoon, now almost wholly dry,
had preserved as witness of its past these masses
of flotsam. There was little or no vegetation,
except extremely rare clusters of white or yellow
anemones.

As we descended, two men approached us.
The first of the two was dressed in a black
leather coat and fur hat. He politely saluted
us. We learnt that he was the chief of a group
of six trappers from Tromso, who had been on
the island since the preceding July to hunt
foxes during the winter. One of the party had
died of scurvy in February ; another — as a
matter of fact it was the man accompanying
the chief — displayed early symptoms of the
same fell disease. He believed death inevitable,
and had come to beg of us lime-juice to ease
his suffering.

Recamier turned back with the sick man
and took him on board to examine and prescribe
for him. The rest of us pushed forward until
we came to the Austrian station, where we
found the other trappers.

In accordance with a long-established custom
these hunters had separated during the winter,
three of them occupying the Austrian hut on

16 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

the northern coast, the others building them-
selves a hut on the southern part of the island.
Traversing swamps of sodden cinders in
which the foot sank deep, we commenced to
climb firm and easy slopes leading to the crater.
These slopes are broken by numerous gullies
at whose bottom basalt and lava are found.
Occasionally one encountered great heaps of
shale, similar to those to be met with at Nova
Zembla. From a distance I observed a trap,
which was manipulated by a weight. Merite
was greatly interested in this specimen of a
primitive gin. On the summit of a hummock
we discovered a second trap destined to capture
foxes alive, the working of which was explained
to us by our guide. At this point we were
able to see the abandoned Austrian station at
the foot of the Vogelberg, close to the little
bay of Mary Muss. From the distance the
small circular huts appeared to be strangely
like conservatories. Descending a steep slope,
we crossed a stream flowing from the northern
lagoon and so reached the station. At the
entrance we were rather sulkily accosted by
one of the hunters. It transpired that inno-
cently enough we had occasioned the trappers
intense disappointment. Seeing our colours
streaming in the breeze when we anchored,

TRAPPERS 17

they had concluded that our vessel was a
sealer from Tromso sent to their relief. Great
joy, easily conceivable by any who have learnt
the real meaning of complete and total isolation
amid snow and ice, had seized them. They had
even gone so far as to commence to pack for
their departure before they had recognised
their error. That we should have been greeted
sulkily, therefore, was not surprising.

Our guide conducted us into the station.
The five surviving trappers occupied one room
only. It was spacious, lofty, and well warmed
by a Tromso stove. Comfortable beds were
ranged along a thick timber partition. On the
walls were old engravings from many lands,
as well as souvenirs left behind by the ships
which had visited Jan Mayen. Among others
was one commemorating the visit of the Manche,
which made a cruise to Jan Mayen and Spitz-
bergen in 1892. I discovered, also, the name
of Dr. Charcot, who visited the island in 1904
in his yacht J cane-Marie. At the moment
of writing, he is wintering in the Antarctic at
the head of the ' Pourquoi-Pas ' expedition ;
my heartiest wishes went out to him when I
beheld evidence of his visit to this lonely spot.

A kind of tunnel connected this chamber
with the others, uninhabited now, but which

18 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

formerly the Austrians used for their magnetic
observations. One of them contained casks
of provisions they had left behind. The casks
had never been broached. Close to the station
a kennel had been built for living foxes. It
contained three which had recently been cap-
tured. They were extremely savage, and from
their kennel there exuded an indescribable
stench. After having inspected the foxes, we
were shown the pelts gathered during the long
winter. There were more than a hundred of
them, of both white and blue foxes, several of
which were remarkably beautiful. When the
trappers had come to the island in July, the
foxes, grey and mangy as they are during the
summer, were of no value. In order to tame
them and so render them easy of capture in the
winter, the hunters had fed them on birds they
had killed and flung near the station. After a
short time as many as thirty foxes had appeared
daily, and waited until they were fed. Traps
were set in order that the foxes might
inspect them and learn not to fear them.
Several foxes were captured and released. By
these means the confidence of the animals was
gained, and then, when the winter came and the
skins were in good condition, the hunters went
seriously to work.

TRAPPERS 19

Trappers make use of several kinds of traps.
In the first place there is the ordinary trap,
similar to the one we ourselves use for destroy-
ing foxes and wolves. It comprises two iron
toothed jaws, which close with a spring. This
trap is set openly in the path of the foxes, a
suspended dead bird tempting the animal to
its doom. To obtain the bait the fox leaps
into the air and, in falling backwards again, its
paws enter the trap, the jaws of which snap
together instantly.

Another commonly used snare is constructed
of heavy stones balanced by a weight to which
the dead bird is attached. In this instance
the animal is crushed to death. The most
important trap of all, however, is that destined
to capture the fox alive. It is composed of a
long wooden box at the bottom of which the
dead bird is placed. The animal enters the
box, takes the bird in its mouth, and in doing
so releases the spring which causes the lid to
slam down violently.

No pains at all are taken to hide this latter
form of trap. They are easily seen from a
distance. For the fox must either be very
tame or famished before one may hope to take
it alive. Nevertheless, much trouble and in-
genuity is expended in training and winning the

C 2

20 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

confidence of a fox leader so that it may in
turn lead others into the traps.

The leader of the trappers informed me that
throughout the winter the thermometer had
not fallen below six degrees, and that they had
had practically no snow. As regards icebergs,
not one had appeared in the vicinity of the
island.

From one of these men I bought a knife made
from the tusk of a walrus. One finds that all
these northern winterers have their own parti-
cular metiers which preserve them from the
ennui of the long northern nights.

Before the door of the station I photographed
the group of hunters. To my great astonish-
ment, one of the men casually drew out of his
pocket a Kodak of the latest pattern with which
he photographed us in his turn.

Accompanied by the leader of the hunters,
we set out to visit Mary Muss Bay, which is
situated to the north of the island corresponding
to the dried-up Flotsam Bay in the south, though
it is much smaller and is still occupied by the
sea.

We passed through a veritable cemetery
composed of the bones and skulls of foxes and
birds of every description. An enormous trap
left by the Austrians, designed, judging from

lei

TRAPPERS 21

its size, for the capture of bears, was pointed
out to us. It is unnecessary to say that no
bear has been seen in these regions for a long
time past.

To gain the beach we were compelled to
cross the large flotsam-covered plain. In the
centre of this, a copper plate inset into a rock
commemorates the winterage of the Austrian
Mission, organised by Count Wilczeck in 1882 -

1883.

We arrived at last at the foot of the Vogel-
berg, one half of whose immense crater falls
sheer into the sea, forming a cliff in which
thousands of petrels nest. It is here the
trappers obtain the bait for their traps.

Guillemots and macareux teem amid the
rocks farther north. These present the hunters
with the only fresh food obtainable, but in
winter these birds migrate. The petrels are
the only birds which remain the whole year
round, but they are not edible. During the
winter, therefore, the trappers cannot obtain
any fresh food, and perhaps it is due to this
privation that scurvy, the scourge of these
latitudes, may justly be attributed.

On the sands we encountered numerous
turnstones, which Merit e approached cautiously.
He succeeded in shooting two of them, and was

rrc

22 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCT

so elated at his success that we almost had to
use force to induce him to accompany us to the
western shore. There we found a second cliff
in which the petrels nested. We inspected
Wilczeck Point and Brille Tower, which marks
the entrance to the Walrus Gap (it is certain
no walrus has been seen there for considerably
more than a century). On the other hand,
however, our guide informed us that only a few
days ago he had watched the passage of a
large whale. He had observed in the preceding
July a school of whales ten miles to the north-
east of the cape. One of these whales had been
stranded on Flotsam beach, but had escaped
before it could be destroyed.

Snow began to fall thickly, while the ice
grew hard beneath our feet. Icy stalactites
fringed the cliffs, reminding us that Polar nights
are not to be despised, so we turned back to
the ship.

As we passed the station, we were informed
that the sick man had returned from the
Belgica, and was already feeling better. He
had been reassured by the doctor and given
a supply of drugs. Subsequently, at Tromso, I
learnt that our opportune intervention had
resulted in his complete recovery.

I enquired the name of our guide, and

TRAPPERS 23

learning that he was the brother of Andersen,
a fur hunter of Tromso, I asked if he recalled
Cziget, a dog I had purchased from his brother
in 1905. The man's face lit up with joy when
he heard the name. He informed me that
Cziget had belonged to him in the first place.
Naturally, all restraint between us vanished at
this news. He addressed me as he would have
done an old friend, and was particularly pleased
when he discovered that I appreciated the dog
at its true value. We spoke of the winterage,
the isolation and sadness these long absences
involve. Andersen was burningly eager to
return, to see again the wife he loved, to learn
if all were well at home. Nevertheless, he was
already contemplating a new expedition to
Greenland, to hunt through the winter in the
neighbourhood of the Franz Joseph Fjord.
They loathe the ice, these Norwegians, and truly
I do not find their detestation difficult to
understand !

Descending the hill, we had to cross a plain
where the frozen lava had assumed curious
shapes. One would have said that coils of
thick cordage had been strewn over the surface
of white asphalt.

Apropos this, Andersen informed us that
the Island of Eggs is not so warm that snow

24 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

never rests on it, as is commonly believed. We
were able to confirm this statement ourselves,
for the island lay before us, virgin white beneath
a shroud of newly fallen snow. The only spot
where one can encounter signs of volcanic
activity is on a plain extending between the
island and the foot of the Beerenberg. Here,
sulphurous fumes occasionally burst through
the earth crust and are discernible from a
distance.

We gathered a few roses, similar to those I
have so often seen at Spitzbergen and Nova
Zembla. Andersen informed me that he found
on the cliffs a large blue flower resembling a
marguerite which he had never seen elsewhere.
We searched for these flowers, but failed to
obtain any. We learnt also that the Beeren-
berg had been visible all the winter, but that
in the spring mists had surrounded it, which
would not disappear until the following winter.
We congratulated ourselves on having been able
to distinguish it clearly that morning, as the
sightseer is rarely granted such an opportunity.
Andersen had found it easy to ascend to a
height of almost three thousand feet when the
summit had abruptly disappeared.

At last we arrived in sight of the beach
where Recamier awaited us, wrapped in a

TRAPPERS 25

loose great-coat, busily stirring a fire of tree-
branches with his alpenstock. As Merite still
wished to watch the petrels feeding, I sent
Lieutenant Rachlew to accompany Andersen
on board, with instructions to supply him with
tobacco, cigars, preserved vegetables and pota-
toes. Meanwhile, I walked with the Doctor
along the sands as far as Flotsam Bay. Never
before had I believed it possible to see at one
time in one place such an assemblage of petrels.
They extended for several miles, blackening
the surface of the sea. Examining the spume
left by the waves on the shore, I perceived
innumerable minute shell-fish on which the
birds feed. These little crustaceans are called
sea-lice in Normandy. They form the petrel's
only nutriment. Suddenly all the birds,
alarmed at something we could not define,
rose from the water.

When the wind blows strong from the south,
these birds seek refuge in Mary Muss Bay.
Near the water-station they appear in such
numbers as to render it difficult for the men to
move about. Their constant cawing is intoler-
able. I vividly recall an occasion when I
passed two nights anchored in Green Harbour
alongside a whaler storing blubber. Thousands
of petrels surrounded us. Of the sleeplessness

26 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

which necessarily resulted I did not complain.
For, apart from the shrill, piercing cries of the
never-silent birds, there was a heavy, choking
stench which rendered the position quite
impossible.

I left Joe for a few minutes and walked
towards ' Saul/ that enormous column of black
basalt previously mentioned. I had observed
numerous traces of foxes leading in this direction,
and I desired to learn where they repaired to,
as well as to be alone for a short while. A fairy-
land world surrounded me. The snow, which
had now been falling for almost two hours, had
whitened the summits and besprinkled the
sides of the mountains. The midnight sun
tinged the distant clouds to faint rose and light
green. This effect, unknown to other latitudes,
lends that distinctive charm which character-
ises the crepuscule in Polar regions. Sombre
snow clouds covered the sky's dome. These
clouds, disappearing towards the south-west,
permitted the summits and white sides of the
southern mountains to be seen.

Alone on that far-extending desert of snow,
amid a silence broken only by the rhythmic and
hollow roar of the waves beating on the shore,
a prayer sprang spontaneously to my lips, ...
it ever seems to me that I am nearer God

TRAPPERS 27

when alone on strange, desolate lands. I nad
to tear myself from the contemplation of this
spectacle to return aboard. As I went back,
I encountered quantities of debris in the form
of planed wood, together with a number of those
glass bowls used by the Norwegian netters.
They had probably been carried here by the
currents. I also observed a few sea-swallows
and stercoraires, birds rarely appearing in
these latitudes.

Rejoining Joe and Merit e, who were shiver-
ing despite the large fire the men had built,
and having wished Andersen farewell, we re-
embarked at two o'clock in the morning, half
frozen, but wholly contented with the result of
our excursion and deeply stirred by the wonder-
ful spectacle we had just contemplated.

A few hours later we proceeded on our way,
killing seals and bears as we went. Sometimes
the ice delayed us, but for the most part we
were able to navigate the immense canals,
several thousand yards wide, which rendered
access to the Greenland coasts exceptionally
easy that year. As a matter of fact, the way
was free as far as the land ice surrounding
Cape Hold With Hope, where we arrived on
June 27. The Belgica was, without loss of
time, anchored to the ice, and I set off on the

28 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCT

trail of a large bear which, calmly lying on the
ice, appeared to have been awaiting our arrival.
But the bear was one of experience ; neither
the odour of seal-grease nor that of burnt
herrings induced it to approach. It carefully
kept its distance, rising from time to time on
its hind legs to study us. As it was altogether
out of range, I went ashore, accompanied by
several men, hoping to be able to approach it
more closely, but the bear trotted away as soon
as we moved towards it.

Without difficulty I crossed the land ice,
seven or eight hundred yards wide at this spot.
Fragments of ice had formed a bridge over the
narrow canal which always separates land ice
from the shore, and I stepped on to firm ground
in the shadow of the high, wild and blackened
cliffs. After having examined these cliffs, we
commenced an ascent under fairly easy cir-
cumstances. The foothold, however, was rather
slimy and slippery due to the water constantly
trickling down from the glaciers. We found
several anemones and the yellow poppy of
Greenland. I was astonished to discover wide
spaces covered with the dwarfed whortleberry.
These small shrubs, not in flower at that season,
appeared more like rose-coloured grass than
anything else. Such a sight as this is not

nc

TRAPPERS 29

often encountered, and is only to be seen where
there is almost a complete absence of animal
life. We found traces of hares, reindeer and
musk-bulls, none of which, however, was
fresh.

Entering a valley which enabled us to scale
the side of the mountain forming Cape Hold
With Hope, we saw before us nothing but
grey heaps of rubbish quite bare of vegetation.
Manifestly it was quite useless to continue this
fatiguing climb, so we returned on board.

The mist, which had hidden the earth from
us during the morning, had disappeared ; the
sky was radiant, and after having passed
between two stranded icebergs, we swung clear
of land ice at six o'clock and continued coasting.
That was a dream passage ! The evening was
beautiful beyond conception ; the sky very
clear. What clouds there were, lent just
sufficient light and shadow to render mysterious
the mountains before us. The channel ahead
seemed like an inland sea. To the larboard
was the land with its ice fringe, while to the
starboard a calm blue sea spread before us,
its surface broken by a few icebergs and several
spacious floes. Between us and the land were
four or five large icebergs, which, from a distance,
resembled towering mountains. In reality they

ric

30 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCT

were only sixty or seventy feet high. One may
well ask where these gigantic masses of ice come
from, because, according to my knowledge,
there is no glacier in northern Greenland capable
of producing such seracs. One assumes that
they part from the great glacier in the Franz
Joseph Fjord, float through the canals and
become stranded on the higher points of the
coast during the winter.

Before us to the north-west, forming a black
band across the ice about Cape James, appeared
Jackson Island. Behind it rose the summits
of Clavering Island ; below these mountains
sparkled the glacier of Tyrol Fjord, which
extends far into the interior.

To the north-east a white mass, five thousand
feet high, rose to the clouds ; it was Mount Saddle
crowning Wollaston Foreland.

The sun sank towards the ice covering Gael
Hamkes Bay, dyeing with crimson the mountain
snows, and producing truly marvellous effects.
The sea, still as a lake, gurgled in our wake as
we went crushing through the ice. I observed
several ducks and sea-swallows circling in the
air, flashing downwards now and then on their
prey. A few seals rose, breaking the smooth
surface of the water into large concentric
circles. Only with difficulty was I able to

TRAPPERS 31

tear myself from this magnificent view, but it
was already midnight. We made fast to land
ice, and I retired, after thanking God and the
Virgin for having watched over us and brought
us safely through the perils of the Greenland
seas.

The following day we sought to continue
coasting to Wollaston Foreland, a passage
which, under normal conditions, presents little
or no difficulty. An enormous, far-extended ice-
field, however, barred the way on this occasion,
threatening to drive us aground. For three
days we were compelled to skirt this ice-field,
feeling our way through thick mists and harassed
by a south-easterly wind which had arisen to
dispel the fine weather we had so far enjoyed.

Tuesday, July i, the weather cleared. We
were again able to see Mount Saddle and the
Wollaston Foreland, and we set our course for
Sabine Island.

A fjord, called the Gripper Roads, separates
Sabine Island from the foreland, and here we
discovered another group of trappers.

Slowly we neared the land, the black and
rugged heights of the Sabine and Pendulum
Islands growing more and more distinct, while
far away on the horizon, a dark speck, was Bass
Rock Island. Away to the left we obtained a

32 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

glorious panoramic view of the coast, extending
from the north-east point of Wollaston Foreland
to Cape Hold With Hope, the whole dominated
by Mount Saddle.

The cold was intense. Innumerable icicles
hung from the rigging, and each lurch of the ship
brought a shower of them to the deck with a
noise like grape shot. We were compelled to
cover our ears to protect them from frost-bite.
At ten o'clock the canal was still ice-free as far
as the open sea. The wind was sufficiently
favourable for us to make use of our topsails.

Soon we were close to the north-east point
of Wollaston Foreland. This elevation is of
basalt formation and falls sheer to the bay.
From one of its sides two secondary glaciers
slope right down into the sea. Half-way up
there is an elevated plateau strewn with
grotesquely shaped rocks. Away in the dis-
tance the craters of Mount Saddle jag the sky-
line. The glacier extends the whole length of
the mountain. In shape it greatly resembles a
perfectly white saddle, the culminating point of
the mountains representing the pommel.

Before us the rugged heights of Sabine
Island rise from the ice of the Gripper Roads
in a series of slopes and plateaux. Still nearer,
Walrus Island to the right falls gently towards

TRAPPERS 33

the ice-locked bay, whilst on the other side it is
a basalt cliff washed by the sea.

We approached the land cautiously. I
studied it from the bridge, scrutinising every
rock and hollow in the hope of discovering either
a bear, a bull, or a walrus. A grotesque mass
suddenly attracted and held my attention. I
studied it through the binoculars, and to my
immense astonishment discovered it to be a
wooden house surrounded by casks. I pointed
it out to my companions. Our disgust was inex-
pressible. We had come to lands reputed to be
uninhabited, and yet wherever we turned we
encountered civilisation, or that which served
to recall civilisation to our minds. At first we
thought a hut had been erected by the trappers
of some hunting expedition, and was now
abandoned. Our delusion was not long-lived,
for while I still watched, a man emerged from
the hut. Humanitarian considerations com-
pelled us onwards. There were human beings
on the island. They might be shipwrecked
sailors or, even were this not so, they might
be sick men requiring medical attention.
Charity compelled me to go ashore to investigate
and place my services at their disposal.

Merite was busy in his cabin, and thought I
was joking when I entered and announced the

34 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

news to him. On ascending the bridge, however,
he was compelled to agree that there was a house
on the island. He nevertheless persisted in
his belief that it was unoccupied. Indeed, as
the man had now vanished, and I could find
no other trace of life on the island, I began to
think I had been the victim of an optical
illusion. A fresh discovery increased my un-
certainty, whilst, at the same time, it caused
me delight. In a distant hollow, where a few
scanty herbs struggled hard for life, I saw a
musk-bull feeding. This time there could be
no doubt. At last fortune had favoured me
by revealing to my eyes a live musk-bull !
I longed to add it to my trophies. Short-lived
indeed was my joy ; the glasses fell from my
hands. For here, in this far-off, desolate and
uninhabited land, a domestic musk-cow was
calmly feeding. Behind it trailed a long rope
as it moved leisurely towards the hut. The man
I had first seen suddenly reappeared and com-
menced hauling up a flag. The irony of it !
The man commenced to lead his cow home,
undoubtedly that he might milk it and welcome
us with a glass of fresh milk when we disem-
barked. Here was a model farm in Greenland !
Try as I would, I could not dissemble my
intense disappointment. I vowed I would write

TRAPPERS 35

a book entitled ' Tartarin in Greenland/ Fare-
well, then, to my fond illusions ; farewell
also to my hopes of discovering bears, walruses,
and wild musk-oxen ! The latter had been
domesticated ; the former must have all been
destroyed or have disappeared inland before the
warfare waged on them by man. The devil
take these salaried slaughterers — and may Saint
Hubert pardon them !

The motor boat was now ready. Joe,
Merite, Swensen, Rachlew, Louis and myself
started shore wards, to the spluttering, jarring
music of the engines. Thus we progressed
en prince. But motors are not to be relied
upon in these regions. Hardly had we covered
a few cable lengths before the engine broke
down. Happily I had taken the precaution of
having a boat in tow, and it was the boat that
now towed us to the land ice, where we disem-
barked between two huge stranded icebergs. A
reliable motor for navigating this world of ice
is still to be invented. In the meantime, I
prefer to trust myself to stout Norwegian arms
and oars !

We found the ice thin, rotten towards
the shore, and covered with gaping cracks,
through which the currents ran swiftly. The
slightest slip would have been serious in the

D 2

36 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

extreme, so we progressed cautiously until the ice,
becoming firmer, enabled us to advance more
comfortably.

A man, attired in black trousers and a blouse,
came towards us. It had been impossible to
identify the flag flying above the hut, and we had,
therefore, been unable to learn his nationality.
We wished him ' Good-day ' in Norwegian and
he replied in the same language. We learnt
that he was a Norwegian from Aalesund. He
appeared to be about thirty years of age, was
well set up, possessed very expressive blue eyes,
and brown hair. It was easy to see that he had
just finished shaving himself in order to receive
us. He informed us that he was one of seven
fur hunters from Aalesund, and that they had
wintered in the house before us. They had
landed on July 3, 1908.

Two of them, their employer and one of the
men, had been killed on the I2th of the preced-
ing May whilst bear-hunting. They had been
tempted to follow a bear over rotten ice. The
ice sundered beneath them, letting them into
the water. Their companions had found it
impossible to rescue them, and they, finding it
beyond their power to regain firm ice, had
remained clinging to the edge until merciful
death had come to release them.

TRAPPERS 37

j I enquired whether any of the survivors were
ill, and was informed they were all in excellent
health. A little snow had fallen during the
winter, but the glass had on no occasion regis-
tered below thirty-eight degrees. The bay
had remained ice-free until Christmas, and
throughout the winter the sea had been clear.

On the other hand, the trappers were by no
means satisfied with the result of their expedi-
tion. They had killed only four walruses,
forty white bears, from thirty to forty foxes,
and twenty musk-bulls. In the beginning of
the autumn they had driven into a swamp and
taken alive five calves. These calves, being
extremely rare, obtain high prices, often selling
at fifteen hundred crowns.

Unfortunately their provisions had run
short during the winter and they had been
compelled to kill four of these calves. Their
despair at this loss was almost comical. The
man who related it to us was not to be consoled,
and returned to the subject constantly. They
had been so foolish, it transpired, as to endeavour
to ship the calves to Iceland towards the end of
September. The passage, however, had proved
so difficult that after two days they were
compelled to turn back.

We went together to the house standing

38 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

about a thousand yards from the place where we
disembarked. Our guide informed us that his
companions were walrus-hunting off Shannon
Island. How delightful it was for me to learn
this you may well imagine ! I was destined,
it seemed, everywhere to encounter men whose
sole business in life was to slaughter all animals
worth hunting. Four years earlier, at Cape
Bismarck, I had been compelled to stand and
watch the men of the Soestrene make carnage
among the walrus beneath my very eyes.

Approaching the house, we passed several
caches built of stones, probably containing
grease or skins. We saw a beautiful little
canoe fitted with new paddles. The trappers,
having lost their own, had borrowed this from
the depot established on Bass Rock by the
Ziegler Expedition. They also possessed fishing
nets, with which they had taken two tons of
salmon from Clavering Fjord.

The house was square. It was constructed
of wood and paper, the corners being protected
against the wind by bull skins. Altogether it
lacked comfort, and must have been intensely cold
during the winter. In order to escape being
frozen, it must have been necessary to remain
in bed with the stove constantly at red heat.

The stove was supplied with coal from

TRAPPERS ?39

Norway, and seal fat. In passing, it is curious
to observe that these men who had wintered
farther north than Jan Mayen Island had known
no sickness. I am convinced this is due to the
fact that they had found it possible to obtain
fresh meat throughout the winter. The real
cause of scurvy is still a mystery, but there is
not the least doubt that it arises from an intes-
tinal disorder which it is impossible to combat
in the absence of fresh vegetables or fresh meat.
I have always made it compulsory on board
my ship when nothing else was obtainable, that
seal flesh should be served, and I have always
set the men an example by partaking of it
daily. I have been compelled to do this
because Norwegians regard this meat with
intense disfavour.

Personally, I have always found the flesh
of both the seal and walrus to be extremely
palatable, the latter resembling beef. Bear
flesh, except that of the young animal, which
is excellent, is not so good, but with the
exception of the liver, which is dangerous, it
is healthy. As regards guillemots, cooked after
the Norwegian fashion, they are very good
indeed. One of my sailors, named Julius, was
a past master in the confection of this dish,
which Brillat-Savarin himself would not have

40 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

disdained in thin days. The guillemot is care-
fully cleaned so that no fat remains and it
is then pickled for two days. The pectoral
muscles, very large in these birds, are then
detached. The bird is first boiled, then roasted
in butter and served. It is impossible to
imagine a more delicious dish, especially when
it is seasoned with an Arctic appetite !

The petrel is not edible, and smells disgust-
ingly like carrion ; one might just as well seek to
eat a vulture.

During six months of the year it is impossible
to obtain any fresh meat at Jan May en, for
the guillemot and other edible birds migrate,
leaving only the petrel behind. It seems to me
that this is why scurvy is so greatly to be
feared there, while on the coasts of Greenland,
where it is possible throughout the whole year
to obtain bulls, bears and seals, the complaint
rarely appears.

Aboard the Belgica I had replaced lime-
juice, which the men detested, with whortle-
berries, which are obtained very cheaply in
Norway. The substitution was thankfully re-
ceived, and I am convinced that fruit, so
easily preserved in these regions, will inevitably
be included among the essential provisions
of future Polar expeditions.

TRAPPERS 41

Arriving at the house, our guide introduced
to us his young musk-ox. The animal appeared
to be sulky and stupid. As its Latin name—
Ovis bos — indicates, it resembles a cross between
a sheep and an ox. The animal before us was
as large as a six months' calf at home. It was
covered with long brown hair. The legs, short
and thick, were white from the knee downwards.
The head, short and flat, was enormous compared
with the body. Its eyes were glazed and dull.
Two short horns just made their appearance
amid masses of hair. Having inspected it, I
asked my host whether one might hope to
encounter wild bulls hereabouts. He replied
that he had often seen them in a valley a short
distance away. After great difficulty (he ap-
peared to be afraid of leaving his calf alone fear-
ing that some one might appear and steal it) he
consented to conduct me there. Joe and Merite
would not accompany us, and they remained
near the house, promising my guide to keep a
keen eye upon the calf during our absence. We
(Rachlew, Swensen, Louis and myself) then set
out with him carrying our guns and hunting
bags. We had to scale a steep acclivity of
basalt to gain the plateau, on the farther side
of which a second wall of rock confronted us.
The summit of this cliff formed a large plateau,

42 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

and it was here musk-oxen were often to be
found. The bottom of the valley was swampy,
and we were compelled to scale the basalt in
order to avoid sinking to our knees. Anemones,
white and yellow, and small rose-coloured
flowers grew in abundance. Some white heather
flourished, and there was in abundance gnarled
and stunted willows whose long flowers were full
of a cotton-like substance. Fragments of quartz
and a few crystals sparkled at the bottom of
the basalt hollows.

A little dog followed us, jumping up at me
in its delight on seeing a new arrival. The poor
beast perhaps thought it was to accompany us
when we left the island where it had passed so
many lonely and uninteresting months.

On an elevation we discovered a trap similar
to those we had seen at Jan May en. There
were many large wolf traps here also, but they
had proved useless for their destined purpose.
Wolves will not approach a trap and hunters
can only shoot them.

Mounting by a very steep pass, we gained at
last the plateau which dominated the surround-
ing valleys. The panorama was superb. From
Walrus Island to the northern bay of Sabine
Island, the world lay before us like a relief map.
The fjord separating Sabine Island from the

TRAPPERS 43

mainland was completely frozen. Here and
there little islands broke the white surface of
the ice. An immense glacier, strangely like
some immobilised cloud, sloped from an ele-
vated valley down into the bay. To the west
and south wide plains extended, covered with
swamps and rivulets. Finally, there were the
steep slopes of Mount Saddle, whose snow-
covered summit sparkled in the sun like some
enormous glazed dome. Sixty miles away to
the south-west, distorted by a mirage, appeared
Cape Hold With Hope. The air in these regions
is so pure that one is able clearly to distinguish
objects an incredible distance away.

As regards the sea, the outlook was not
reassuring. As far as one could see there was
nothing but unbroken ice extending to the
skyline in semicircular form. This barrier of
impenetrable ice was an adamantine wall
enclosing the ice-free lake we had navigated.
It shut us off completely from the outer world,
and, search as I might, I could find no trace
of an opening or canal similar to those which
had given us passage-way farther north. It
was beautiful, but none the less a prison
wall. I estimated that this ice-field, extending
from Shannon Island to Cape Hold With Hope,
was at least eighty miles long and from twenty to

44 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

thirty miles wide. The consideration that we
were imprisoned and helpless was not consoling.
We were in God's hands, however, and we
dismissed anxiety.

Questioning our guide as to what sport
might be anticipated on the island, he pointed
out to me a valley in which he said he had
often seen musk-oxen, affirming that quite
recently he had succeeded in shooting four of a
herd of fifteen. This might well have been,
inasmuch as the musk-ox leaves its higher
fastnesses in the winter and comes to the water
near the shore. In the autumn it seeks the
shelter of the valley at the foot of the mountain.
As regards reindeer, our guide had not seen one.
He had come across several old traces just as
we ourselves had at French Island in 1905.

Ptarmigan, which are very numerous here
in winter, disappear in the spring. Finally, he
told me that white hares were very numerous,
but were to be found in still greater numbers on
Walrus Island.

The trappers had built a second hut on Cape
Herschell. Had we but followed our first in-
tention of landing there, we would undoubtedly
have found good sport.

The hunters had captured alive one blue
and two white foxes. I particularly desired to

TRAPPERS 45

add a white fox to my menagerie. I asked the
guide if he were willing to sell me this specimen.
A long palaver as to the price thereupon
ensued between him and Rachlew. Terms
were finally agreed upon. We then learnt that
our guide was anxious to return to his calf.
Our attempts to reassure him proved as futile
as they were amusing. So we let him depart
and continued our march over sodden ground
and shale fields until we attained the summit
of a hill, from which coign of vantage we were
able to inspect the surrounding valleys.

We sighted not a single bull. Nevertheless,
the trappers said that they were numerous
hereabouts, as was apparent from the fresh
tracks of an ox-bull and a wolf we discovered.
The only living thing I saw was a skua, a bird
very much like a cuckoo, and a harfang (snow-
owl) which, erect upon a rock, watched us 'from
a distance. A novice would probably have tried
to approach it . Experience of harf ang-hunting in
Nova Zembla had taught me the folly of such
an attempt. I have spent hours and hours in
trying to approach the bird without ever
getting an inch nearer. So I passed without
disturbing it.

The only valley which promised to provide
us sport with musk-bulls ran the^whole length

46 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCT

of Mount Saddle. To reach it, it would have
been necessary to march for another three
or four hours through swamps and wide
streams. Already we had been away from the
ship for three hours, and had been so unwise as
to bring nothing to eat or drink with us. We
therefore abandoned the idea of entering the
valley and turned back to the house, following
the cliffs. We saw a snipe.

Before the house sat Merite making a sketch
of the musk-calf. The animal, sighting me in
the distance, unexpectedly took it into its head
to charge at me. Instinctively I levelled my
alpenstock like the ' garocha de vaquero ' ;
then I discovered that the beast had not me
for object but the dog following at my heels,
who appeared to be its deadly enemy. Despite
my awkward situation, I observed that a musk-
ox appears, when charging, more like a ram
than an ox.

The purchase of the foxes was quickly con-
cluded. A sum of one hundred crowns changed
hands, and Rachlew signed a paper undertaking
to pay ten crowns more should the trappers find
the accepted amount insufficient when they
returned from their expedition. The foxes
were placed in a box and carried to the shore
by our guide.

TRAPPERS 47

At the moment of purchase the animals were
in a fearful condition, having lost their winter
fur, and being half grey. Further, the stench
issuing from their cage almost choked one.
One would have thought it impossible for any
living thing to survive such an atmosphere.

On my way back to the ship I came across
a large anchor and chain on the shore. It
appeared that when the hunters arrived at the
island in July, they had contemplated dragging
their vessel ashore. Happily for them the
chain had broken. For, had their efforts
succeeded, their vessel would most surely have
been smashed to splinters by the huge ice-blocks
cast high up the beach during the winter gales.
They had finally anchored their barque in a
creek at Sabine Island, where Koldewey's
Germania wintered in 1870. As this little
bay is open only to the south, the vessel was
completely sheltered, and waited only the
breaking up of the bay ice to gain the open sea
again. Each week the men visited the bay and
inspected the ice, so that at the first possible
moment the ship might be swung free. The
neglect of such an opportunity might have
involved the imprisonment of the trappers
during a second winter.

Our guide grumbled constantly at the result

48 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

of the expedition, affirming that it was a simple
matter for a man to earn more money by re-
maining in Norway. Considering the dangers
and privations the trappers must have neces-
sarily endured, the complaint was perhaps not
wholly unjustified.

We returned on board at nine o'clock and
finally settled matters with our trapper friend,
who, having disposed of the foxes, hurried back
as fast as he could to keep his eye on the famous
calf. The animal was at once his sole pre-
occupation and his one hope of gain. I gave
him some tobacco and cigars, for which he was
most grateful, his own supply having been
exhausted a month since. He refused other
provisions, assuring me that he had sufficient
to last two years at least.

A few hours later we proceeded on our way.
We sailed in a world which was like fairyland.
A blazing sun lit up the Polar night ; no cloud
marred the magic of the sky. We proceeded,
taking soundings, in completion of the course
the Belgica followed in 1905. Without great
difficulty we discovered a passage ; once again
the ice-fields of Greenland were kind to us !

It was during my return from this voyage
in 1909 that I landed at Hope Island, to the east
of Spitzbergen, on the day that the Tromso

TRAPPERS 49

hunters were leaving for home. They had killed
eighty bears. Another band of trappers on
Kong Karl Island killed sixty, but were com-
pelled to abandon the skins because the ice,
remaining unbroken, held back the ships sent
to their relief. Towards the end of the summer
they succeeded in escaping in a canoe, and by
good fortune arrived at the Advent Bay coal
mines, after having endured terrible sufferings.
At this rate of destruction the Polar bear
will, in the course of a very few years, become
almost completely extinct, just as has been the
case with the walrus, now so rarely to be en-
countered. The Polar trapping industry will
then disappear. It is this consideration which
has induced me to set forth my knowledge of
the life and methods of bear hunters.

BEARS

BEAR-HUNTING, at least as it is practised during
the summer months by a great number of
amateur and professional huntsmen in the
Greenland and Spitzbergen seas, represents
the triumph of keen sight and clever shooting.
The ship coasts the ice-fields whilst a man aloft
keeps watch. The crow's-nest, indeed, plays a
very important part in all Polar expeditions.

When the look-out man observes a yellowish
blot, such is the characteristic appearance of a
bear on the ice, he warns the ship. On a clear
day it is possible to distinguish a bear at a
distance of four miles.

A sailing vessel can approach a bear quite
closely without alarming it in the least. Very
often one can get close enough to destroy it
before it has even become suspicious of danger.
When the situation of the ice renders such an
approach impracticable, the vessel is anchored

to the ice-field, and lard and herrings are burnt

50

BEARS 51

to lure the bear. This stratagem frequently
succeeds. A bear will almost always approach
a strange smell to investigate it. Sometimes,
however, it resists the temptation and trots
away, in which case one's only resource is to
try a long shot. On more than one occasion
I have killed bears from a distance of six hundred
yards with a Mannlicher rifle, often at the first
shot. Indeed, I prefer long-distance shooting
at bears, as it gives the animal a chance for
its life, and is not mere slaughter.

The approach of a bear, when it is attracted
by an unknown smell, or when simple curiosity
impels it to some investigation, is a most inter-
esting sight. The magnificent animal, undis-
puted master of its icy empire, draws slowly
near, every ten yards or so rising on its hind
paws and snuffling the air precisely to locate
the smell ; or it crouches on a hummock and
surveys the chaos of ice around it. Sometimes,
like a cat, it crouches behind a rock permitting
only its muzzle to be seen, which from time
to time it covers with its paws, as though to
hide the part it knows to be visible. I remember
one night, when we were imprisoned in the Kara
Sea, three bears, a mother and its young, were
unexpectedly discovered roaming over the ice
about the Belgica. The August midnight

E 2

52 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

sun was already mounting the horizon, twilight
reigned, and in that twilight the animals
assumed fantastic dimensions. Save for the
cracking of the ice, deep silence prevailed.
The bears in moving made no noise at all, and
the sight of the three spectral figures, sliding
noiselessly to and fro amid the hummocks,
would have delighted the soul of an artist. It
certainly gave me more pleasure to watch
than to shoot them !

When the ice-field on which the bear is
sighted is a small one, an attempt is made to
frighten the animal. Surrounded by water,
terrified by the man, the bear in desperation
plunges into the sea, and from that moment
it is lost. The men follow it in a boat, and a
ball in the beast's brain terminates the affair.
There is no danger of losing it, because the
carcass of a bear does not sink unless the animal
is exceptionally thin.

To come to close quarters with a bear on an
ice-field is a very difficult matter. It takes to
flight as the boat approaches the ice. Some-
times it sets its course along the edge of the ice,
and then, if it encounters an ice-cape, instead of
avoiding it, it enters the water and is easily slain.
If, on the contrary, it makes for the interior, to
try and overtake it is useless. Above all, this is

L

CQ

BEARS 53

so in summer, when the snow covering the ice
is soft and intersected by numberless small
lakes and crevices. I well remember my first
and last chase of a bear over the ice. That one
experience was sufficient in itself. The incident
occurred off Greenland on July 9, 1905.

At nine o'clock in the morning we touched an
ice-field whose limits were invisible, and tied up
to it as to a quay, with the object of establishing
an oceanographical station. To the south and
west the sea was ice-free, while to the north, as
far as one could see, extended a white plain
broken here and there by grotesquely
shaped and strangely coloured elevations.
Small lakes, pure blue in colour, relieved the
gleaming whiteness of the snow, a blazing sun
lit up the whole landscape. The man in the
crow's-nest signalled a bear. It was the first
we had so far encountered, and its appearance
naturally occasioned great excitement among
us. We were told that the animal was quite
close to us, but although I mounted the bridge
I could not obtain a glimpse of it. The ice
hummocks were both numerous and lofty, and
it was easy for the bear effectively to hide itself
among them. My old huntsman Jonas, however,
affirmed that he could locate it, so we left the
ship. Recamier and myself accompanied him,

54 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

fully armed and ready for the struggle. These
were days when we believed a bear would turn
upon the hunter !

The snow was deep and soft ; we were ad-
vised to take skis, but having had no experience
of them, Recamier elected to take snow-shoes,
and I followed his example. All went well at
first ; the snow-shoes bore us well. Very soon,
however, we arrived at a spot where the drifting
snow had become loose and powdery. Jonas,
on his skis, went forward without hesitation ;
we sank almost to our waists. When we sought
to withdraw our legs, the snow-shoes be-
came scoops heavily weighted with snow. To
progress thus was fatiguing in the extreme ;
we splashed onwards desperately, perspiration
streaming from us. Had the bear turned on
us at that moment we should have proved very
easy prey. But there was no sign of a bear,
nor even traces of one, so Recamier and myself
sat down to rest on an ice-hill, whilst Jonas
went to reconnoitre. The man in the crow's-
nest aboard the ship signalled to us, but we
could not understand his meaning.

After some time Commander de Gerlache
glided up to us on skis, and informed us that
he had located the bear. He indicated the
line we were to follow, and again we went

BEARS 55

splashing onwards. Still our quarry remained
invisible and again we mounted a hummock
to prospect.

A chaos of ice extended before us until lost
to sight, and in whatever direction we turned
we could distinguish no traces of a bear, or
rather, I should say, fresh traces, for of old ones
we discovered many, and even the spot where
our bear had killed a seal.

The Commander had gone in advance and
overtaken Jonas, who now appeared away to the
left. We thus, as it were, formed a semicircle
of beaters, covering a wide area, yet seeing
nothing.

Jonas rejoined us after a time and said that
he had seen the bear in the distance, and that,
after hiding a seal which it had commenced to
eat, it had trotted off towards the interior.
Disappointed we returned aboard.

It was two o'clock, and we had been on the ice
since nine o'clock. We were soaked with per-
spiration and icy water. Reflecting that the bear
had breakfasted, we deemed the example ex-
cellent and sat down to table. During our
repast, those who had remained on board gave
us graphic accounts of what had been seen,
each one after his own fashion.

Their recitals were both curious and varied.

56 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

Everyone had seen the beast quite close to
us. Some even had seen the beast charge the
Commander, who had fled towards me. In
fine, everybody had seen the beast except
Recamier and myself, who still remained rather
incredulous. When we rose from the table,
however, we were compelled to bow down
before fresh evidence : distinctly outlined
against a high hummock was a yellow blot,
which, through the binoculars, I discovered to
be unquestionably the bear so vainly sought.

It had come to a halt far beyond the edge
of the bad ice. Instantly our weariness was
forgotten, and again we bravely set out. This
time we wore those long wooden strips called
skis, which of late years the people of the Alps
have been importing from Norway. To say
that ski-ing is an accomplishment easy of ac-
quirement is to exaggerate. Venturing on them
for the first time, one appears neither very elegant
nor very much at his ease, particularly on the
rugged surface of a Polar floe, which resembles
nothing so much as a snow-field, liberally
besprinkled with boulders and miniature moun-
tains. It is an unfortunate delusion with most
beginners that ski-ing and skating are identical.
The precise difference between the two is
that with skis one glides forward without lifting

TRAMP ACROSS THE ICE BANK
IN SUMMER.

WOUNDED BEAR.

BEARS 57

the feet, while in skating, the feet must of
course be raised. To endeavour to skate on
skis means inevitable disaster. My own first
efforts were attended by numerous falls. In
fact, I found it almost impossible to pass the
many small lakes formed by the melting ice
without becoming quite intimately acquainted
with them. I fell into one of them so completely
entangled in my skis, that I was submerged
altogether. Fortunately, the three thick
jerseys I wore prevented my suffering any ill-
effects.

Particularly difficult were the ascents and
descents of the ice hummocks, but we contrived
to advance without vanishing into any of the
snow crevices, and our progress was fairly
rapid, all things considered.

We reached the ice-block near which we
hoped to find the bear. After a short search
I discovered newly made tracks and the remains
of a seal. At the same moment I perceived the
bear itself, restlessly roving amid the hummocks
a little distance away. It snuffled the breeze,
sat down, then rose on its hind legs and
examined the ship. Five hundred yards only
separated us from the beast.

Recamier posted himself in the track of the
bear to prevent it escaping should it double,

58 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

whilst I, accompanied by Jonas, who carried my
('577) gun* st°le cautiously forward. Due to
the fact that the bear was constantly changing
its position amid the ice, our approach was easy.
Wishing to get beyond the wind, we commenced
to skirt some piled masses of ice. This led us,
however, to soft snow into which we sank up to
our hips, and when we regained firm ground
it was to see the bear leaving us at a trot,
looking back from time to time.

Jonas instantly began to shout at the top
of his lungs and to wave my second gun in
such manner as to render it quite impossible
for me to fire, inasmuch as he was between the
bear and myself. The only opportunity I had of
firing was when the beast passed between the
ice hummocks away to the left. I sent a ball
after it, and Jonas discharged my heavy hunting
gun, the recoil of which knocked him flat in the
snow. The bear disappeared. A short time
afterwards I again saw it ascending an elevation.
Again I fired, and again the bear disappeared.
Approaching the spot where I had last seen it,
I searched thoroughly, but vainly.

Recamier came up to me. Together we
clambered to the top of a pyramid of icebergs,
but could find no bear. It had vanished
completely, mysteriously, the thawing ice not

BEARS 59

preserving its tracks. The labyrinth of hum-
mocks was so intricate, and the crevasses
so dangerous, that an exhaustive search was
impossible, so after a time we returned to the
ship. Everyone on board was able to confirm
our statement that the bear did not reappear
after the second shot. Possibly I had wounded
it, and it had taken refuge behind a hummock,
while we, no longer seeing it, had concluded
that it was lost, whereas it may have been close
at hand all the time.

The experience I subsequently acquired
has given me more confidence in myself.
I should have sent men ashore to make a
methodical search, and had I done so I
am convinced the bear's hiding-place would
have been discovered.

Jonas explained the noise he made when he
perceived the bear running away. Often, he
told me, on hearing these cries, a running
bear will stop to discover the cause of the
noise. This may indeed be the case, but
in the present instance quite the contrary
held true.

It was nine o'clock at night. For ten hours
we had been splashing through water, clambering
over ice hummocks, and marching through snow.
Our extreme weariness, therefore, was not

60 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

unnatural. None the less, we remained for a con-
siderable time on the bridge admiring the beauty
of the view. I think I have never seen such color-
ation as on that night. The large ice hummocks
were tinted to rose, resembling the sand dunes
of a desert or the Gordas Arenas of Andalusia.
Above, the western sky presented a gamut of
greens, and behind us, from the bosom of the
dark restless sea, rose plain against the sky a
series of ice-floes which the sun kissed to pure
silver. Seals came to the surface about the
ship, but as they were small we made no
attempt to capture them. Altogether it was a
spectacle never to be forgotten.

During our absence an oceanographical ex-
amination had been made : soundings and
temperatures had been taken, fish examined,
etc. For all of us the day had been interesting,
but I retired regretting the bear skin I had lost.
Never since that occasion have I attempted to
shoot a bear in the same way. When a bear
has not approached sufficiently near to permit
me to fire from the deck, I have always landed
men to corner it and force it into the sea.

The most efficacious way of hunting bears
in the ice-field or over land ice is to set dogs after
them in the spring, when daylight reigns, and
the snow holds well. Many are the bears

BEARS 61

Swerdrup and Jackson have killed by driving
after them in a horse-sledge.

The bear, after having run a short distance,
halts with its back to a hummock and charges
the dogs singly. This permits the hunter to
approach and fire at his ease. The only risk
is that he may shoot one of the dogs as well as
the bear. This is identical with the custom of
sending a puppy after a wild boar, a method
much resorted to in the Foret d'Eu when I was
a child. Beaters drove the boar from its lair
and a terrier was then set on its trail. After
the first moment of terror, the boar, seeing only
the dog, and desiring to rid himself of so in-
significant an adversary, turns and charges,
thus giving the men time to approach within
range.

As regards hand-to-hand struggles with bears,
I am unable to say whether they have been of
frequent occurrence in times past, but I am
in a position to affirm that during the summer
such encounters are altogether unknown. If
a bear has the chance it always runs away.
Female bears in young save themselves in the
same way.

In August 1905, when returning from French
Land, on nearing the coasts of Greenland I saw
amid a maze of ice-hills a female bear with its

62 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

cub, both busily tearing a seal to pieces. Thanks
to a mist that hid us from their view, we were
able to bring the Belgica up to the ice and land
several men, who, led by Bergendhal and
Recamier, detoured the hummocks and cre-
vasses which surrounded the animals. I, being
convinced that if the bears were disturbed they
would plunge into the sea, stationed myself in a
boat, and hidden from sight by the sides of a
wide ice canal, awaited events. Due to the
heavy mist I could not follow the fortunes of
the chase. After an hour's wait a rifle shot,
followed by a savage snarling, disturbed the
stillness. At that moment I caught a glimpse
of the flying bears, vague and ill-defined because
of the mist.

Merite and I, running as hard as we could,
followed the edge of the ice. After negotiating
a cape formed by a high green and blue iceberg,
I again saw the bears ahead trotting rapidly,
parallel with the sea. A human shout rang out
in the mist before them. The bears halted,
hesitated a moment, and then determined to
cross the wide canal. They plunged into the
sea but a few yards from us.

The mother jumped first, her fore-paws almost
joining above her head. The cub followed
quickly, and supported itself by holding on to its

BEARS 63

mother's head. They swam vigorously, the
mother from time to time turning her head
towards us, growling and snapping when it
perceived the boat overtaking it. Merit e
photographed the couple from every possible
point of view ; then, as they neared the neigh-
bouring floe, I deemed it was time to finish the
business, and, permitting them to get well in
advance, fired and lodged a ball behind the
mother's ear. She stretched herself full length
in the water and remained motionless. The
cub plunged forward. A few seconds later,
without having removed my gun from my
shoulder, I shot it also behind the ear.

The most remarkable thing I observed
during the chase was the presence of a large
number of petrels, who circled in the air above
the heads of the bears as though they already
regarded them as certain prey. Hardly were
the animals dead before the birds settled on
them, and commenced feeding on the blood
and fat that escaped from the wounds.

When the siren had called the men aboard,
I learned that the battue had been conducted
without difficulty. Bergendhal, stumbling on
the bears hidden behind a hummock, had fired
into the air and frightened them. The animals
fled away to the right, where a sailor confronted

64 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

them. As soon as they saw him, they again
turned and fled directly towards the spot where
Recamier awaited them. He again turned
them back, and they then made direct for the
water without even having attempted to break
through the line of beaters.

I have had no experience of bear-hunting
during the winter, but, as far as I have been able
to gather, they are certainly very savage and
aggressive at that time of the year. One reads
of the adventures with bears of Swerdrop,
Nansen and other explorers. Again, when the
Koldeway expedition was wintering in Iceland,
a bear attacked Dr. Borgen and dragged him
for more than two hundred yards over the ice.
The savant owed his life to a thick hood he was
wearing, which prevented the bear from crushing
his skull as if it had been a seal's. The doctor's
companions, hearing his cries in the night, came
up in time to frighten the bear away ; but
nevertheless the unfortunate doctor was well-
nigh scalped.

There can be no doubt that under certain
circumstances bears will attack human beings
in winter, but only once have I seen a bear turn
upon its hunters in summer, and then it was
because the bear had been wounded in the belly
and could not run.

A DOUBLE COUP.

BEARS 65

On July 7, 1909, sailing with difficulty
between enormous bergs, we attained latitude
73°. I had just mounted the bridge after
having entered up my diary, when the steers-
man informed me that he had seen a bear on
an iceberg directly ahead.

I told him to hold the course, and when
towards midnight we arrived alongside the berg,
we found not one, but three bears. Two of
them, occupied to the exclusion of all other
things, were crawling towards a group of seals,
who remained quite unconscious of their danger.
The third, near the edge of the ice, was stand-
ing in water which reached half-way up its
legs, tearing to pieces the carcass of a seal. I
directed the man at the wheel to steer directly
for this latter bear, and for a time our approach
was unobserved. Unfortunately, the steersman,
instead of avoiding the small ice covering the
bay, sailed straight through it at full speed.
The grinding and smashing of the ice alarmed
the bear. I saw it raise its head to examine us
and I hastened on to the forecastle to fire as
soon as we were within range. The bear was
still a hundred yards away to the larboard,
when, striking a submerged berg, the ship swung
completely, so that the bear was then to the
starboard. I ran across the forecastle, and was

66 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

just in time to see it trotting away as fast as it
could. Although the beast was already at some
distance, I levelled my long-range Swiss rifle and
opened fire. The firing, however, was difficult ;
the ship, bumping constantly against the ice,
again and again spoiled my aim. Meanwhile the
bear, keeping its back turned to me, appeared
and reappeared amid the ice hummocks.
None the less, I contrived to get at least one shot
home. The animal rolled convulsively in the
snow, then rose again to continue its flight.
Now, however, it left behind it a trail of blood.
From time to time it stopped to lick its wounds.
Swensen, in the crow's-nest, was the last to see it,
and stated that it had disappeared behind a
large ice-hill. He was very eager to go and
finish it off ; I was, however, reluctant to risk
the lives of the men at this part of the field
where the ice was rotten and dangerous. Still,
none of us desiring to lose the bear, we sailed
for the farther side of the berg.

The Captain hoped the animal would take
to the water and cross the canal separating the
two bergs. But I was convinced that, wounded
as it was, it would never risk such a passage.
We surmised that my ball had lodged in its
stomach. Everyone on board had seen the
blood gush from above the right haunch, and

BEARS 67

the ball, of too small a calibre to break bones,
must have passed right into the beast's vitals.
I thought it better in this case to follow the
course adopted by a huntsman when he similarly
wounds a stag or roebuck : that is, not to follow
up the wounded beast immediately, but, as they
say in Austria, ' Le laisser devenir malade/
Even a badly wounded bear will run so fast, if
one approaches too quickly, as to render the
hope of overtaking it futile. If, on the contrary,
it be left quite alone, it will lie still while its
wound becomes gangrened ; peritonitis then
quickly seizes on the poor beast and renders
flight impossible. Unwise precipitancy had
already lost us our bear in the Kara Sea,
which I had shot from the bridge of the Belgica
at a distance of more than five hundred yards7
when it came trotting ahead of two sailors,
who had disturbed it on their way back to the
ship from seal-hunting. At my first shot the
beast came to the ground, writhing and tearing
at the air with its claws. Just as we were
assuring ourselves that it was mortally wounded,
it arose and resumed its flight. The bullet,
judging from the blood running from its head,
had ricochetted across its skull. I sent a
second shot after it from a distance of one
thousand yards. The shot found its mark.

F 2

68 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

The bear stopped and revealed to us a second
patch of blood on its right paw ; but this fresh
wound, instead of bringing it to earth, seemed
to give it fresh strength, and it vanished over
the ice at a swift trot. Commander de Gerlache
followed the flight from the crow's-nest, and
informed us that the beast halted a second
time, and again resumed its trot. It is possible
the bear heard the approach of the two men I
sent after it at speed, following the blood
tracks. Hearing them it contrived to escape.
I am convinced that had it been left to itself
for a few hours we should easily have over-
taken it. In the morning Recamier, Bergen-
dhal, and Ottersen endeavoured to locate its
whereabouts, but all trace of it had vanished
in the melting snow. We were all thankful
to regain the ship without accident. We had
found the ice in a very bad condition, and all
of us had successively fallen into snow crevasses
or into the canals we were compelled to cross,
which ran swiftly, and threatened to draw us
beneath the ice. But for Ottersen, who showed
us how to cross these canals by making stepping-
stones of floating ice-blocks, we should probably
not only have lost the bear, but more than one
of the men.

I have related this incident at length,

BEARS 69

because it serves to explain the course I adopted
when I wounded this second bear in Greenland.
After having assured ourselves that it had not
escaped by swimming, and must necessarily
be hidden amid the hummocks among which
it had disappeared, we anchored for the night
alongside the floe on which the other two bears
still roamed in search of seals. We burnt fat
and grease to attract them, but vainly, and at
five o'clock in the morning we retired to rest.
Towards midday we cast off and sailed to
double the berg. En route I killed at three
hundred yards a magnificent female bear which
had swum out to an ice splinter. It was not,
however, the bear of the preceding day, be-
cause it bore only one wound ; the one behind
its shoulder which caused its death. Most
probably it was one of the two animals we had
watched for throughout the night, while they
themselves were in turn watching for seals.

Meanwhile a mist had arisen. Notwith-
standing this, the man in the crow's-nest suddenly
sighted a bear amid the hummocks in the direc-
tion taken the preceding evening by my wounded
bear. We watched it for a long time and finally
saw it hide behind an ice-hill. It was impossible
for the Belgica to approach the ice-field because
of the presence of numerous ice-blocks which,

70 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

driven shorewards by a fresh south-westerly
wind, threatened to crush us flat. There was
nothing for us to do but to resort to the ex-
pedient of again burning herrings to attract
the bear's attention. Failure rewarded our
efforts. The animal remained behind its hum-
mock, moving only to bathe itself in a pool
or to roll itself in the snow. The beast's actions
confirmed my suspicions that it was the bear
I had already wounded.

Swensen, however, disagreed with me and
requested permission to go after it. He em-
barked in a canoe, taking with him Hans and
Ottersen. We on board followed the pursuit
through our glasses, and very quickly regretted
that we, too, had not accompanied them. We
saw the men disappear amid the hummocks
and surround the bear without disturbing it.
Then they essayed to drive it towards the sea,
by openly advancing towards it. But though
the bear saw the men, instead of running, it
turned on them. Ottersen, who was nearest,
fired his rifle in the air, hoping to frighten it.
The bear was not to be frightened. It came
straight for the men, and at eight yards Swensen
was obliged to lodge a ball in its neck, which
did not, however, kill it. Swiftly it turned and
charged Hans, who was behind a hummock.

BEARS 71

Again Swensen fired and finished the beast
with a second ball behind its shoulder. The
three surrounded their victim, manifestly ex-
ceedingly proud of their achievement. They
skinned it while I sent a boat to bring them back,
because the wind, piling up ice against the ship,
made the situation threatening.

The skin was extremely large, the hair pure
white. The doctor examined it. There was a
hole in the right paw which evidently had been
made by a bullet of a small calibre. The edges
of the wound were already gangrened, and the
doctor affirmed that the wound was several
hours old. The Captain's bullets had made
large holes, the edges of which were still moist
with blood. Further, Ottersen, when questioned,
said that in skinning the bear he had observed
the intestines to be black and perforated.
Altogether it was undoubtedly the bear I had
wounded the preceding night.

Swensen was profuse in his apologies at hav-
ing been compelled to fire instead of driving it
into the sea, and so affording me an opportunity
of shooting it. I, however, complimented him
upon the excellence of his tactics and the sang-
froid he had displayed when the bear turned
upon him. He informed me that never before
had he seen a bear charge a man in such fashion ;

72 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

the manner in which it had acted, when the
three men first appeared before it, had amazed
him. At first he had not suspected that it was
wounded, and had been at a loss to account for
its surprising ferocity.

The day had passed quickly, and we had had
excellent sport. The bear was an old male,
probably the oldest I have ever killed. Its
fur was magnificent, the hair being very long.
Its head, measuring almost twenty inches, was
characteristic of old ma]e bears, the nose being
very hard and turned. From its left eye to its
ear was a long cicatrice, probably the result of
some hard fighting with its own kind. The
teeth were very long and discoloured : another
sign of age. The teeth of the female I killed
earlier in the afternoon were extremely white.

When a bear takes to water, the course
usually adopted is to follow it in a boat and shoot
it in the back of the head. In this way one
runs no risk of spoiling the skin. This method
is practised by the Norwegians, and is one
which generally presents little or no danger, for
the bear swims straight ahead, rarely or never
attacking the boat. When, in far-off days, it
was customary to go bear-hunting armed only
with lances, it very frequently happened, if we
are to believe the older writers, that a wounded

BEARS 73

and maddened bear would often turn and
destroy the pursuing boat . Gerit de Vere relates
an instance when a wounded bear clambered up
over the stern of a boat, compelling the sailors
to throw themselves into the sea. Nowadays,
the hunter who is armed with a good rifle and
preserves his sang-froid, runs little or no danger,
even if a bear rendered furious turns on him.

It is frequently possible, in a sea-lake almost
free of ice, to pursue and shoot a bear without
leaving the ship. Several times during my
last voyage I achieved this in the Barentz Sea,
where icebergs are rarely encountered. Where,
however, channels are narrow and bergs are
numerous, it is quite another affair. Bears
swim, dive and cross the ice with such rapidity
that no vessel can follow them. Unless the
animal is brought down with a long shot at a
moment when it is crossing a berg (a by no
means easy matter !) it escapes.

I have given chase to and shot many bears
from the deck of the Belgica. It is risky sport,
however. One cannot handle a ship with the
same ease as a small boat. And so, while I have
on many occasions shot a bear on the ice at
five hundred yards, when firing from the ship at
a swimming bear I have always been compelled
to double to head it off. I well remember an

74 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

adventure I had with a bear in the Franz Joseph
ice-field. The animal dived and swam so well
that at one time I regarded its escape as inevit-
able. Over confidence had led us to make a
false manoeuvre. We were sailing across a series
of large, mist-shrouded lakes. Large icebergs
were completely absent ; small floes measuring
from ten to twenty yards surrounded us. Sud-
denly a sailor in the bows observed a bear some
four or five hundred yards away, swimming for
the ice. We instantly pursued it under full
steam, but the animal was surprisingly quick,
and it was as much as we could do to gain upon
it. To the despair of the photographers on
board who desired to photograph the bear in
the water, I tried a long shot, but missed.
Afterwards I was compelled to wait patiently,
rifle to shoulder, the moment when my enthu-
siastic friends should have made their exposures.
It was then that the bear adopted tactics with
which we were quite unacquainted. It dived
suddenly to reappear fifty yards away. On
coming to the surface, it turned to regard the
ship curiously, splashed the water a little and
dived once again. In spite of this stratagem we
contrived to overtake it very quickly, and I made
ready to fire, but was once again prevented
by Merite, who desired to make still one more

BEARS 75

exposure. It was too late when at length I was
permitted to fire. A clinging mist shrouded
both ourselves and the bear and as a result we
overran the animal, which resumed its flight
in the opposite direction. It was no simple
matter to 'bout ship, surrounded with ice as
we were, and by the time we resumed the chase
our quarry had gained an enormous iceberg.
I tried several long shots without success.
Again and again the bear took to the water,
swimming beneath the surface, barely allowing
itself time to breathe . It clambered with wonder-
ful rapidity over the ice it encountered in its
flight. Swensen was at the wheel, andhehandled
the ship magnificently, avoiding the larger ice
masses and fending away the smaller ones.
Finally we drove the bear on to less broken ice
surrounded by the open sea. This renewed
our hopes, the bear having become exhausted
by constant diving and swimming beneath the
surface. This time I was sufficiently wise to
disregard the pleas of the photographers, and
when we came within range I fired and killed.
The bear, when brought aboard, turned out to
be a young female three or four years old,
and although not very large it had certainly
provided us with excellent sport.

There are few things more difficult than to

76 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

shoot a swimming bear from the deck of a ship
steaming at full speed. The only vulnerable
point it presents in the water is the back of its
head. A bear, when swimming, keeps its head
in constant motion, and when diving is yet more
provoking ; for, impelled by some indefinable
instinct, it shows no more than its hind paws
at the precise moment the marksman feels
confident of being able to plant a shot behind its
ear. A bullet fired too low ricochets over the
surface of the water, committing no more damage
than perhaps to tear and spoil the skin.

During the afternoon Swensen shouted that
he saw a second bear in the water, the mist
having risen a little. As there was practically
no ice in sight, the bear's chance of escaping
was very remote. I therefore permitted the
photographers to mount the forecastle with
their cameras, while I remained on the bridge.
The animal, to me, appeared to be a large
one.

I fired when it was within range, aiming
between the shoulders. My rifle was an Ameri-
can one of very small calibre, it is true, but
none the less very deadly. The bear roared and
turned towards the ship, its fore-paws spas-
modically beating the water, which became
dyed with blood. I felt confident that I had

78 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

experience I learned that the one vulnerable
point of a swimming bear is its head.

Throughout the summer the bear wanders
over the ice seeking the bergs on which the
seals congregate ; exactly how it passes the
winter is unknown even to-day. It has been
established beyond question that female bears
in the Arctic regions, particularly when they
have a new-born cub, hibernate in a retreat
which they construct by permitting falling
snow to settle upon them until it forms a thick
crust about them. These miniature caverns
communicate with the outside world by one
opening only, which the animal keeps clear for
respiratory purposes.

That celebrated hunter, Tobiesen, has de-
scribed one of these cavities into which he
accidentally fell, to his own great discomfiture
and the alarm of the inhabitants.

Twice, Jackson, in the course of the winters
he passed at Franz Joseph Land, discovered
female bears enclosed in similar little snow
houses which they could not have left for several
weeks, seeing that there was no other exit but
a small hole for ventilation purposes. The
bears were alone with their cubs.

Male bears which winter on the ice-fields
(it is certain, atjleast, that a great many of them

BEARS 79

do so) hunt seals as in the summer. On the
other hand, it is possible that many male bears
imitate the example of the females, hibernating
in grottoes of their own construction. Nothing
certain is known regarding this, however.

During a seal hunt amid the ice of Kara,
Recamier found at the foot of a line of hummocks
a cavity, the inner walls of which were covered
with hair. It was unquestionably the hair of
a bear. The cavity, which possessed a wide
exit, was empty. It was, in fact, nothing more
than a large niche in which a bear had sought
shelter during the intervals elapsing between its
expeditions in search of food. The thaw had
not affected it to any marked degree, although
it was not discovered until the end of August.

Bears find the struggle for existence very
hard during the winter, when seals and the
birds on which they prey are very scarce. This
must be so considering how fat a bear invariably
is towards the end of the summer, while in the
spring it is always amazingly thin. One sur-
mises then that starvation superinduces that
ferocity which bears display at the latter period
of the year. The fact that hunters have only-
been attacked by bears during the long northern
night or in the spring-time, seems to establish
this beyond question.

80 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCT

I have, fortunately, been able to observe
on many occasions the manner in which bears
hunt seals. In 1905, when off the Greenland
ice-pack, I fired from the bridge at a female
bear roving along the edge of a floe, and wounded
without killing it. It disappeared into the
labyrinth formed by the hummocks. Fearing
lest I should lose my prey, I set off in pursuit
in a canoe accompanied by Recamier and
Merite. We landed, and while exploring the
hummocks we fell into a drift of fine snow into
which we sank up to our knees. The bear lay
in the centre of this drift, still living, although
mortally wounded and unable to move. Several
photographs of the poor beast were taken. One
moment it would crouch low, then rise, stagger
a few steps, then sit down to watch us, while all
the time it gnashed its teeth and growled from
pain and rage. The bear inspired pity rather
than fear, and seemed to desire only to be left
to itself to tend its wounds. It only appeared
menacing when we approached too close.

Merite settled himself comfortably to make a
sketch of it. I remained near him with my
gun loaded, because bears, even when mortally
wounded, have been known to display marvellous
strength and activity. When Merite had
completed his sketch, I finished the animal with

BEARS 81

a pistol-shot in the back of its head, and, whilst
an oceanographical survey was being made,
accompanied Recamier on a little voyage of ex-
ploration. The first thing we discovered were the
remains of a seal the bear had killed, skinned, and
completely eaten, but for the viscera and bones.
Following the bear's tracks we came to the spot
where the seal had been captured. It was a
round hole, about twenty inches across, and
was connected with the open sea by a very
narrow channel. As we could see from the
traces in the snow, the bear had crawled along
on its stomach and crouched at the edge of the
hole. It must have seized the seal by the head
as soon as it rose to the surface and flung it
violently on to the snow. The seal had mani-
festly resisted to the utmost of its power, for
the imprints of its fins were very deep, and the
snow was stained with blood, in the centre of
which lay its head. Judging from the circular
sweeps of its tail, it had probably fought as
does a carp when seized by the gills. The bear
had then dragged its prey away. On one side
of the bear's trail we found the marks of the
seal's fins ; on the other was the blood which
had dripped from its neck. Finally, to kill its
victim completely, the bear had dashed it
against a block of hard, rough ice. It had

82 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

afterwards carried it in its mouth to the place
where it devoured it. The tracks enabled us to
reconstruct the whole drama as though it had
been acted before our very eyes !

In July 1909 I saw a bear on an isolated
berg eating a seal which had been captured in a
different way. We were navigating a wide lake,
having to the larboard an ice-pack, and round
about us small, floating ice splinters. For
three days of fog and wind we had been strugg-
ling against the ice pressure, and were holding
south in search of an easier passage-way. All
at once, Joe, who was on the bridge beside me,
pointed to a small floe four hundred yards ahead,
and exclaimed : ' Look, there is surely a bear
over there ! ' At first I thought he was joking,
because bears rarely occupy small floes, but after
examining with the binoculars a yellow patch
discernible with the naked eye on the floe, I
found that he was correct. To my amazement,
I also observed a seal rolling itself in the snow
on another floe quite close at hand. Meanwhile,
the bear was busily occupied on the carcass
of a seal, the blood of which stained the
snow.

I immediately gave orders for the Belgica
to approach at speed. It was impossible the
bear could escape us, seeing that it occupied

BEARS 83

an isolated berg in the middle of a large lake,
far from the ice-pack.

The animal at first took no notice of us.
Having finished its meal, it commenced to scratch
at the snow with its paws in the same way as
does a dog when hiding food. Then it squatted
on its haunches and watched us.

Commander de Gerlache handled the ship so
skilfully that we came to within forty yards of
the berg without frightening the bear. Photo-
graphs were taken, the animal now standing on
its hind paws to examine us. It presented its
side towards me, and I fired and struck just
beneath the shoulder. A bellow of pain burst
from it ; it rolled in the snow, biting savagely
at its wound, from which the blood streamed.
Finally it toppled backwards into the sea.
It proved to be a fine female specimen, which
had recently fed so gluttonously on seals that
its stomach was enormously distended. While
Commander de Gerlache took a sounding of
over three thousand feet, I inspected the ice,
seeking to discover how the bear had been able
to surprise a seal under such conditions. A
certain spot on the edge of the floe, which rose
fairly high above the water, was very much
stained and bespattered with blood. Obviously
a terrible struggle had taken place there. Near

G 2

84 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

this spot was a hole in the ice from which led
the blood-stained trail left by the bear when
dragging its prey towards the centre of the floe.
Studying these traces, it seemed to me that the
bear could have captured the seal in one of two
ways only. It might have clambered on to
the ice from the other side and surprised the
seal asleep near its hole. Provided things had
befallen in this way, both the animals struggling
violently must have fallen into the sea, where
the bear killed its prey and dragged it back
on to the ice. On the other hand, the bear
might have swum unobserved along the edge
of the floe until it came to the seal hole, where
it surprised and killed its victim, in which
case it had dragged the dead seal on to the ice
to eat at its ease. I think, considering the
habits of these two declared enemies, that the
latter version is the more probable, but, of
course, I cannot affirm this with any degree
of certainty.

The soundings having been taken and my
investigation brought to a conclusion, I gave
instructions that the neighbouring floes should
be searched, in case the female should have been
accompanied either by a male or cubs. The
search produced nothing, however. We saw
only seals and seagulls waiting for us to depart

BEARS 85

in order that they might resume their interrupted
meal on the remains of the bear.

Sometime afterwards I saw, far away to
the south, a blot in the sea which awakened my
curiosity. This blot appeared to be coming
towards us, and from time to time increased
in size as though it rose out of the water. Round
about it, and moving with it, were several
black specks which I recognised as the heads of
seals. To my great joy, the binoculars revealed
the head of a bear swimming directly towards
us, pausing now and then to lift its head and
look about. Great, indeed, was my astonish-
ment when I saw that the seals formed a kind of
escort around the bear, diving and splashing
as though mocking their enemy, knowing that
in the sea they were immune from danger.
On becoming conscious of our approach, the
bear came to a halt, then turned and swam
from us. We overtook it rapidly. When it
came to floating ice it clambered on to it and
trotted swiftly across it in order to gain the
advance, but the bergs were too small and too
rare in this large lake to permit of its escaping
us. Very soon we were close to it. As though
divining escape to be impossible, the bear
ceased swimming, stretched itself full length
in the water and watched us. As Merite

86 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

desired to photograph it from close at hand,
we entered a boat and quickly followed the
animal, which had suddenly recommenced
swimming. Merite, who particularly wished to
obtain a photograph of the animal's face,
shouted aloud hoping to induce it to look
backwards, but the terrified animal thought
of nothing but escaping. I shot it behind the
ear. We found that it was a young male
bear.

We returned to the ship, where the whole
crew had assembled to see the beast hoisted
aboard. Having heard the yells and shouts
of Merite, they had attributed them to the bear,
and thought that it must be a most ferocious
specimen of its species. Merite was proud of
his artistic success !

It was half-past two in the morning, and I
retired to bed well satisfied with the result of
the day's sport. I had shot two bears and
seven seals.

Merite, creature of enthusiasm that he is,
defied the cold, set himself down as comfort-
ably as possible before the two suspended
bears, and sketched away right through the
night.

The next day we felt the open sea swell
beneath us, and after several hours spent in

BEARS 87

navigating small bergs, we left the ice-pack
behind. I observed that the two bears I
had killed must have swum a considerable
distance to have attained ice, floating seventy
or eighty miles away from the coast.

BEAR CUBS

IN the course of my voyages I have frequently
encountered female bears accompanied by their
young. In general there is only one cub, but
occasionally there are two.

The female is always alone with its young ;
I have never seen a male, a female, and the
cubs together.

To capture alive cubs of eighteen months or
so, even after having killed the mother, demands
elaborate preparations, because, young as they
are, they are nevertheless strong and very
dangerous. Hunters for the most part capture
them by driving them into the sea, lassoing
them, hoisting them aboard by means of a
winch, and lowering them half strangled into
a cage. Personally, I have always refrained
from risking the lives of the men by taking, in
this way, well-grown cubs. I have, however,
captured small ones, sometimes on the ice,
sometimes in the sea.

88

FEMALE BEAR AND CUB SWIMMING.

DEAD FEMALE BEAR AND CUB.

BEAR CUBS 89

After the death of its mother, the cub will
sometimes try to escape ; occasionally it will
remain by the body as though to defend it.

The first cub I captured was off the ice-
field of Greenland in July 1905.

We were at dinner when the look-out man
voiced the well-known and welcome cry of
'Bjorn! ' (bear).

Commander de Gerlache and myself hastened
on to the bridge and were surprised to see, not
five hundred yards away, a white female bear, fol-
lowed by a cub, coming peacefully towards us
over the great Polar ice-field. Landing several
men, I disposed them in order that we might
welcome these strangers with due ceremony.
They came quite close to us, the mother leading,
the cub following.

Lieutenant Bergendhal, who had on former
occasions captured several cubs, informed us
that it would be necessary to drive it into the
sea, because, if the mother bear were killed on
the ice, the cub would seek safety in flight,
while, if it were shot in the water, the cub would
remain swimming around the body, when it
could be easily captured.

Whilst I was attentively examining the two
bears, Jonas unexpectedly became excited, just
as he had been on the occasion of our fiist

90 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

encounter with a bear. He took me by the
arm and howled at me at the top of his lungs,
in Norwegian, a torrent of words of which I
could understand nothing except that it was
imperative to drive the bears into the water.

I asked no more than that ; the issue,
however, remained with the bears and not
with me.

To my intense annoyance, Jonas continued
shouting and gesticulating, although only sixty
yards away the mother was already displaying
uneasiness. If old Father Jonas had under-
stood Spanish, I would have said : ' Vaya
listed con Dios ' (Go with God !). During the
momentary lull I contrived to say ' Bra ! '
which in English means ' Very well ! ' My
tone was sufficient ; he understood and sub-
sided.

The bear halted and examined the ship.
The cub drew up alongside and stood on its
hind paws, imitating its mother's movements.
It was indeed a curious sight to see it turning
its head from side to side just as its mother did,
wondering, perhaps, what that large white mass
was which it had never seen before. While
this was occurring, the men sprang quickly
on to the ice from the canoe. The bear's
inquietude increased. Suddenly it turned as

BEAR CUBS 91

though to seek safety towards the centre of
the ice-field. In turning, it exposed its side to
me ; I fired, my shot piercing it through and
through between the shoulders. It leapt into
the air, twisting convulsively, then set off,
quickly followed by the cub, only to fall dead
twenty yards farther on. The bullet had
severed the aorta.

The cub halted for a moment to examine
with great curiosity the mother that would
move no more, then it turned and fled inland.
Bergendhal, Recamier, and several of the men
instantly set off in pursuit, intending to get
ahead of it and bar the way. The ice, however,
was very bad. The men sank up to their
knees in snow or water, while the cub ran
without difficulty. Luckily, Bergendhal had
instantly rioted the topography of the field,
and, well used to snow as he was, progressed
swiftly. He bore to the left, seeking to drive
the cub to the right on to an ice promontory
advancing into free water. The men, running
as fast as they could, stationed themselves
among the hummocks with the object of form-
ing a semicircle. At full speed the Belgica
rounded the cape, and so came face to face with
Bergendhal. More men were disembarked,
and the semicircle completed. The bear was

92 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

surrounded, although the beaters were very
wide apart.

Bergendhal fired and splintered the ice
before the cub. It turned back on its trail
instantly. Bergendhal followed, firing from
time to time, driving it always towards the
promontory. The men closed in ; the canoe
skirted the edge of the ice, hidden from view
by the height of the field. Finding each
avenue of escape closed to it, the young bear
commenced to howl and cry. The boat followed
the left flank of the beaters. Nearer and nearer
the men approached, crossing lakes of icy water
and scaling hummocks, on whose tops the
accumulated snow was soft and deep. Thus
they gained the promontory, driving the bear
before them. A final shot, combined with the
shouts of the beaters, drove the cub to take
to the sea. It jumped bravely from a point
near the end of the promontory. The beaters
on the left flank embarked in the boat, seized
the oars, and placed themselves between the ice
and the cub, thus cutting off all retreat. Its
capture was now certain. I experienced great
relief, as I had commenced to ask myself
whether I had not been too precipitate in shoot-
ing the mother bear, and thereby assisting the
cub's escape.

BEAR CUBS 93

Jonas manipulated the lasso. The first
attempt failed, the young bear having placed
its paws on the edge of the boat. But a second
attempt succeeded, and the running knot tight-
ened about its neck. The ' hurrahs ' of both
spectators and actors responded to the bellows
of rage which escaped the prisoner.

The man in the boat pulled for the ship,
the cub vigorously swimming at the end of the
rope held by Jonas. Repeatedly it attempted
to clamber into the boat, and only with the
greatest difficulty was it kept at a distance.

A second slip was passed over the hind
legs and tightened. Bound and helpless the
cub was hauled aboard. It did not, however,
remain quiet for long. Directly it touched
the deck it commenced to lash out in all direc-
tions with its paws, trying to kill or smash
everything within reach. In vain we sought
to soothe it. The Commander, at the risk of
being torn to pieces or badly wounded, seized
the head rope and held it, whilst the second
rope was fastened to a belaying pin. Dangerous,
and even imprudent, as was this manoeuvre, it
succeeded admirably. A box was brought, the
open end of which was pushed towards the cub,
compelling it to retreat to the door of the cabin.
Then a panel was slid between the door and

94 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

the box, and the cub was a prisoner. It made
a most infernal noise, bellowing and tearing
madly at the walls of its prison, but they
proved too strong for it. We left it for a time
to reflect on its fate while we went to obtain
the skin of the mother bear.

Like the two bears I had already shot that
day, this one possessed a magnificent head,
and haunches rather larger than those of male
bears generally. Probably because it was still
suckling its cub, it was remarkably thin — a
mere bag of bones. I recollected that far away
to the north we had seen only male bears, while
here, close to the continent of Greenland, we
had met only with females. Can it be that
female bears in general seek the land when
suckling their young ? That is a question
which still awaits an answer. I can only affirm
that up to this point I had always encountered
male and female bears wide apart.

Everyone having re-embarked, the course
was resumed, and we sat to finish our inter-
rupted dinner. The beaters had well earned
it. They were soaked to the skin, having
passed through pools of icy water shoulder
deep. Further, Recamier, Ottersen and Julius
had had a very narrow escape, it transpired.
They had been standing on the edge of the

BEAR CUBS 95

floe when the ice suddenly gave way beneath
their feet. Happily, they had managed to
spring on to firm ice and so save themselves
from being badly crushed.

I congratulated Bergendhal on his address
and agility. None of us doubted but that for
him we should never have captured the cub.

Meanwhile the carpenter had constructed a
cage. At four o'clock in the morning it was ready.
The problem of transferring our passenger to its
new quarters was now discussed.

Recamier affirmed that the cub was quite
quiet, and that it would be easy to lead it from
one prison to another with the rope. Disregard-
ing my advice, he loosened one of the planks
of the box. To our great amusement a boxing
match ensued between the cub, which pushed
its head and one of its paws through the opening,
and Recamier, who, armed with a torch, sought
to intimidate it. The struggle was accom-
panied by the ear-splitting cries of the bear,
and the equally violent exclamations of the
doctor. It having been proved conclusively
that our prisoner was still unreasonable, the
plank was refastened and the box placed on
top of the cage. The ropes were then un-
fastened, the panel withdrawn and the animal
fell into the cage. Throughout the operation

96 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

the cub howled with rage, seeking to destroy
everything within range. Once in the cage,
however, it became quiet and we were able
to sever the ropes fastening its legs. It had
already torn the rope from about its neck itself.
We gave it some cooked meat and some milk
in a bowl. The animal drank thirstily, and
then, after having cried, howled, growled and
trembled, it stretched itself out with its fore
paws on the bowl, which it would not permit
us to withdraw. Its air now was one of philo-
sophical resignation. Considering the great
trouble we had had to capture this cub, one
can easily imagine how terrible a hand-to-
hand encounter with a full-grown bear must
inevitably be.

The cub was one of the same height as our
dog Rouss. It possessed enormous paws and
knew well how to use them. Its strength and
agility were surprising in so young an animal,
so much so indeed that several men could not
have held it down without running the risk of
serious injury. As it is, all's well that ends well.
Jonas had received a blow on the hand from
its paw ; one of Bergendhal's fingers was
slightly torn, and this was all.

At six o'clock in the morning I was again
called. The weather had cleared ; though black

BEAR CUBS 97

clouds still covered the sky. Far away in the
distance Jonas had sighted a bear on a large floe.
We set our course for it, but could not see it,
because of the great number of jagged ice-
blocks scattered over the surface of the floe.
Some time later, however, it appeared in the
open, making for the canal towards which we
were sailing. We burnt herrings and grease to
attract it, and to our delight quickly discovered
that it was a mother accompanied by her cub.
They approached us slowly but confidently,
adopting precisely the same tactics as the others.

Halting, snuffling, rising on their hind legs,
they approached until at last less than twenty
yards separated us. The men were already in
the boat fully armed to capture the cub after
the death of the mother.

Perceiving that it was futile to endeavour
to entice them still nearer, and that they would
not voluntarily take to the water, I fired full in
the chest of the mother as she stood facing and
watching me. She turned and ran swiftly,
bleeding freely. A second shot in the heart
felled her in her tracks at a distance of twenty
yards. The young one had, of course, followed
its mother. On seeing her fall, it halted, rose
on its hind paws, and commenced to growl.
Taking infinite care not to frighten it, three

98 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

men landed on one side, while Bergendhal and
the other men pushed alongside in a canoe and
completed a semicircle. The cub permitted
the men to approach quite close to it, then,
instead of jumping into the sea, it dived into
the canal which split the floe, and which was too
wide for the men to cross. In flinging itself
into the water it acted just as a human diver
does ; the two front paws were joined above the
head, the rest of the body stretched to its
full extent. Only, instead of cleaving the water,
it struck full length. Scrambling on to the ice
on the other side, it commenced to trot along the
edge. The boat was recalled to convey the
beaters across the canal and hold itself in readi-
ness, whilst Bergendhal went to head off the
cub accompanied by the doctor and a squad
of men. Thus, little by little, a semicircle
of men closed behind the fugitive, which was
in turn confronted by Recamier and Ollivier.
Brought to bay at last, it halted. Blazing away
with their firearms, the men slowly forced the
cub towards the sea and the spot where the
boat lay, at the bottom of which several men
were hiding. A last charge of the beaters
compelled it to dive.

Bergendhal, re-entering the canoe, overtook,
lassoed, and towed the cub to the Belgica.

BEAR CUBS 99

To get it aboard the same procedure was
adopted as before : a slip-knot around the
neck, and a second one around the hind legs.
The cage in which the first cub, Martin, was
confined was partitioned into two. After some
trouble, during which Bergendhal was rather
badly torn, we succeeded in securing our prisoner.
The noise the two cubs made in concert was
ear-splitting. Milk calmed them. The beaters
returned aboard soaked with perspiration and
the water through which they had splashed.

Of these two bear cubs, one, Martin, lived
with me at Norton. It grew to a great size,
but always remained savage and dangerous.
The other, called Joe to commemorate the
part the doctor had played in its capture, I
gave to the Paris Museum, where I recently
iearnt it is to be seen still in good condition.

The bear cub I captured on August 12,
1909, on the Franz Joseph ice-pack, behaved
differently from the others. Instead of run-
ning, it turned upon the hunters when they
approached the body of the mother.

We saw, away to the starboard, a bear,
followed by its cub, quietly ambling along
over the surface of a small floe surrounded by
free water. The two animals appeared to be
neither afraid nor troubled by our presence, and

H 2

ioo HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

trotted towards us. Duly we arrived at the edge
of the ice-field. I left my post on the forecastle
and took up a position before the charthouse,
where no one could disturb me and I would be
able to observe every movement of our visitors.
As they neared the ship, the mother displayed
some uneasiness and hesitation. After having
snuffled the wind blowing from our direction,
she curvetted like a circus-horse. She intended,
it appeared, to depart in the opposite direction,
and as at that moment her side was towards
me, I fired. The bullet entered her head, and
she fell dead without even a groan. It was
curious then to observe the cub. It seemed
surprised to the point of stupidity, unable to
comprehend what had passed. It flung itself
upon its mother, hugged her, walked round her,
and finally found the wound from which the
blood had escaped and set itself to lick it. Then
again it commenced to wander around the
body, crouched upon it, rose and stood on its
hind legs, then sat down again like some over-
grown Newfoundland dog. It manifested not
the slightest intention of quitting the body.
This was quite contrary to all my experience
of cubs. Reflection leads me to believe
that this was due to the different manner in
which the mother had been killed. In the

BEAR CUBS 101

first instance, the mother, mortally wounded,
had staggered on a few steps before it fell
convulsed. This had served to terrify the cub,
who instantly took to flight, turning neverthe-
less from time to time to see if the mother was
following. On the present occasion, however,
the mother, falling without a groan, had not
alarmed the cub. The young one, mystified
by this sudden silence of its mother, and unable
to comprehend the reason, remained near her
as much from fear and want of protection as
from filial love.

The cub appeared to me so big and strong
that I deemed it would be folly to attempt to
capture it. Seeing, however, that it displayed
no intention to run away, Swensen, Rachlew,
and Merite were landed on the ice with lassoes
and a squad of men. When the cub saw the
boat approaching, it rose erect and anxiously
inspected it. At first we thought it would turn
and run, but after circling the motionless body
of its mother, it again resumed its position over
it, and made no further attempt to move.
Meanwhile, the men had disembarked and
formed a semicircle between the bear and
the centre of the ice-field, so as to drive it
into the sea, where other men waited in
the boat ready to lasso it. But the poor little

102 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

orphan declined to desert the body over which
it stood guard. The men advanced towards
it, shouting ; still the cub refused to move,
hiding always behind its mother, bellowing
furiously, and making as though to charge the
men. Merite and Rachlew made exposures
three yards from it, while Joe and I also
photographed it from the bridge of the ship.

As soon as it became evident that the cub
would not take to the water, one of the men
contrived with the aid of his alpenstock to
slip a running knot about its neck. The
men then dragged it a few yards, despite its
frantic struggles. The knot broke, however,
and the cub ran back to take up its former
defensive position over its mother's body.
Another lasso was prepared. The men, hold-
ing it open with their alpenstocks, passed
it over the cub's head and again secured it.
The end of the lasso was made fast to the boat,
and in this way the little bear, fighting madly,
was hauled over the snow into the sea, and
compelled to swim to the Belgica. According
to all precedents, it should have been left swim-
ming until the mother's body had been hoisted
aboard, or at least until a cage had been prepared
for it. Not doubting for a moment that this
would be done, I entered my cabin to obtain

BEAR CUBS 103

some photographic apparatus. My astonish-
ment when on returning to the deck I found
that the cub had already been hoisted aboard
can easily be imagined. The fury of the little
animal was terrible to behold. Commander
de Gerlache repeated his 1905 experiment.
He seized the rope near the cub's neck, just as
one would take a dog by its collar. The cub
flung itself upon him, and with two blows tore
the Commander's coat and trousers almost to
tatters. De Gerlache retreated quickly, where-
upon the maddened cub flung itself at one
of the men. Each moment it threatened to
break loose. Standing on its hind legs it gnawed
the rope about its neck, then rushed forward,
mounted the ladder, and tried to throw itself
into the sea. We managed just in time to
fasten the rope to the mast and prevent this.
Finally we had to fling a cloth over its head to
blind it. When it grew quieter, Recamier,
the Commander, and Rachlew got astride of it,
and held it down whilst its hind paws were
bound. It was amusing to see the three men
mounted on this strange steed, which struggled
and bucked and bellowed without a moment's
pause. The cub was victor ; the three men
were sent sprawling to the deck. The animal
then succeeded in tearing the cloth from its

104 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

head. The first thing its eyes fell upon was
our tame seal, watching the scene without
emotion. Instantly the cub rushed at it.
Fortunately for the seal the rope was short.
The struggle recommenced.

Again the cloth blinded the cub and again the
men mounted it. This time Ollivier succeeded
in fastening the animal's hind legs, and it was
quickly reduced to impotence.

In the meantime, Swensen had had the
mother's body hoisted aboard. As soon as
the cub saw the body it rushed to it and com-
menced to suckle gluttonously, all the time
watching us with terrified eyes, but making no
further attempt to move, sucking successively
the four teats.

Merite was successful in obtaining several
photographs of it while the men were hauling
on deck Martin's old cage, which I always
carry aboard. The cub continued to suckle
furiously, paying no attention to what was going
on around it. The presence of its mother
reassured it ; the sight was both poignant
and moving.

At last the cage, well washed, stood ready,
and to MeYite's despair the final struggle
commenced. Two men mounted the vedette,
raised the cub and lowered it into the cage. It

BEAR CUBS 105

fought like a devil incarnate, and bit Hermann's
hand severely. Only with the greatest difficulty
were Joe and Swensen able to force its hind
paws into the cage. Finally, rendered helpless
by half a dozen of the men, it was firmly secured.
Its bonds were removed and the cage covered.
As soon as it found itself in darkness it became
quiet.

Hermann's hand having been attended to,
we sat down to dine, and drank a glass of
champagne in honour of our new prisoner.
For long the capture of that young bear was
our favourite theme.

REINDEER

WHEN in 1904 I visited Spitzbergen for the first
time in my yacht Maroussia, herds of reindeer
were still to be found on the mountain sides of
the ice fjords, and on landing at the mouth of
the Sassendahl Valley I shot a dozen in three
or four hours. This fresh meat was most
welcome to the crew. Had I so wished,
I am sure I could have shot forty ; for it is
the simplest thing in the world to approach
reindeer in these regions. Even when fright-
ened they often run directly towards the
hunter.

Nowadays, few are to be encountered. The
tourists landed here each summer by the German
steamships have almost completely destroyed
them, the more easily because the reindeer
always remain near the fjords. In the same
way the coal miners of Advent Bay will soon
have denuded the higher valleys of reindeer,

as in the Giers Valley, where the animals are

1 06

REINDEER 107

extremely rare, although at the time of my
visit in 1904 they were still numerous. As a
result, I am convinced that the reindeer is
destined to disappear speedily and completely, at
least so far as western Spitzbergen is concerned.
On the other hand, as the reindeer seem to
thrive admirably in this region, where they
seem to escape the parasitical illnesses and
epidemics which decimate them in Siberia and
Nova Zembla, I think the day is not far distant
when Laps will establish themselves on the
banks of the ice fjords to breed and raise the
domestic reindeer, as is already done in
Lapland and the north of Norway. That I
am not wholly without reason in making this
assertion is evident. Formerly, vast herds of
wild reindeer wintered without difficulty on
the high plateaux which abound in these regions,
where the wind, sweeping away the snow,
enables them to find moss and lichens, so that,
similar conditions prevailing, to breed the
domestic reindeer, which is done with such
marked success in Alaska, should be a simple
matter in Spitzbergen.

As I have already said, I shot a dozen
reindeer in 1904 in the Sassendahl, by simply
walking a few hundred yards over the alluvial
plains which lie at the feet of Mounts Maimier

io8 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

and Lusitania. To approach the animals was
easy. Similar success attended an expedition
which we made a few days later to the Giers
Valley, which lies south of the ice fjord.
Certainly, this latter hunting-ground was not
easy of access. We had to wade a river's
swampy delta and cross a torrent whose water
rose to our shoulders. Recamier, indeed, slipped
and vanished completely beneath the surface for
a moment. Having once attained the valley,
however, I had no difficulty in killing the five
or six reindeer whose horns and flesh were
desirable. Many herds were to be seen on the
mountain side, and when I fired, several reindeer
came near, curiously seeking to learn the cause
of the noise. The hardest part of the expedition
was the return, when we were heavy laden with
the fresh meat, which we carried in the animals'
skins after a fashion I had seen practised in
Africa. To avoid the swift-running torrent which
we had been compelled to cross in setting out, we
descended the valley, and stumbled into a bog.
It was one of those filthy marshes so numerous
in the Arctic and Scotland. At each step we
sank to the knees or deeper ; the men lost their
boots, several of us fell, and altogether we
presented a ludicrous sight after that long
struggle through the mud. Recamier told me

REINDEER 109

afterwards that the young sailor who was
assisting him to carry the reindeer suddenly
sat down and commenced to weep from very
weariness and anger. The doctor, used as he was
to fatigue, assured me that he felt like doing
the same thing himself. The sensation which
seizes one is one of absolute and complete
impotence. Time and courage overcome all
obstacles, however, and finally we got all our
reindeer safely aboard. My sincere advice to
the casual hunter is to avoid Giers Valley. He
may perhaps succeed in shooting a reindeer or
two, but he will never bring back his game, and
probably never return himself. The danger
of dying from fatigue up there on the heights
is not to be despised.

Swensen, the Norwegian captain who accom-
panied me in 1909, was one of the cleverest
hunters and strongest men I have ever met.
Yet he told me that on one occasion he stumbled
into a similar bog when carrying a reindeer he
had shot. For six hours he struggled to
withdraw his game from the mud ; but the
swamp conquered, and he had at last been com-
pelled to abandon the carcass and save himself.
He added that when he came to firm land again
he would most probably have lain down and
slept, had it not been that one of his companions,

no HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

disturbed at his protracted absence, came up to
him at that moment.

Swensen and I together had a more agreeable
experience in Lowe Sound. On the occasion to
which I refer the weather was splendid, the
land admirable, and the reindeer still sufficiently
wild to lend interest to the sport. Everything
in fact was just what a hunter might desire.
After a short sojourn at Bell Sound, where we
watched the whale-hunting, and duly admired
the two magnificent glaciers at Recherche
Bay, we entered Lowe Sound on July 24,
and found it a kind of fjord branching away
to the north of Bell Sound. Navigation is
rather difficult here due to the presence of
strong sea currents, which swirl through the
narrow passage-way and attain enormous
power between the coast and the little islands
which form a sort of dam at the entrance to the
fjord. Fortunately, Swensen, having hunted
a great deal in these regions, knew the currents
perfectly and proved himself an excellent pilot.

A towering, rugged cliff formed the right bank.
Moss-covered as it was, the green presented
a curious contrast against the blackness of the
rocks. This cliff is one of the largest rookeries
in the Spitzbergen seas. Thousands and thou-
sands of guillemots, sea-swallows, and sea-

A REINDEER AT LOWE SOUND.

REINDEER in

parrots cover the surface at every stage. When
a shot is fired and echoes among the rocks, the
day grows dark as the terrified birds rise and
form a cloud which obscures the sun. I think,
however, I have never seen so many birds as
those congregating on the cliffs of Bear Island.
On a certain occasion we were approaching this
island in a boat, when guillemots passed directly
above in a cloud, covering us with a moisture
similar to that which blinded old Tobit !

Lowe Sound extends far to the east, almost
cutting Spitzbergen in two, as does the ice
f j ord farther north. The surrounding mountains
are not very elevated, and their shape and
regularity call to mind the pyramids of Egypt.
Towards Micael Rinders Bay, on the south side
and near the western extremity of the Sound,
the peaks become higher, forming an immense
circle. Each of the valleys in this circle contains
a glacier, which meet and present an extended
and imposing front to the bay.

Unfortunately, the beautiful effect of this
imposing mass of ice is somewhat marred by the
secondary moraines the glaciers have formed.
These moraines, composed of mud and the
debris of rocks, extend across what would
otherwise be an enormous dazzlingly white
surface.

H2 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

Leaving Micael Rinders Bay to the right,
we passed into a very narrow canal formed by
two old moraines leading to Braganca Bay at
the further end of Lowe Sound. We found it
impossible to enter this shallow, internal bay,
and were compelled to drop anchor in four
fathoms of water.

The valleys around Braganca Bay all contain
glaciers. One of them presents a magnificent
spectacle, falling like a cascade frozen, its edges
being fringed with ice that, from a distance,
appears diaphanous.

Braganca Bay is the ancient bed of an
immense glacier. Little by little the neigh-
bouring glaciers which formerly fed it have
exhausted it, and the principal glacier has
disappeared, leaving a large lake behind its
moraine. The accumulated waters from thaw-
ing ice and snow have forced a way through
this barrier, forming the winding channel in
which we were anchored. Year by year the
secondary glaciers shrink towards the snow-
covered summits of the inland hills. The effect
is at once sad and striking when viewed from
the end of the fjord ; the glaciers have become
little more than mud-stained heaps.

I desired during our sojourn to replenish
our store of fresh food before proceeding to

REINDEER 113

Franz Joseph Land, so that when Swensen,
from the crow's-nest, discerned two reindeer
feeding on the northern shore of the Sound, I
embarked without loss of time in the canoe,
accompanied by the Captain, Rachlew, and two
men. We followed the bed of a stream, and
half an hour later the two reindeer appeared on
the horizon. They crossed the stream to an
extensive plain of frozen clay lying between
the foot of the mountain and the sea. I
posted the two men behind a boulder, and,
together with Rachlew and the Captain,
pushed onwards over the deep caverns which
thawing and moving glaciers had torn in the
clay soil. Soon we were close enough to see
that one of the reindeer was a male and the
other a female. Unfortunately, both were in
velvet at that time of the year. Among horn-
shedding animals, I think the female reindeer
only has smaller and slighter horns than the
male.

Rachlew and the Captain remained to guard
the river course, while I made a detour to get
between the animals and the sea. This ren-
dered escape impossible for them. The terrain
made stalking easy, and the animals were not
wild. I selected the male for my first shot,
thinking that if it fell the female would delay

U4 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

its flight and so give me time for a second shot.
As I anticipated, the female instantly took to
flight when I had shot the male, but, in turning
to look for its fallen mate, it gave me the
anticipated opportunity, and with two shots
I brought it down. Both the deer were large
and well fleshed, and served the purpose of
supplying us with a fair quantity of fresh meat.
Hardly were the animals dead, and before the
sailors had rejoined us, when the gulls and
stercoraires which had been circling above us
settled on the carcasses. Five minutes before
not a bird had been in sight. Where they came
from is a mystery ! The animals were cleaned,
their fore feet tied together, and each sailor
carried one on his back to the boat. I thought
of returning with the men, but the Captain was
confident we would discover other reindeer in the
little valley winding in and out of the moraine,
which extends to the foot of the mountains on
the northern side of Lowe Sound. We therefore
set out to explore further. This plain deserves
description. It is composed of a series of
frozen hillocks, separated by small lakes and
twisting ravines. Everywhere there is a thick
bed of shells of all kinds, among which I
particularly noticed St. Jacques' Shell, or the
Great Comb. Manifestly, the plain must have

REINDEER 115

been submerged after its formation, and has

since been left dry by the withdrawal of the

sea — a very common phenomenon in Spitz-

bergen. We found several eider on the little

lagoon, but no reindeer. There were numerous

traces of them, but they were very old, and we

also discovered the tracks of hunters. It is

possible that these men had come from the

coal or gold mines at Bell Sound. Apparently

they had destroyed everything on the coastline,

where the reindeer are so easy to shoot, and my

chances of encountering game were very remote

unless I was prepared to go much farther

inland. I therefore turned back. In passing

the spot where I had filled my bag I noticed

that an enormous number of gulls had now

gathered, and were fighting for the entrails.

The plumage of this gull, the real vulture of

the north, is of the purest white. I shot a few of

them, and we were on board again by half-past

eleven.

The weather had become fine ; little by little
the wind had fallen. We succumbed to the
temptation to go and photograph the glacier
suspended between the two mountains towards
the south-east. Entering Braganga Bay in the
boat, we passed into a narrow channel, and
followed the moraine as far as possible in a

I 2

u6 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

southerly direction. The water became shal-
lower, and at last we were compelled to land
on a beach of frozen clay, smooth and even
as the Marisma near Seville. It is astonishing
how lands so wide apart and so differently
constituted resemble each other. The clay
was the same, cracked where it had become
dry, each depression holding water and forming
little lagoons. Swimming in one of these
lakes we observed a brace of Arctic ducks,
which, seeing us, took to wing and flew towards
the sea. We surmised that we would find the
nest of these birds in the lagoon where we had
surprised them, and decided to make a search on
our return. On a cliff top I also saw one of
those ducks, resembling a mandarin in appear-
ance, which are known as the ' Beggars of the
Arctic/ I chanced a shot, but failed to bring
it down.

Everywhere we encountered the whitened
bones of belugas, dating, it appeared, from those
days when the Russians came chasing these
cetaceans. It is well known that these white
whales seek the seclusion of the bays, and are
netted. Lowe Sound is in every way convenient
for such fishing. A bed of dry clay displayed
fresh traces of reindeer, and, unluckily, of
human beings also. Ice, indeed, cannot protect

n8 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

by water. All ducks build their nests in the
same way ; that is, almost in the water. This
is because their webbed feet are little adapted
for walking. Swensen examined the nest and
found it empty. He was of the opinion that the
ducklings had been devoured by the foxes,
which are very numerous, and of which we
discovered many recent traces.

Having come to the conclusion that little
sport was to be had in this region, we returned
aboard, raised anchor at nine o'clock, and re-
anchored before a deep valley in which, on the
preceding day, when we were navigating Lowe
Sound, Swensen had seen two reindeer.

The weather was magnificent ; there was not
a cloud in the sky, and the wind had fallen.
The evening was grand beyond description.
Before us sparkled the glacier between the
triangular pyramids of the mountains, which
rose, all snow whitened, into a sky of the
deepest blue. The sea shone like a mirror ;
gulls and stercoraires fluttered about the old
blackened and torn moraines forming the shores
of the Sound. The picture was perfect !

We anchored at eleven o'clock on the northern
coast, near the mouth of the river along whose
banks Berners geese swarm. But now the
landscape was hidden by high peaks, and it

REINDEER 119

began to grow cold, so I returned without
attempting this game.

The next day the weather continued fine,
with the sun very warm. We might have been
in the Italian Alps instead of in Spitzbergen,
so near the Pole. At eight o'clock, Rachlew,
Swensen, and myself embarked in the canoe
with three men, carrying our rifles and provisions
for the whole day. Before leaving, the Captain
pointed out to us a reindeer half-way up the
mountain. Its pasturage was, however, on the
farther side of the river running through the
valley which was our destination. We decided
to follow the right bank of the river, and to
leave this reindeer until our return, after having
crossed the torrent nearer its source. We did
this because the Captain was convinced that the
two reindeer he had seen two days before could
not be far away ; these animals rarely move
great distances. We steered our course for a
small hill formed of broken rocks, at the foot
of the higher mountains. The ground we first
crossed was rather swampy, but was not a
morass, and progress was rendered easy by
reason of the mosses and other plants. There
is but little similarity between the valleys of
Bell Sound and those of Ice Fjord. In the
latter, one frequently sinks to the knees in thick

120 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

mud composed of saturated clay, while here
shale rendered the ground fairly hard.

We scaled a rock to examine through our
binoculars the valley extending before us, and
very quickly we detected a reindeer lying in the
snow less than a thousand yards away. Its
back was turned towards me, but as it occu-
pied a small platform, the approach presented
difficulties. It would not have been difficult to
approach from the bottom of the valley, but we
were easily seen from our elevated position. I
hid myself behind a rock to wait until the
animal changed its position, and rendered
approach less difficult. It was truly most
obliging ! After waiting a few minutes, I saw
it slowly rise and vanish into a small ravine near
the platform. Leaving Rachlew and the men
behind, and accompanied by Swensen, I ran as
fast as possible for a second boulder, behind
which we would be unobserved. I softly stole
forward to the place where the reindeer had dis-
appeared. To my great delight, I saw the tips of
its horns appear above the sides of the ravine,
and, exploring still further, I discovered that
instead of one, there were two reindeer lying
on the slope of the ravine. I approached within
fifty yards of them without attracting their
attention, and achieved the double coup. One

REINDEER 121

was a male of two or three years, the other a
female. The day had indeed commenced well !

The men cleaned the animals well, washing
the interior with snow, and using some shed
antlers, of which there was quite a quantity
in the valley, to keep the sides apart.

As we were already far from the ship, and it
was necessary to send two sailors back with the
carcasses, I decided to lunch first in a well-
sheltered and sunny spot on the bank of a
stream of excellent water. I quickly heated
the conserves and two bowls of excellent beef.
As we had, besides, warm coffee and rum in our
bottles, we lunched splendidly. After a pipe,
I sent the two men back to the ship with the
reindeer, and pushed my way up the valley.

We discovered plenty of fresh tracks in a
narrow gulley, but after having covered several
miles we arrived in sight of the suspended
glacier without having encountered any living
thing. Other hunters must have been before us,
for we found recent traces of shot deer. We
agreed that it was useless to go farther. We
re-entered the principal valley after crossing a
deep and rapid stream and clambering over
boulders. Almost at once we found on the
slopes new traces of two deer, a female and a
fawn.

122 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

Following the tracks, we soon came upon the
animals feeding high up the mountain side.
How to approach them was the question. The
ground was quite open, presenting no cover.
After consideration, I left Rachlew and the
sailor hidden in the ravine, while Swensen and
myself redescended and followed the course
of the torrent until we gained the level of the
two reindeer. I halted there and sent Swensen
higher up the mountain side to turn back the
animals in case they took to flight. These
arrangements rendered escape impossible. When
I judged that the Captain had arrived at his
post, I commenced to wade a small muddy
stream which flowed from the plateau on which
the animals were feeding. I could only advance
when the deer turned their backs to me, and had
to crouch low when they came grazing in my
direction. Despite all my precautions, the
mother very soon became uneasy. (Female
deer, when in young, are always more easily
alarmed than an isolated one or a male or female
together.) It is probable that the wind carried
them a danger signal ; at any rate they began
to run away to the right of me. They did not
go far. They saw the Captain and came back
at their topmost speed. I had hoped that they
would descend into the valley, and so enable

REINDEER 123

me to get a shot at a fair range. They breasted
the mountain side, however, leaping the shale
heaps. I was therefore compelled to risk a
long shot, otherwise they would have escaped, as
the direction they took was not guarded. I
sighted for three hundred yards, and saw that
my bullet raised a small cloud of dust short of
them. This served but to hasten their flight.
Sighting higher and farther ahead of them
because of their speed and the distance, I tried
a second shot, and had the good fortune to
bring down the mother, who rolled down the
slope, whilst the fawn continued its flight. It
fell to my fourth bullet, my other three shots
having only grazed it. It is indeed difficult
to bring down an animal of the size of a fawn,
when running, at a distance of more than five
hundred yards. I cleaned the animals myself
while waiting the appearance of my companions,
who were tardy. The noise of the torrent had
prevented the Captain from hearing my shots.
His astonishment at finding me sitting beside the
two already cleaned deer was almost ludicrous.
As only one man now remained with us,
old Hermann, we sent him back to the ship with
the female deer, and instructed him to send
another man after us. We divided the ammuni-
tion, knapsacks and cameras, and then, leaving

124 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

the fawn behind us, we remounted the valley
towards the interior. After a time we reached
a point from which we could inspect the whole
land as far as the spot where the river left the
snow-covered summits of the inland ice. The
northern slopes were well covered with herbage,
but there were no signs of pasturing reindeer.
We therefore returned to the spot where we
had left the fawn, and had a snack while waiting
for the sailors now climbing towards us. On
their arrival, I redistributed the packages and
sent one man back with the fawn. Accom-
panied by the other two sailors, we again pushed
onwards to a high plateau on which Swensen
had that morning seen a reindeer. It was
necessary to cross the river, which was extremely
wide and rapid, to reach the spot. Fortunately,
we discovered a snow bridge and soon were scaling
very steep slopes on which were many blackened
reindeer skulls. Swensen surmised that these
were the remains of a hunting expedition. He
assured me that in former times he had shot
from one hundred and fifty to two hundred
reindeer on each of his expeditions to Lowe
Sound. This reveals how rapidly deer have
died out, even in this relatively unfrequented
region of western Spitzbergen. We arrived
at length at the foot of a cliff which towered

REINDEER 125

almost five hundred feet above the Great
Moraine. The view was magnificent. Before
us extended the fjord, closed on the west by
the dark shore of Axel Island, which bars the
entrance to Lowe Sound, and which must have
been the earliest moraine of the huge glacier,
whose bed, once upon a time, was this same
fjord now filled with water. Surrounded by
its circle of mountains was the 'glacier of Micael
Rinders Bay, and at our feet, like a map in
relief, lay the far-extending range enclosing
Braganga Bay, displaying small, still lakes amid
rounded clay mounds and ice-covered flints.
The channel in which we had anchored the
preceding day connected Braganga Bay with
Lowe Sound. A rare and stunted plant grew
on the high plateau on which we stood, and
after a time we discovered a reindeer feeding
between the rocks. We could only approach
it by passing around behind the crest of the
cliff. It was a dangerous and tiresome journey
over treacherous shale which slipped beneath
our feet. Each step had to be considered. To
ascertain the exact position of the animal
Swensen raised his head above the cliff crest,
and found himself nose to muzzle with a big
reindeer which had come up to us with a trot.
We had not seen it, but it had scented us, and in

126 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

turn had trotted up to investigate. I had barely
time to sight my rifle before it was away again,
fleet as the wind ; I brought it down in full
course.

Another which appeared in the distance had
apparently not heard my shot. I left Hans in
charge of the dead deer and stalked the other
on hands and knees. The glasses told me it
was a young fawn. It was both wild and timid,
and fled whilst I was still a good distance from it.
I was obliged to fire at four hundred yards, and
broke its shoulder. It was no longer able to
run, but it continued to limp forward. This
permitted me to overtake it and photograph it
before making an end of it.

Swensen was much elated at the day's
sport, and still eager for further stalking ; but
we saw nothing more than stercoraires and gulls,
which circled about us, waiting for us to dis-
embowel the deer and give them a meal ready
prepared. We now had a sufficient supply of
fresh meat. As it was becoming late, I decided
to return at once to the Belgica, lying far below
our feet in a lake of polished silver. So pure
is the air in these regions that I was able with
the binoculars to recognise in the crow's-nest
Joe, who had followed the fortunes of the hunt
through a telescope. Wrapped up as he was

REINDEER 127

in his furs, he appeared more like a fledgling in
its nest than anything else. We descended to
the river through a superb evening. We were
compelled to follow the torrent for some distance,
because it was too deep for wading and too
swift for swimming. We decided not to cross
until we came to the delta. Even there the
water reached half way up the thigh, and we
were compelled to battle with a strong current ; but
all being used to this kind of exercise we regained
the other shore in safety, where a boat awaited
us. It was 8.30 P.M. when we returned aboard.
We had been absent twelve and a half hours,
out of which we had only rested for three-
quarters of an hour to lunch, make observations,
and clean the deer. We dined with tremendous
appetites. Wearied as I was, I retired early
after a day which would have satisfied Saint
Hubert himself in those days before he renounced
stag-hunting.

THE WALRUS

THE best of all trophies a hunter can bring
back with him from an Arctic expedition is
a walrus head. The possession of a fine bear
skin may, indeed, be more desirable, but from
the sportsman point of view the walrus is the
true sporting animal of the North.

Lamont, who cruised the western seas of
Spitzbergen from 1860 to 1865, when walruses
were still very numerous, has given us glowing
descriptions of the sport.

Unlike the seal, the walrus does not inhabit
the ice-fields. It rarely leaves the coasts, and
is to be found in shallow water from which it
can easily gain the land to search [for the
molluscs which represent its natural food.
It sleeps or rests either on the sand or on a
floating ice splinter, and it is during this siesta
that its enemies elect to attack it.

Formerly, walrus-hunting was conducted in

two different ways. When a number of the

128

THE WALRUS 129

animals were found sleeping together on a
beach, by no means an infrequent occurrence
towards the end of the summer, men were
cautiously landed, and, taking a position between
the walruses and the sea, they lanced the animals
nearest the water. Those farther inland then
sought to escape, but were impeded by the
bodies of those already killed, and, being un-
able to reach the sea, proved very easy prey.
Thousands and thousands of walruses have
been destroyed in this way. The method
savours rather of crude slaughter, unworthy
of the true sportsman, than of real sport.

Hunting, in the true sense of the word, is
obtained when walruses are encountered on the
ice or swimming. The animal formerly was
first harpooned, then finished with a lance. As
a matter of fact, harpoons are still used ; but
more often than not nowadays the weapon is
fired from a gun, and the harpooned animal
afterwards finished with a rifle shot.

It is almost an impossibility to kill a walrus
with a single shot ; a walrus shot in the water,
without first having been harpooned, is lost
because it sinks instantly. Hence it becomes
necessary, when a walrus is found on ice or in the
water, to harpoon it before firing. Fortunately
for the hunter the animal sleeps heavily, often

130 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

on small splinters of ice which serve to submerge
the hindquarters whilst elevating the head.
To approach it then is not a difficult matter.
On the other hand, it is quite impossible to
approach in the same way the larger species
of seals, for they are always on the qui vive.

Generally, Norwegian whaling boats are
used for hunting the walrus— it is imperative
that only the strongest of boats be used. The
harpooner sits in the bows, having before him
four small casks, in each of which is a harpoon
attached to a carefully coiled line. The wooden
handle of the harpoon is flexible, and the steel
point is only attached to it at the last moment.
As soon as the harpoon has been flung, the boat
backs away to the full length of the line. The
lines are rarely more than one hundred yards
long, because walruses habitually seek shallow
water, and never dive to more than a depth of
a hundred and fifty feet. At that depth the
pressure is too great to permit of the animal
capsizing the boat.

Besides harpoons, walrus hunters carry
lances. The steel points of these lances are
light and very sharp, while the handle is made
of pine, shaped conically. These harpoons are
almost as thick as a carriage shaft. The reason
for this disproportion between the handle

THE WALRUS 131

and the steel is that, should the harpoon fall
short of the quarry and into the sea, it will float.

The practice of firing harpoons at the walrus
instead of flinging them by hand is in these
days widely adopted. A dangerously near
approach is rendered unnecessary, and the
possibilities of alarming the animal are reduced
to a minimum. Again, instead of killing the
animal with a lance, there are many who
prefer to shoot it as it swims, dragging the
boat after it.

A single shot suffices to kill the walrus
provided it finds the one vulnerable spot, that
is, just where the head joins the body. It is,
on the other hand, almost impossible to shoot
these animals when they present their face or
sides, their maxillaries being so thick as to be
almost impenetrable.

In the middle of the last century walruses
were still very numerous towards the east of
Spitzbergen. One reads in ' Lamont ' the account
of a slaughter which took place in 1850 at
Thousand Islands. As far as one can gather,
it was no more than a disgusting butchery,
because it occurred towards the end of the
season, when the ice was fast closing. The
hunters were not even able to take with them
the teeth of the eight hundred animals they

K 2

132 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

killed in a few hours. Most of the walruses
were left to rot where they had been killed, and
the inevitable stench which arose must have
tended to keep away other walruses. Nilsen,
an old hunter from Hammerfest, who accom-
panied me on my first expedition to Spitzbergen,
told me that he passed the season following this
massacre on the island, and had killed in one
afternoon twenty-eight bears, which had come
to feed on the bodies of the walruses.

Nowadays the walrus is only found to the
north of Greenland or in the neighbourhood of
Franz Joseph Land. At least, in those two
places only have I met with them, although
throughout all my voyages a keen watch was
kept. During our cruise in the Kara Sea we did
not see one, notwithstanding the fact that there
must be some in this region, just as there are
all along the Siberian coasts.

To find the walrus it is necessary to
enter the ice-fields and risk being ice-bound
throughout the winter. But the capture of
old males, like those I found north of Green-
land, affords sufficiently exciting and impressive
sport to compensate one for fatigues endured
and dangers run. Apropos this, the stories
told me by walrus hunters are not at all grossly
exaggerated, as many people are inclined to

THE WALRUS 133

believe. The fury with which two walruses
attacked our boat off Koldewey Island, when
they were not even harpooned, and the rage
with which the female, one of whose young we
had harpooned in Hamilton Canal, came at
us, first revealed to me the real dangers of this
sport. A furious walrus will upset a boat with
the greatest of ease, provided the men are not
armed with guns and quick to use them, for
with a single blow of its tusks it will smash
the bottom and sink the boat. Numerous indeed
are the walrus hunters who have perished in
this way.

Jackson and Koldewey write of two occasions
when hunters, standing on ice several inches
thick, suddenly saw a walrus smash the ice
beneath their feet in order to get at them, and
when they ran for safety, follow them by
swimming beneath the ice-field, from time to
time smashing the ice with a blow of its head
at places where it hoped to find the men.
Jackson even affirms that he once saw a walrus
fling itself from the water on to the ice to
charge some hunters. I have never heard,
however, of another instance of a walrus landing
to fight. On the contrary, hunters generally
agree that a walrus on the beach or on ice is
almost completely disarmed. Nor have I even

134 HUNTERS "AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

heard of an occasion when a walrus attacked
a man in the water ; but of their readiness to
attack a boat, and the fury with which they
seek to sink it, I have been witness.

My first encounter with a walrus was off the
coast of Greenland in the month of August
1905, when ice pressure compelled Commander
de Gerlache to shelter the Belgica behind Cape
Arends, on the southern extremity of Kolde-
wey Island. Whilst awaiting more favourable
weather, I took advantage of the delay to land
and explore a plateau which the Germans had
missed, and which we were the first to describe.
After having explored the long terrace formed
of pebbles, shingle, fragments of quartz and
mica, and strewn blocks of granite, we turned
to re-embark. At that moment we saw in the
water near the beach two large walruses, who
were diving and reappearing from time to time
to breathe. Large red-beaked gulls circled
in the air above the little bay, in which we
occasionally caught a glimpse of the great
bodies or black muzzles of the two animals.
Jumping into our boat, we returned aboard with
all speed, because we were carrying no harpoons,
and the men affirmed that the walruses were
two old males, who would most surely attack
us. In the bows of the largest boat I placed all

THE WALRUS 135

the necessary paraphernalia, took a rifle, and,
accompanied by Recamier and four men, set off
instantly. Quartermaster Andreassen was in
charge of the harpoon, Ottersen was at the
helm, while Hans and Julius were at the oars.
I went forward, Recamier remaining aft to
shoot the animals if they came to the surface
astern. Arranged in this fashion, we quickly
arrived at the spot where we had sighted the
walruses, and very soon I had the pleasure of
seeing the head of one of them appear above the
surface. It dived again almost instantly, and
we rowed for the place where it had disappeared.
It again reappeared, but this time quite out of
range. We altered our course, and a few minutes
later a walrus appeared and commenced swim-
ming towards us. I sighted the harpoon gun
and fired. I missed ! The harpoon tore open
the back of the animal, no more. The walrus
dived swiftly, sending the water to a great height.
In despair I turned to Recamier, believing that
all chances of a capture were spoiled. Hardly
had I turned my back before there sounded a
great splashing a few yards ahead, and both
walruses came into view. They raised them-
selves high in the water. Both were facing
us, breathing heavily. Their ivory tusks and
white moustaches contrasted curiously with

136 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

their black muzzles. Perceiving our boat, they
swam straight for us. All this, of course, only
occupied a few seconds, during which I had
seized my rifle, while one of the sailors sought to
bring the harpoon aboard. It had sunk and
become fastened to the sea bottom, thus
forming a grapnel which prevented us moving.
I aimed for the neck of the larger walrus,
and fired. A flood of blood dyed the water ;
the two animals dived with a great splash.
Shortly afterwards they reappeared quite close
to the boat ; but now the wounded one supported
itself on the shoulder of its companion. The
two animals were furious. Ottersen, standing in
the stern, contrived always to keep the boat's
bows towards them. Now commenced the
real battle between the walruses and ourselves.
At four yards I opened fire, aiming at their
heads. They dived, reappeared farther off,
and again came for us. The blood-stained water
was flung high as they furiously beat their way
through it. Yet once more they disappeared,
this time to reappear astern. I shouted to
Recamier to shoot ; we both fired at the same
moment. Recamier's bullet found the neck of
one ; mine penetrated, via the nostrils, the
brain of the other. Agonised convulsions seized
them both. My cartridges being exhausted,

THE WALRUS 137

I seized the doctor's rifle, reopened fire, and
completed the business. Everything grew calm
again ; the sea became tranquil and smooth
as a mirror. We waited anxiously to see the
walruses reappear, but they had sunk. My
intense disappointment may easily be imagined.
The thought that those two superb animals were
at the bottom of the sea, and that I might never
encounter another walrus, was maddening.

A few bubbles of air came to the surface and
burst. Two strokes of the oars and we were over
the spot. Peering into the water we discovered
that we were able to see the bottom of the sea,
and, what was more, a grey mass and two white
tusks. It was one of the walruses lying in
about eighteen feet of water. Quickly I took
the land bearings, because a strong current was
causing us to drift, and, regaining the spot, I
constructed a grapnel of the harpoon. Ottersen
then fastened two harpoons together, weighted
them with a piece of iron, and flung them at
the body with all his strength. The harpoon
struck, the line held, and, hauling little by little,
we finally brought the walrus to the surface,
where it floated astern of the boat. Having
hauled the animal to the shallow water near the
shore, we fastened a rope about its head and
fins, and then, the six of us landing, hauled on this

138 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

cable and sought to get the carcass on to the ice.
Failure rewarded our efforts ; six of us as we
were, we could do no more than drag the head
and neck on to the ice. We fastened the end of
the rope to a broken oar and jammed it into
a crevasse. I then signalled the ship, and shortly
afterwards another boat came towards us in
which were de Gerlache, Koefoed, Merite, and
three French sailors. Reinforced as we were by
the new arrivals, it was still as much as we
could do to haul the animal on to the ice. It
was an enormous and splendid specimen. Its
huge rounded body was covered with cicatrices
caused by the ice or gained in battles. Its neck
was disproportionately large ; its head so small
that it seemed to be attached directly to the
body. The black muzzle was covered with
white bristles as stiff as those of a porcupine.
Its long, strong tusks measured twenty-six
inches in length, and were two inches in diameter,
The eyes were so small as to be almost imper-
ceptible. The mouth was closed, and the
nostrils, now closed also, were in shape exactly
like a fleur-de-lis. Lying stretched to its full
length, and flaccid as it was, the animal appeared
hideous, bearing little resemblance to the superb
beast which had, a short time since, come
thrashing majestically through the water towards

cc
O

THE WALRUS 139

our boat, with nostrils dilated, flinging high
into the air a cloud of blood-tinged spray. At
that moment it had indeed been king of its
element. With its white tusks, its black muzzle,
and almost its whole body out of water, it had
seemed like a charging hippopotamus ; stretched
now on the ice, it was no more than a mass of
flabby flesh of no precise shape.

It measured about thirteen feet six inches
long, and rather more than ten feet around the
thickest part of the body. I was proud of our
achievement !

Meanwhile, the sailors had discovered the
body of the second walrus lying on the sea
bottom. We harpooned it, and with the aid
of tackle brought from the ship we hauled it
on to the ice more easily than we had the first
one. This also was a large male, whose tusks,
shorter than those of the other, were, however,
stronger. Brief as was the interval it had been
in the water since death, it was already covered
with minute shell-fish. From its nostrils blood
still streamed, for this was the one I had shot
full face. As regards the first, the bullet had
entered its mouth, smashed its palate at the
moment when it was charging, and penetrated
the brain. The sailors skinned the walruses
and I returned aboard with my trophies, quite

140 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

forgetful of our precarious situation, and thinking
only of our success. By extreme good fortune
neither of my bullets had touched the tusks,
which were quite intact. I have never since
fired full face at a walrus unless circumstances
compelled me to.

Lamont tells us that the most vulnerable
part of a walrus is the third fold of the neck.
A bullet entering there smashes the base of the
skull. The anterior part, which seems to belong
to the head, is in reality flesh which is covered
by hard skin.

Even with the most up-to-date rifle, it is
almost impossible to kill a walrus with a single
shot when face to face. The shock of a bullet
striking the large maxillary bones is sufficient
to arrest it, but to kill, the bullet must enter
the mouth, penetrate the palate, and so reach
the brain.

During our cruise in the Kara Sea we did
not sight a single walrus or, as far as that goes,
any living thing. But during my voyage of
1909 I more than once encountered walruses
on the Greenland ice-field, as well as in the
Hamilton Canal and at Franz Joseph Land.
On two occasions, at least, the sport was
exciting

We had left the Clipper Roads on July 22,

THE WALRUS 141

and were coasting Pendulum Island through
a large ice-free canal. The beauty of the coast
had kept us on deck until midnight, and I
was just retiring when Commander de Gerlache
warned me that a walrus was in sight. The
Belgica stopped, and I mounted the bridge
in less time than it takes to write these words.
From the bridge I saw to the larboard a small
ice splinter, floating in the middle of the blue sea.
There was something very strange about this
ice splinter — a brown undefinable mass sur-
mounted it ; it resembled more than anything
else an inflated gas-bag. Beneath the weight
of it the ice splinter almost sank. The effect
was curious ; it led one to think that here was
some antediluvian monster. As a matter of
fact, it could have been nothing but an enormous
walrus.

I had long desired to see a walrus harpooned
by hand, so I had a small boat lowered and
embarked with my Mannlicher repeating rifle.
Captain Swensen took the oars. He was to
play the part of harpooner. In low voices we
discussed circumstances and arranged our plan
of attack. We decided to try and approach
our quarry from behind without awaking it.
To do this we were compelled to break our way
through young ice which had already formed

142 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

around the ice splinter, and which cracked and
scrunched as we advanced. Provided we
could approach the animal sufficiently closely,
Swensen was to fling the harpoon, and as soon
as the animal raised its head I was to ike,
aiming for the third skin fold of the neck. If,
on the other hand, the walrus took alarm, a by
no means improbable contingency, considering
all circumstances, I was to fire as soon as an
opportunity afforded. Finally, if it escaped
into the sea, Swensen was to attempt to har-
poon it as soon as it came to the surface.

I must point out that a harpoon is not a
weapon for dealing death. Its object is to
attach the animal until it has been killed, and
then to support the carcass, which otherwise
would sink immediately. It is, therefore, impera-
tive that a walrus should be harpooned before
being killed. My experience four years earlier
at Cape Arends (I have already related the
incident), when we had the greatest difficulty
in recovering the bodies of two walruses I shot
without having first harpooned them, established
this. Had the water on that occasion been
deeper, the walruses would have been lost.
More experienced now, I desired to avoid
similar accidents.

As we neared the ice splinter we were able

THE WALRUS 143

to distinguish more clearly the mass of flesh
and fat extended upon it. The animal was
indeed very large, and was so flaccid in one part
that it bulged and sagged into the sea. Looking
at it from behind, it appeared more than ever
like a half-inflated balloon. Suddenly I per-
ceived a white form above the motionless
animal ; at first I took it to be a gull perched
upon the body in the same way as birds perch
upon cattle in the East. Very quickly, how-
ever, I discovered that it was a tusk of the
walrus, whose head was turned towards the
sky.

The bow of our boat smashed through the
thin ice, but we approached so cautiously that
we did not disturb the slumber of our prey.
With the bows of our boat almost touching the
hinder parts of the animal, I photographed
it and seized my rifle, while the Captain
balanced himself and made ready to hurl the
harpoon. Two swift strokes of the oars brought
us right up to the animal, and Swensen planted
the harpoon deep into its back. A terrible
roar escaped it at this unexpected attack ;
it was a cry of fury and astonishment rather
than of fear, and suddenly, towering above my
head, appeared the white face of the infuriated
beast. It possessed only one tusk ; its mouth

144 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

yawned wide open ; its moustaches bristled.
Widely dilated nostrils formed two black gaps
in the whiteness of its face. Its eyes, although
in reality very small, now appeared very large,
distended as they were with rage. It had
elevated itself on its two front fins, and conse-
quently dominated our boat. I sighted for the
neck and fired. A jet of blood spurted into
the air. The shock of the bullet stunned the
beast. It flung itself backwards, supporting
itself with its left fin, madly beating the air
with its right. Very quickly it recovered
itself, and struggled to turn about and dash at
us. This movement displayed its hindquarters ;
Swensen instantly hurled his harpoon, the
handle of which struck me in the face. Mani-
festly we were too close to our quarry. Swensen,
fearing that the animal would slip off the ice
and wreck our boat, backed water a little.
Losing no time, I emptied the contents of my
rifle into its head, and again it fell backwards.
The heat of the animal's body had so hollowed
the little floe that it seemed like a cradle.
As it was covered with excrement, it was
evident the animal had occupied it for some
time.

The walrus was now extended to its full
length, and to me seemed to be quite motionless ;

THE WALRUS 145

but the Captain, busy with the harpoon line,
affirmed that it still lived. I therefore
recharged my rifle and fired. As though to
confirm the Captain's words, the walrus writhed
a little, and finally slid into the sea on the farther
side of the splinter. After that it moved no
more, but remained floating in the middle of a
lake of blood.

In order to facilitate the skinning, we towed
it to a second floe slightly larger than the one
it had occupied. To hoist it on to the ice,
however, necessitated the use of some of the
ship's tackle, for which I accordingly despatched
the boat.

Eight men, with running gear, found it no
easy matter to draw that enormous mass of
flesh on to the ice. A rope was made fast to its
head, a second to its anterior fins. One of the
ropes was anchored to the ice and the other was
passed through a pulley. In this way, and
after much exertion, the carcass was landed.
The animal proved to be much larger than
those I had shot four years earlier, but, un-
fortunately, it possessed only one tusk. The
other had probably been lost long years
before in the course of one of those terrible
fights which old male walruses wage among
themselves. An enormous cicatrice in its

146 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

back must have been obtained in the same
way.

Having photographed it, I had it skinned,
not after the Norwegian fashion, but in my own
way, as I desired to have it stuffed. The
Norwegian fashion is to cut the skin in two and
strip the hind and forequarters separately.
This renders the operation both easy and
expeditious, but it also renders the preservation
of the skin in its natural form quite impossible.
The skinning recalled to my mind the cutting
up of some huge African pachyderm, for it was
as large as a hippopotamus, which, indeed, a
swimming walrus resembles to a great degree.
I left the men working happily amid the blood
and grease, and returned aboard to resume my
interrupted sleep.

On August 17 in that same year a wish
I had long nursed to visit a walrus island was
satisfied. Franz Joseph Land had afforded
me a splendid day's sport, interesting from
every standpoint, and had rewarded us for the
dangers and the difficulties we had overcome
in penetrating the ice-field which guards that
inhospitable shore. Our arrival was not a
happy one. A dense fog enveloped us, which
had not lifted a moment for fifteen days.
Thick, dangerous-looking ice had threatened to

THE WALRUS 147

strand us off Cape Maurice and, haunted as I
was by the recollections of Tegethof s cruise,
I had on more than one occasion almost ordered
a retreat. Fortunately, we had discovered a
large open bay in the ice-field, which had per-
fhitted us to push northwards, and we had come
to Franz Joseph Land, meeting from time to
time large stranded icebergs, which, indicating
shoals as they do, proved excellent guides.
We steamed cautiously, sounding our way,
conscious of the nearness of the land, but still
unable to see it. Occasionally, in spots where
the mist thinned, we were able to obtain a
vague glimpse of the coast. Our gloom deepened
at sight of the land ! — what abject desolation
to have achieved after enduring so much !
Steeps of snow and ice, rising from the sea
and becoming lost to sight in the mist
which their vibrations kept in motion, were
all that lay before us. Cliffs, formed of
basalt columns, here and there stained the
whiteness of the snow. The land was one of
mysterious and depressing stillness. Depressing
indeed was my first impression of Franz
Joseph Land !

Notwithstanding his long experience of
navigating solely by instinct and calculation,
de Gerlache, who had been unable to take a

L 2

148 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

single observation for fifteen days, was unable
to say at what point in the south-eastern
archipelago we were. A line of cliffs away to
the right, however, appeared to belong to
MacKlintok Island, whilst directly before us
a large glacier, forming the eastern side of the
fjord, argued the proximity of Leigh Smith
Island. As we approached, I observed a phe-
nomenon which I have frequently noted at
Spitzbergen. As far over the sea as eye could
reach, a thick mist hung low, whereas in the
fjords it was high, cutting in two the mountains
and permitting us to see only their bases and
summits. As we entered the fjord we were
able to see quite clearly to the larboard an
immense glacier descending directly from the
snowy canopy which covers Leigh Smith Island,
as well as the other islands in this archipelago.
This glacier sloped right into the sea, presenting
an ice face almost one hundred feet high, which
became more and more vague as it vanished into
the mist to the south-west. Right in front
of us a cliff of black basalt, rising almost a
thousand feet, broke the glacier. As we passed
this cliff we observed streaks of red and yellow
snow— a common phenomenon in these regions,
caused, so it is affirmed, by microscopical
weeds which the excrement of the birds

THE WALRUS 149

nurses to life. We could plainly hear the
calls of the mergules nesting on the summit
of the cliff.

Unexpectedly the mist rose, and there before
us lay Young Sound, closed by an enormous
ridge of bay ice extending from Royal Society
Island to Nansen Island, and forming one
side of the canal we were navigating. As the
sun gradually appeared, kissing to life the world
about us, and sprinkling the ice and snow with
diamonds, the landscape assumed a grand and
majestic character, which, although savage, was
not without charm. My first impression had
been one of awful desolation; now I was im-
pressed by the imposing aspect of this dead
land covered completely with a white shroud,
and I was compensated for having persevered.
I believe that only in this archipelago does
one encounter islands covered completely with
snow descending right into the sea, leaving
only a few spots where basalt may be
seen with a slip of beach formed of rounded
pebbles.

Finding Young Sound barred by bay ice, be-
hind which J eff erson Island was quite inaccessible,
and feeling a stiff breeze arising which promised
a wild night, we agreed, the commander and
myself, that it would be unwise to anchor in

150 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

so unprotected a spot. The course was altered,
therefore, and we entered Hamilton Channel,
a narrow fjord between the north of Nansen
Island and the south of Pritchett Island,
and finally anchored to the west of Pritchett
Island in a sheltered bay between a glacier
and a strip of pebbly beach. We dropped
anchor in fifteen fathoms of water at half-
past ten at night near two large stranded
icebergs, which seemed like buoys in our little
harbour.

The following morning I landed on Pritchett
Island. It is, in fact, the only place where land
is to be encountered hereabouts. Plants and
herbs flourish on the white terrace forming
the south-western extremity of the island. On
our arrival the preceding night I had seen
two stercoraires circling around their nest.
Further, the Captain had pointed out to me
several large duck in a small lagoon some
distance off. I rose early, therefore, and landed
on a shore composed partly of sand, partly of
ice, in the vicinity of one of the stranded ice-
bergs. I observed a rather curious phenomenon
here. From the beach, land ice extended, but
it was beneath the water, exactly as though it
had been fastened to the sea bottom, instead
of floating on the surface as usual. This is due

THE WALRUS 151

to the fact that the sea is frozen right to the
bottom during the winter, its superficies only
melting during the spring.

The cape near which we landed was formed
of large blocks of well-worn basalt, and was of
no great height. Round about, thawing snow
had rendered the earth swampy. In places,
mosses and anemones and, to my great
astonishment, long green grasses flourished in
the clayey soil. I was about to examine this
curious vegetation when Swensen recalled me
to the boat. He informed me that he had just
seen a female walrus and her young swimming
parallel with the coast close to the beach. We
rowed to the spot where the animals had dived,
and waited. Shortly afterwards they reappeared.
They were swimming too rapidly, however, for
us to overtake and harpoon them. I waited
whilst Joe photographed them, and then, taking
advantage of a moment when the head and neck
of the mother were well above the water, I
fired and killed it. She swam onwards for a
few moments, then slowly sank. Although the
men at the oars did their utmost, we came up too
late to harpoon it. The water, we found, was
far too deep to permit of the body being raised.
My annoyance was extreme ; I hate losing
wounded or killed game, and prefer rather to

TIC

152 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARC

go without sport. The incident, however, but
confirmed my former opinion that it is mad-
ness to shoot a walrus before it is harpooned.
The walrus calf continued to swim about us,
but it did not come within range. Had I
shot it, we would undoubtedly have lost it also,
so we returned to the beach and I again
disembarked.

First I visited the lagoon Swensen had
pointed out to me, and there we found three
large Arctic ducks, a father, a mother, and
their youngster still in down. The lagoon was
separated from the sea by a narrow ridge of
large pebbles. On this I took up my position
and sent my companions to drive the birds
towards me. I shot the three, not without
trouble and the expenditure of many cartridges,
for these northern ducks die very hard indeed.
The fact that the duckling was not yet able to
fly had kept the parent birds near it, otherwise
I doubt whether I should have obtained them
at all. The old ones were very beautiful, with
long red necks and slate-coloured plumes. As
regards the duckling, they are very rarely to be
obtained, and this one occasioned Merite great
joy. To him there is no living thing as interest-
ing as a young chicken in down. One may well
ask oneself how these ducklings, in down in the

THE WALRUS 153

month of August, are able to accompany their
parents south towards the end of September.
Truly, the early development of these birds is
remarkable !

Leaving the lagoon, we followed the sea-
shore until we came to large basalt boulders.
From the bridge I had noticed a plank near a
certain rock, and this had aroused my curiosity.
We came duly to the spot and found against
a basalt block three wooden casks, one of which
had been opened. The names on these casks
informed that they contained provisions left
by the Ziegler expedition. The casks had been
cached, but a bear, either famished or curious,
had discovered them and torn one of them open.
The beast's labour was in vain, for the provisions
were contained in metal envelopes. Our atten-
tion was attracted by a large stone surmounted
by two smaller ones, near which was a quantity
of flotsam. Here we discovered seven more
casks buried in the same way in the snow, and
a bottle marked ' Kadia ' lying in a hollow in the
ice. We examined it, and found it to contain
coffee tablets and an envelope. In vain we
tried to extract the envelope, and I was finally
obliged to smash the bottle. The envelope,
green, but very well preserved, was addressed
' To the Finder/ It contained a document

154 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

signed by Baldwin, leader of the American
Ziegler expedition. The following is a copy
of it:

' BALDWIN ZIEGLER, POLAR EXPEDITION.

'Steam Yacht America,

'New York, U.S.A.

•SS. Fritjoff. SS. Belgica.
'On board.

'October loth, 1901.

' After having made an unsuccessful attempt
to return to Norway for reinforcement, we are
now returning to camp Ziegler (West and East,
there being two camps which I have so dis-
tinguished on the South East and South
West coast of Alger Island). Alger Island is
just to the Nord West of M.Clintock Island
and of Brady Island. Matilda Island is South
of West camp Zeigler about half a mile.
Both Alger and Matilda Island lie across the
Northern end of Aberdare Channel. The depot
of Emergency rations and Kato Coffee Tablets
is for our use.

' Signed : EVELYN D. BALDWIN,
' Commanding expedition/

I brought this document, so interesting from
the geographical point of view, away with me.
I cannot refrain from commenting on the naivete
of that last sentence : ' The depot of Emergency
rations and Kato Coffee Tablets is for our use/

We certainly had no intention of touching
them, but I think that an explorer or hunter,

THE WALRUS 155

finding himself at the end of his resources,
would have ignored Captain Baldwin's statement
rather than die of hunger. More particularly
so had he known that the Ziegler expedition
had returned to home waters six years
before !

We continued to follow the coast and came
upon the remains of an encampment. There
were tent-pegs, empty preserve bottles, sticks,
a leather shoe and a pair of felt snow-shoes,
which the bears and foxes that had visited the
spot, as was evident, had neglected. Next we
explored a little prairie lying at the foot of
the high basalt cliffs. We encountered every-
where running streams and vegetation very
prolific considering the latitude. There were
large anemones and various grasses and
mosses.

I saw a snow-rustler leave a hollow in a
rock where doubtless it had its nest. High up
in the basalt cliffs nested thousands of mergules,
whose cries were deafening and who flew in
clouds.

The mist, which had thinned, now permitted
us to see Allen Young Sound lying at our feet,
as still as a lake and affording us a splendid
spectacle. The channel, as far as we could see,
was studded with stranded or floating icebergs

156 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

of enormous size, displaying every conceivable
colour variation. Only once before in the
Greenland ice-fields have I seen so many bergs
detached from a glacier assembled in one place.
A few grey walruses swimming up the Sound,
seen thus from on high, seemed like hippopotami
floating on the surface of the water. The
atmosphere, however, reminded us that we
were in Franz Joseph Land and not in
Africa.

Among the birds flying above or swimming
in the Sound were guillemots, uria grylles,
mergules, and both sea and land gulls. I also
observed two specimens of the dwarf macareux,
which is very rare, and which I have only seen
at Spitzbergen. They were, unfortunately, quite
out of range.

We collected specimens of red and violet
quartz, agate, serpentine, etc., and afterwards
returned to the boat. On the beach was Merite,
sheltering himself from the wind beneath a
large umbrella, and painting, with his usual
conscientiousness, a skua he had killed in its
nest. We returned aboard, where I read the
letter I had discovered, and gave my companions
an account of the morning's occurrences.

A number of Greenland seals swam about the
ship, but I did not disturb them, and we sat

THE WALRUS 157

down to lunch, during the course of which
Captain Swensen saw from the crow's-nest two
walruses climbing on to the ice at the end of
Hamilton Channel.

We had intended to leave this channel and
make for Markham Sound, where walruses, so
it was reported, congregated in great numbers.
However, we decided to follow the animals
we could see, although there were only two of
them, a certainty being better than a mere
probability. The entrance, too, of Markham
Sound might well be ice-bound. So we raised
anchor and sailed between two glaciers towards
the end of the channel, which was barred by bay
ice and encumbered with small floating bergs.
Some distance from the floe occupied by one
of the walruses we stopped the Belgica ; the
whaling boat was lowered, and a harpoon gun
placed in her bows. The Captain and myself
sat in the bows, Rachlew and a sailor took the
oars, and Recamier, whose calmness and sang-
froid I well knew, brought his camera and sat in
the stern next to the helmsman. As we neared
the ice-floe we saw that instead of one walrus
there were two — a mother and its young
one, already well grown. Swensen decided to
try to harpoon the calf, because he deemed
it impossible to approach near enough to use

158 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

a hand harpoon. Provided he succeeded in
harpooning the youngster, the mother would
most certainly not desert it, and we would have
the opportunity of treating her in the same
way. Then, all that would remain would be
for me to shoot the animals.

We arranged all this in lowered voices while
we approached the floe on which the mother and
her calf were peacefully sleeping, side by side,
with their backs towards us. We were about
thirty feet from the animals when they awoke,
and, raising themselves on their fore fins, in-
spected us curiously. Joe and myself seized
this opportunity to photograph them. As they
turned towards the edge of the floe, the calf
leading, Swensen fired the gun. The animals
disappeared in a cloud of smoke and spray, but
I saw the harpoon line run out swiftly, then stop
with a jerk, and we found the boat was being
towed along rapidly. The men hauled on the
line, and the two animals came to the surface
just ahead of us.

The young one, which we had harpooned,
swam with all its strength ; the mother did her
best to help it to escape. Suddenly, however,
she appeared to realise that escape was out of
the question. Thereupon she dived, reappeared
quite close to the boat, and charged at us.

THE WALRUS 159

Recamier succeeded in obtaining a snapshot
which, I believe, is unique. When she came
within range, Swensen plunged a harpoon into
her side. The handle of the harpoon flew
through the air as she dived down again. A
second later we felt her dashing her head or
tusks against the bottom of the boat, endeavour-
ing to sink us. She came to the surface to
breathe right beside the boat. Standing up, I
fired, killing her instantly with a bullet in
the neck.

The calf still tried to escape, but two or three
bullets quickly finished it ; and now we had the
bodies of the two animals floating astern at the
end of the lines. We signalled the Belgica to
come to our assistance, because we found it
impossible to tow these enormous masses of
flesh and fat any distance.

While we waited, we examined the surround-
ing ice through the binoculars. On a floe near
a glacier on the eastern side of the canal I
perceived a very large walrus asleep. Swensen
recharged his gun with a new harpoon. We
spoke the Belgica and passed the lines aboard.
Joe, who had exhausted his supply of films,
gave place to Merite, and we set off for the glacier.
Our new quarry was extremely large, and we
surmisedfthat it was an old male. It lay

160 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

stretched to its full length, its hind fins doubled
beneath its body, its head supported by its long
tusks, the ends of which were buried in the snow.
We were within thirty yards of it before we
perceived there was too much ice to permit
of a closer approach. This compelled us to
back-water and pass directly in front of the
animal at a distance of twenty yards. My
camera being injured, I found time to repair the
damage while we were skirting a band of ice to
enable us to bear down on our prey from the
right. The wind and currents had accumulated
a quantity of ice splinters between us and the
floe. Swensen gave the order to enter this
drift. We contrived to make our way through
it by thrusting it aside or using it to haul
ourselves forward. To me it seemed inex-
plicable that the walrus should not take alarm
at the noise we made, and attempt to escape ;
a seal would most certainly have dived long
before ; but the animal, watching us through
its small eyes, only raised its head for a moment,
and then lowered it again until the tusks once
more supported it. We approached slowly;
smashing through the ice, hauling ourselves
from floe to floe, and making a terrible noise.
Our boat seemed to be crashing its way through
a glass house, yet even when we were twenty

THE WALRUS 161

yards away the walrus did not budge. Finally,
we attained an ice block which partially hid
the beast from us. It was then only ten yards
from the gun. It was, however, impossible to
fire because of the position of our boat. We were
parallel with it instead of having our bows
directed towards it. Swensen gave the word
to back-water, and manoeuvred the boat until
it was in position. During this operation we
created a great fracas directly beneath the
walrus's nose ; it watched us calmly. Only
when we were in position did it raise itself
slowly on its fore fins. The movement exposed
its chest, surmounted by an enormous black
muzzle and two white tusks. It opened its
mouth either to yawn or roar, and I clearly
saw its palate. The gun thundered ; its echoes
were still ringing along the glacier as I obtained
an exposure. The walrus fell backwards, as
though stunned by the shock. The floe on
which it lay broke in two and the body sank.
The harpoon line ran out swiftly before it became
taut, and towed us some twenty yards or so
through the ice splinters. When the walrus
reappeared it was vomiting floods of blood ; it
supported itself by resting its tusks on the edge
of a second floe. After a moment's rest it dived
again, but quickly reappeared, convulsively

i62 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

beating the water, and two shots ended
it. Most remarkable was it that the body did
not sink. Evidently the animal had been so
terribly injured by the harpoon, which had
completely opened its chest, that it had been
unable to fill its lungs with water at the moment
of death, as these animals usually do. The
lungs, having remained filled with air, caused the
animal to float.

It was a magnificent male. We secured it
firmly by the head, and having with some
difficulty negotiated the mass of ice splinters
which had collected around us, we reached
the Belgica, which had followed us. Joe had
feared that the explosion of the gun might
detach some of the large seracs which seemed
ready to fall from a glacier near at hand, and
as on such occasions the resulting wave is
always exceedingly high and powerful, the
Commander had diminished the distance be-
tween us in case of accident.

We now made preparations to hoist the
monster on board, a by no means simple opera-
tion. The two preceding animals had already
caused the crew considerable trouble. The
present carcass was much larger than the others,
and new methods had to be adopted. We
found it necessary to pass the rope to which it

THE WALRUS 163

was attached through one of the foreyard blocks
and raise it by a steam winch. Gradually the
body emerged from the water, and seeing it
then one would have believed it to be a hippo-
potamus whose teeth had grown outwards. It
came over the netting on to the deck, where it
lay a shapeless, flaccid mass of flesh,' weighing
about two tons.

The female that I had shot was, on the other
hand, a splendid specimen, its body being
covered with silvery fur, its head being finer, if
one may use such an expression in connection
with such a hideous muzzle. As regards the
calf, which Swensen estimated to be about two
years old, it weighed three-quarters of a ton,
and its little tusks measured from three to
four inches in length, curving towards the under
lips.

We resumed our course, and as the weather
did not appear altogether promising we decided
to return to our anchorage of the morning and
give the men time to skin our game. I also
intended to build a cairn and place in it the
Ziegler provisions to preserve them from the
bears.

At 6.30 P.M. we again dropped anchor off
the beach near the stranded icebergs. We
dined quickly, and afterwards I dictated a

M 2

164 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

letter to Joe which I signed and enclosed
in a stoppered decanter. The document ran
thus:

Polar Yacht " Belgica.'9

1 The Duke of Orleans, accompanied by a hunt-
ing expedition aboard his Polar Yacht Belgica,
landed on Pritchett Island on the i7th August,
1909, and found in a provision depot a document
placed there by the Ziegler expedition in
October 1901. The provisions have been left
untouched so that they may be utilised in case
of emergency.

' The document referred to has been removed.

' PHILIPPE.

' The prince's companions were : —
' Commander de Gerlache, Dr. Recamier,
Gunnery Lieutenant Rachlew, Captain Frangst-
man Swensen, Edouard Merite (Artist), Louis
Bourjoulet (Servant)/

We landed at the same place as in the morn-
ing. Having made fast the boat, we went towards
the boulder near which I had found the first
casks of provisions. Examination convinced us
that we might not hope to find a more favour-
able spot for our cairn. We gathered together
the scattered casks. Several of them were
sunk deep in the snow and ice, and were freed
only with difficulty. Fortunately, we found some
large beams which Louis used as levers, and

THE WALRUS 165

these rendered our task easier. The casks were
piled against a basalt boulder. We then built
a wall of big stones around them. The top of
the cairn was covered with flotsam after I had
introduced the decanter containing the document
into an empty cask which I covered with two
flat stones. Two floating pine trees were drawn
ashore and erected in the centre of the cairn.
Altogether, the cache was conspicuous and
quite capable of resisting the attacks of bears.
On one of the trunks, which rose high above the
cairn, Swensen carved deeply an arrow pointing
towards the interior, to indicate the direction
in which anyone who found it must search.

Our task finished, we returned, making a
detour to visit the lagoon and search for the
nest of the ducks, which Merite was very eager
to examine. It was easily found at the water's
edge near the spot where I had killed the birds.
Like all ducks* nests, it was built on the shore
in the form of a truncated cone with a very
small entrance hole surmounted by a platform.
The nest was composed of layers of brown and
green mosses fastened one to the other. In fine,
it appeared for all the world like an enormous
cake of leaves.

A strong south-easterly wind had sprung
up, piling the fog into banks and driving the

166 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

ice rapidly up the Sound. This, presaging
no good, left me rather anxious.

We returned on board at half-past ten,
where Merite, oblivious to all things mundane
when his art called, commenced to paint the
female walrus and the young one, the male
having already been skinned. I retired to bed
well content with my day's sport, but not
altogether happy at the weather prospects.
The land about us was not one to inspire
confidence ; in our present position we ran
great risks of being ice-bound in the Sound,
and Swensen, I knew, was particularly anxious
to get away.

My premonitions proved not altogether un-
founded. That night and the two days follow-
ing it were indeed terrible. The wind blew in
squalls with terrific force. Everyone aboard
feared the worst ; the cold was so intense in
my cabin that I shivered even in my bed. The
fog, blown by the wind against the mountain
side, filled the fjord, so that, shrouded as we
were by a dense clinging mist, we had also to
bear the full force of a tempest.

Swensen was very much afraid that the
ice hurried in our direction by the wind would
crush us ; but as it was quite impossible to
retreat in such weather, he slackened the

THE WALRUS 167

anchor cable to make sure of our fastenings, and
we afterwards sat down to await God's good will.

To remain on the bridge was quite impossible.
The keen, searching wind almost cut one in two,
while there was great danger from the enormous
icicles which fell from the rigging, bombard-
ing us continually. The walruses having been
skinned in haste, everyone went below hatches
and we sat down to await events.

Fortunately, one day bears but little resem-
blance to another in the Arctic regions. Changes
succeed each other with extraordinary rapidity ;
consequently, one's outlook on the surrounding
world undergoes modification. After two days
of storm and dense fog, which we passed in
our cabins, August 2oth dawned calm and
fairly clear. For the first time in six days we
caught a glimpse of the sun. On the evening
of the igth the wind commenced to fall little by
little and the fog lifted, and at seven o'clock in
the morning of the 20th we were able to move.
We set off in haste to examine the ice piled
up by the wind, and to discover whether the
entrance to Young Sound was barred or not.
While we were raising anchor, a group of belugas
or white whales surrounded the ship, but the
noise we made frightened them away before we
had time to lower a boat.

168 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

Navigation in Hamilton Channel was easy.
We passed the cairn, which appeared well placed
and very conspicuous In Young Sound the
fog had turned to tain. We were able to
obtain occasional glimpses of the cliffs and
glaciers of McKlintock Island, which facilitated
our progress. There was a large quantity of
floating, wind-smashed ice off Leigh Smith
Island, but it was not very thick and did not
greatly hinder us. When finally we found
ourselves in the open sea, everyone was surprised.
Coasting the ice front of Leigh Smith Island, we
found that the fog had lifted sufficiently to permit
us to admire that land, so imposingly desolate.

Both the ice and the snow appeared that
morning more vividly red and yellow than on
the former occasion ; from time to time huge
seracs fell more than a hundred feet down the
face of the glaciers into the sea with a noise like
the report of a cannon. Fascinated by the
sight, we passed rather too close to a glacier,
sailing between it and a stranded iceberg. The
sailor in the bows taking soundings suddenly
warned us of the peril we ran. We retreated
without loss of time. These colossal icebergs,
stranded as they often are in almost a hundred
feet of water, prove excellent guides as to the
sea bottom, and the ship that always keeps them

THE WALRUS 169

between itself and the coast is certain of being
in a safe channel. Unwise is the navigator who
disregards these natural buoys !

At two o'clock we were off Newton Island, and
set sail to take advantage of a slight breeze
which had sprung up. The weather had cleared,
and it was possible to distinguish clearly the
dome of Hooker Island. Swensen saw a bear
on the ice in Bruyn Straits, and we set our course
towards it. The first bear was joined by
another. They lay side by side, their backs
to the wind, and we surmised that it was a
mother and her cub. The Captain began to
make preparations to cage the cub in case it
was captured, but to me it appeared too fully
grown to risk the lives of men by bringing it on
board alive.

The two animals were sleeping on a small
floe surrounded by broken ice, near an ice free
lake. Proceeding with great caution, we suc-
ceeded in taking up a position between the bears
and the bay ice, and advanced on them without
disturbing them. Soon we were within range,
and still the bears remained unconscious of
their danger. From the bows of the Belgica
I fired, aiming between the female's shoulders.
She rose on her hind legs, swayed a little, then
fell stone dead.

170 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

I fired again, at the cub, which was already
trotting away. It fell into the sea as dead as
its mother. The boat set off to bring back the
bodies of these bears, which brought the number
I had killed during the year up to forty. The
mother, we found, was already very old ; the
cub from eighteen to twenty months.

At eight o'clock Swensen sighted a large blue
seal on a floe off the bay ice. Unfortunately,
the mist had closed down again, and the animal
was rather suspicious. It was one of the largest
seals I have ever seen. Its eyes followed my
every movement as I approached it in the boat.
Its white moustache, bristling, gave it the
appearance of some fantastic monster. When
it showed signs of taking to the water I risked
a long shot. The bullet struck it full in the
chest and sent it on to its back, but did not kill
it. A moment later it turned over and com-
menced to make at its topmost speed for the
sea. A second time I fired, and the bullet,
entering the body just beneath the fin, penetrated
the heart. It fell dead on the outer edge of
the ice. We landed and skinned it. It was a
magnificent specimen, and was the only seal
I have ever killed on the run.

Swensen informed me that he had seen still
another bear on the coast ice, and as soon as

THE WALRUS 171

we were aboard again we sailed towards it.
There was, indeed, a bear, but it was too far in
towards the interior to be approached. Further,
the ice was rotten, so that even if I killed it,
it would have been too dangerous to send men
to bring its carcass to the ship. I therefore
abandoned it.

While watching through the binoculars the
movements of this bear as it ambled slowly
away, I discovered four others. There were
then five bears in sight at the same moment on
the ice in Bruyn Straits ! But there was also a
fog, and large icebergs were rapidly accumulat-
ing between us and the open sea. I there-
fore thought it wiser to gain safety rather
than wait the problematical approach of these
animals.

At eleven o'clock Rachlew gave notice that
he had seen a blue seal on a floe in the fog. As
I was undressed, I told him to go and shoot it.
He was away half an hour. On his return he
told me that he had set out, accompanied by
Merite, in the canoe, and had made his way
towards the supposed seal. It had dived
before he got within range, to reappear alongside
the canoe in the form of — a magnificent walrus !
Rachlew had desired to harpoon it, but the men
cried out to him to shoot, the canoe being too

172 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

fragile to withstand the attack of a walrus, as
well as the blows from the ice. Rachlew,
therefore, fired, and planted a bullet in its neck
at a range of one yard only. The animal sank
like a stone, to the lieutenant's great despair.
Such was our last encounter with a walrus.

During the night we held a rather difficult
course towards Cape Flora, but discovering in
the morning that the ice-field would prevent us
landing, I decided to bear south of the Cape and
return to Norway. Thus our expedition to
Franz Joseph Land ended. We sailed south
without encountering those difficulties from the
ice which had met us on the northward journey,
and arrived safely at Hope Island and finally
at Norway. Rapid as this return was, it was
not without some interest from the standpoint
of natural history.

We were at the end of August. The guille-
mots had commenced their migration, and
during two days, the 26th and 27th, we were
surrounded, as far as the eye could reach, with
couples of these birds swimming towards the
south. Each couple represented a mother and
its young one, swimming apart from the others.
There must have been thousands of them, and
not one swam alone or flew ; the sea was black
with them. I have come to the conclusion

THE WALRUS 173

that the male guillemot returns to Norway in
the autumn, either alone or in flocks, and
probably on the wing, while each mother accom-
panies its young one, still too young to fly, and
swims with it on that long journey from Franz
Joseph Land to the shores of Finland.

SEALS

THE seas of Greenland and Barentz are inhabited
by several species of seals, some of which are
migratory, and are scattered everywhere over
the ice-fields, while others congregate in, and
rarely leave, particular localities.

Besides the vitulina seal, which is found on
the northern coasts as far as Somme Bay, and
in large numbers in the bays of western
Spitzbergen, where it remains in the fjord
before the glacier fronts, I have, in the course
of my Arctic expeditions, hunted the phoca
barbata, and its cousin the b]ue seal, the hooded
seal or Cystophora cristaca, the Greenland
phoca, and finally the foetida seal.

All these seals, except the last one mentioned,
sink instantly when shot while swimming. One
therefore pays them little attention when they
approach to examine the ship curiously, as they
often do.

The best, and, in fact, the only way of
174

SEALS 175

hunting seals is to stalk them when they are on
the ice, and shoot them. The shooting is by
no means easy, considering that more often
than not the hunter must shoot from a whaling
boat, balanced to a greater or lesser degree on a
wave, the animal, too, being more often than
not in motion.

I have never surprised a seal sleeping on
the ice. Whether they be on their backs or
their bellies, in the sun or in the fog, every half
minute they raise their heads to look about them.
They never relax their watchfulness as does the
walrus, which sleeps soundly when alone. I do
not know whether seals sleep in the water ; a
Greenland phoca I kept alive for two months
leads me to think that they do. Be this as it
may, on the ice they never close their eyes for
more than half a minute. They resemble
greatly the over-weary traveller who lets his
head fall on his chest, raises it again a second
later, looks about him, then again falls asleep
for an instant.

Further, these animals, to whatever species
they may belong, rest always on the edge of an
ice hole, their heads overhanging the water in
such a fashion that they can dive at the first
sign of danger. When occupying floating ice,
they lie with their heads almost in the water,

176 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

so close to the edge that often, when the animal
is shot and its head sinks abruptly, the ice gives
way, permitting the body to slip into the sea,
where it is lost for ever to the hunter.

To approach a seal resting in the middle of
an extended ice-field is quite impossible. On
several occasions I have attempted to do so by
crawling on my hands and knees with the most
extreme caution, yet, despite all my experience
of stalking in this fashion, I have only on one
occasion succeeded in bringing down my quarry,
and then it was with a long shot. One can
never get nearer than about one thousand feet,
for the seal either scents the presence of an
enemy or hears the creaking of the ice. The head
of a seal at a thousand feet is a target of which
not even the most skilled shot can be certain.

On the other hand, when a seal is lying on
the edge of a floe, it is possible, in a well-handled
boat, to approach to within about one hundred
feet of it, a distance which renders it quite a
simple matter to plant a bullet either in its neck
or head. If the sun be warm, and the seal has
been so long on the ice that its back is dry,
it waits until the last second before diving. It
is in such circumstances that one's chances of
success are greatest. In the fog, the animals
are even more suspicious than usual.

SEALS 177

A wound, even though it be mortal, even
though the bullet penetrates to the heart, does
not prevent a dying seal from diving. The
bullet must either enter the brain or sever the
spinal column near the neck.

The impossibility of surprising a seal, com-
bined with the difficulty in shooting it, lends
all the charm to this sport which I have found
so fascinating.

Although seals are nervous and very vigilant
when on ice, in the sea they display, on the
contrary, extraordinary confidence, and are
remarkably imprudent. It is a common thing
for them to come quite close to a ship to examine
it. On one occasion in the Ice Fjord, an enormous
serac fell from the Nordenskjold Glacier into
the water with a report like that of an exploded
gun. Even before the waters had resettled,
numerous seals appeared on the surface,
attracted rather than frightened by the noise,
and immediately commenced to swim round the
huge block of ice, inspecting it curiously. There
are few sights more stirring than that fall into
the sea of a mass of ice weighing perhaps several
hundred tons !

In the year 1907, when we were suffering
severely from ice pressure in the Kara Sea, huge
bergs crushing against the ship and almost

178 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

tearing away our helm, I saw near us, between
two bergs, a seal which came to the surface
several times to breathe, at the imminent risk
of being smashed to pieces.

The whole ice-field seemed to tremble.
That which but an hour since had appeared an
extensive white prairie covered with snow and
starred with small lakes, had abruptly become
a chaos of ice blocks, white, green, blue or
yellow, which creaked and crashed and leapt
one on to the other. The floes broke into
large slabs which, forced by the great pressure,
rose perpendicularly into the air and slid one
over the other. All this mass was swept
towards us at great speed ; it was like the
rush of a great river. Fortunately, the floe
against which we lay protected us, and the
swiftly moving bergs passed away astern as
though carried onwards by some rapid torrent.
The bergs, towering high into the sky and sliding
along the ship's sides, threatened each moment
to tear away our helm and screw. Thanks to
Providence, however, we escaped damage, just
as we had done in the Kara Sea, and the fate
of those numberless vessels which have been
crushed under similar circumstances.

The scene was truly terrible. The rapid
movement of these gigantic ice blocks, smashing

SEALS 179

and crushing each other, presented a spectacle
magnificent and terrible, wild and savage. A
mighty force, which no human power could
resist, was moving the world about us.

Notwithstanding this, fifty yards away was
a clear lake guarded by fallen hummocks.
Even when the pressure was at its greatest,
and we on the bridge were watching the moving
bergs most anxiously, I saw a large seal appear
several times on the surface of this lake, to
breathe leisurely and inspect curiously the
surrounding death-dealing chaos.

The incident reveals to what degree these
animals are accustomed to deafening noises and
the convulsions of the ice. But, regardless of
danger as it is, the large seal generally prefers
a more peaceful hunting-ground and rarely
appears near the coast ice, where the large waves
dashing in from the sea smash the ice to
splinters and throw high into the air water-
spouts and foam. They therefore seek the
interior, where the ice floats in calm water
beyond the power of the waves.

Certain species of seals live isolated. Among
these is the barbata seal. Others, such as the
Greenland seal, are gregarious.

The barbata seal, of which I saw a splendid
specimen during my voyage north of Spitsbergen

N 2

i8o HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCT1

in 1909, often grows to a length of from six to
twelve feet, sometimes even more. When it is
in fat, its body becomes cylindrical, giving it the
appearance of an enormous leech. Its head
then almost vanishes from sight. When it is
thin, however, its hind fins are detached,
enabling it to raise the anterior part of its body,
and then it presents a truly imposing aspect.

Of my first meeting with the barbata seal
to the north of Spitzbergen in 1909 I preserve
a splendid trophy.

We had just escaped ice which had im-
prisoned us for eight days in Treuremberg Bay,
and were navigating a channel through an ice-
field towards Outer Norway Island, where the
shipwrecked crew of the Swanen awaited us.
The skipper, Jonas, signalled from the crow's-
nest the appearance of a large seal on a floe
away to the larboard ; we lowered the Norwegian
boat and pulled towards it.

A Norwegian hunting boat has neither helm
nor tiller; the oarsman nearest the stern sits facing
forward and steers the boat with his two oars.

When the boat comes within a certain
distance of the seal, the men ship their oars
and crouch at the bottom, while the steersman
continues to row slowly, and the sportsman in
the bows waits until he is within range.

SEALS 181

We adopted this method in the present
instance and approached almost noiselessly.
Unfortunately, the seal was lying on its side, its
belly and head being turned in our direction.
When we were about forty yards from it, it raised
its head and prepared to dive. Before it could
do so, I fired and planted a bullet into its neck.
It leaped high into the air, then fell back into
the sea, dyeing the water with its blood as it
sank slowly. We waited some time for it
to reappear, but it did not come to the
surface again, and we returned to the Belgica.

Farther on, a second seal was shortly
sighted, and we adopted the same tactics.
This one was very nervous, however, and dived
before we could come within range. After
a disappearance lasting several minutes, its
head reappeared and I fired. Again it dived,
to rise this time right against the side of the
boat. A shot smashed its skull, and Jonas
harpooned it instantly.

To get it into the boat was both a difficult and
dangerous operation, so large was it. It was
so heavy that we ran the risk of being completely
capsized. To balance the boat, we were com-
pelled to sit on the farther side whilst we got it
aboard. Afterwards we pulled to the Belgica,
where it was hoisted on deck and skinned>

i82 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

The seal was a large female, almost six feet in
length, its fat in places being four inches thick.

At ten o'clock at night I observed another
seal on a floe a few hundred yards away.
It appeared monstrous to me, who, flushed as
I was with my recent success, promptly had
the boat lowered, and we pulled silently towards
it. Unluckily for me, it presented its back
towards me. I had to wait patiently until
it turned. This it did after some time, and,
taking advantage of the movement, I planted in
its neck a bullet, which made it spring high into
the air. It fell backwards on to the floe, and
again I fired. For a moment it remained stiff
and motionless, then swiftly it dived into the
sea, to reappear farther away. We could then
see that the front of its head had been blown
away, blinding it. Pulling hard we quickly
came up to it. It dived, and reappeared a
second time still farther away.

Jonas asked me to finish it, so yet once more
I fired, and this time succeeded in killing it.
It sank just at the moment the bow of our boat
touched it, and from my place in the bows I
saw the animal slowly descending to the sea
bottom amid a flood of blood. Jonas, despite
all his efforts, failed to harpoon it before it
vanished into the depths.

SEALS 183

I returned aboard in despair at having lost
this magnificent specimen, fearing I might
never meet with another so large. I vowed
that never again would I fire at a seal unless I
was certain of being able to plant a ball in its
brain whilst it was still on the ice. It was
better a thousand times to permit the animal
to escape than to massacre it uselessly !

A good night's rest, however, consoled me
for my loss ; I had passed several of the most
interesting hours one can imagine in hunt-
ing these seals amid fantastic scenery and
surrounded by a marvellous panorama.

Not a catspaw marked the surface of the sea,
smooth and shining as some large, polished steel
mirror. Immense icebergs, liberated by the
thaw, raised their strange architecture high above
the sea, their columns displaying every con-
ceivable variation of blue against the golden
light of the sun just ascending the horizon.

Between these floating islands of so many
hues and colours we passed, lying at the bottom
of the boat, while Jonas, silently steering, leant
upon his oars astern. The surrounding scene
called to mind a dream Venice of white and
blue marble palaces arising from limpid canals !

Add to this the presence of a marine monster,
seen from the distance stretched on the ice like

184 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

some Egyptian sphinx, its ears tensioned for the
slightest noise, watching the horizon with its
keen, intelligent eyes, ready to dive at the
slightest sign of danger, and you have a picture
of the most fascinating and absorbing of sports.

At half-past ten I had been told that
another seal was in sight. Accompanied by
the doctor, I entered the boat and set our course
for it. The seal presented its back to us, and
we approached quite close. As soon as I
perceived that it was manifesting signs of
inquietude, the oars were shipped and the boat
permitted to drift onwards. At the moment
it turned its head towards us, I fired. The shot
smashed its skull and killed it instantly. Its
head, which had been raised, sank down, blood
streaming from its nostrils. This seal was also
a female, measuring about six feet.

The night was so beautiful that I resolved not
to retire. Had I done so I could not have slept,
to such a degree had this sport bewitched me.

At midnight I was writing, when one of
my men came to inform me that a barbata seal
had been seen away to the larboard on an
ice-field almost a mile long. Losing no time,
we got into the boat and rowed for the animal.
It dived, however, when we arrived in sight of
the spot where it lay. Several small foetida

SEALS 185

seals, impelled by curiosity, came to the surface
around the boat, and I succeeded in killing one
of them. We made a detour of the ice-field to
get out of the wind, and soon saw a large black
mass lying on the snow several hundred yards
away. Having located its position, we lay
down at the bottom of the boat.

I, dressed in white flannel, was in the bows,
and served to mask Jonas, who, in the stern,
pushed us noiselessly onwards, little by little,
with long strokes of his well-greased oars. My
white clothes, surmounting the little blue boat,
gave us the appearance of being one of the
many ice splinters amid which we moved. We
now were able to clearly distinguish a seal. It
was lying on its right side presenting its stomach
towards us. Its head was to our larboard, in
such a position as to render shooting easy as
soon as it moved, but, until it moved, I could not
hope to find a vulnerable spot. For the moment
we could see only its rounded body, on which
its hind fins lay like short, malformed arms. Its
head, flung backwards, seemed like some grey
ball hidden by the body. When we were
within range, it grew restless, turned over on
to its belly, and raised its head. I aimed and
sighted for a vulnerable spot.

Seen as it was at that moment, the animal

186 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

was superb. It had raised itself on its fore
fins and turned its nose to the wind. Its large,
inflated neck resembled that of a bull. The
head now became discernible. One could see
the two long, bristly white moustaches forming
a bar across its black face, in which sparkled
large, rounded eyes surmounted by white brows.
Altogether it was a very different animal from
any I had encountered up to that time, and this
face, to some degree almost fantastic, vividly
impressed itself upon my memory. I perceived,
however, that it was taking alarm, and, seizing
an opportunity when its head was turned to me
in profile, I aimed beneath the ear and fired.
It relaxed like a spring, its head fell on to the
ice ; a shudder passed right through its body.
Two vigorous strokes of the oars brought us
to the ice. Two of the sailors, armed with
boat-hooks, sprang on to it. The seal was not
dead, but only paralysed beyond power of
movement, yet it could still see. Its large eyes
followed every movement of the men as they
approached it ; it seemed to wish to escape
from them. Its gaze was so human in its
intensity that it was impossible to endure it.
A blow of the hook on the muzzle finished
it, and we examined it. It rewarded us
generously for our trouble. It was as long

SEALS 187

as our boat and proportionately large. The
skin was more like that of an otter than of a
seal, so fine was it. There were marks of several
old wounds on the neck, caused, Jonas told me,
by the claws of the white bears which had
attacked it and tried to kill it, in proof of which
there were fresh bear tracks on the snow at our
feet. Whilst we were examining the seal, I
signalled the Belgica to approach, because it
would have been madness to think of towing
the monster or of taking it into our small boat.
The Belgica drew alongside the ice as though it
were a quay. A rope was made fast around the
seal's body, passed through a foreyard block,
and the crew hauled it aboard. Merite watched
the operation, and found that the animal made
an admirable picture suspended as it was
between the mast and the shrouds, the head
hanging on one side. From the artistic point
of view it was a ' discovery/ he affirmed. I did
not share his admiration, however, and, fearing
that the weight of the body might burst the
skin, I had it swung on to the bridge, to our
artist's great despair.

Between two and three o'clock I tried to
stalk several large seals, but circumstances were
not favourable. A swift current ran past the
spot on the ice-field where the seals were

i88 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

congregated, which, grinding the loose ice
together, caused such a fracas that the seals
were constantly on the qui vive. Perceiving
us in the distance, they dived while we were still
far out of range. I tried a very long shot at a
large male just when it was entering the water.
My shot caught it behind the shoulders ; it
sank instantly.

At half-past three, another large seal having
been sighted, I asked Merite to accompany me
so that he might at once learn how fascinating
was the sport and obtain a near study of the
living animal.

In this instance, better conditions favoured
us. We had passed beyond the current, and the
ice was open, permitting us to move swiftly
without touching the floating splinters. Conse-
quently our progress was almost noiseless. The
seal was lying on a small and quite smooth floe.
It was not so large as the last I had shot, nor
was its skin so fine. As soon as we were within
range I aimed at the animal, whilst Jonas
pushed the boat towards it. When it began to
manifest alarm and prepare for a dive, I fired,
aiming behind the ear. Its head fell on to the
snow. Then it made spasmodic movements as
though striving to reach the edge of the ice.
To make certain, I planted two more shots in

SEALS 189

its heart, and it moved no more. Merite, who
had been an interested spectator of the scene,
had obtained photographs of this denouement.
He was sorry that the seal, when first wounded,
had not leapt forward into the sea. The sight
of the dead, still bleeding, animal nauseated
him. For my part, I was only too happy at not
having experienced those sensations which seize
a sportsman when he loses a hard-won quarry ;
in truth, one cannot be artist and sportsman
at the same time !

Our prize caused us considerable satisfaction ;
examination revealed it to be quite as beautiful
a specimen as the female barbata I had shot.
It measured over seven feet in length, while the
male I had shot measured only something over
six feet. There were marks of bears' claws on
this one also.

Again I signalled the Belgica to approach.
The Commander did so, taking every precaution,
for the floe was so small that the slightest shock
from the ship's bow would inevitably have
smashed it to pieces. It was not merely the
fact that we would have been thrown into the
sea that concerned me ; the loss of my seal was
a far greater consideration.

Merite asserted that the loss of the seal
would have been nothing beside the damage

1 90 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

which his photographic lenses would have
suffered. As regards the doctor, neither the
camera nor the seal preoccupied him ; it was
of us only he thought, fearing that an immersion
in the icy water might probably place us in his
hands. So infinite precautions were taken to
range the Belgica alongside the floe, and to hoist
the seal aboard.

We resumed our course. The landscape
was magnificent, varying more and more as we
neared the coast. Each bay was filled with
the ice which locked the shore. We navigated
large lakes like polished silver, whose shores were
formed of ice — blue, white and green. The
mountain peaks and the clouds were faultlessly
reflected as in a mirror. Above us, flights of
guillemots and mergules circled and wheeled,
filling the still, pure air with their laughing cries.

About six o'clock in the morning I again
attempted to approach several seals in Red Bay,
near the Makaroif Glacier, without result ;
they dived too quickly.

In the course of my study of the habits of
seals, I have observed that, during the months
when the Arctic sun does not sink below the
horizon, most northern animals, particularly
seals, sleep during the night hours. I have also
observed that seals almost invariably lie on

SEALS 191

their right sides when on ice. I refer, of course,
to large barbata seals, for the vitulina sleeps
on either side or on its back.

Since that memorable night of 1905, I have
shot barbata seals both in Greenland and Franz
Joseph ice-fields, but nowhere have I ever
encountered these animals congregated in great
numbers.

In the neighbourhood of Greenland the
hooded and blue seals take the place of the
barbata. The blue seal, which to some degree
resembles the barbata, differs only because of
its bluish-grey hair, which becomes grey in
older animals. The barbata is deep brown.
Its moustache also is not so white. Its head
appears darker and smaller, whilst its body
appears like a pudding. Its anterior members
are ridiculously small, seeming little more than
appendices.

The fur of the blue seal is very beautiful
and soft to the touch, but the animal is rather
repugnant owing to its close resemblance to the
leech.

The first of this species I shot was on
July i, 1909.

We were sailing towards Wollaston Foreland,
when two large seals were sighted on floating
ice in the middle of a wide spread of free water.

192 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

We entered the boat and approached cautiously,
because the seal for which we were making was
upon moving ice, towards the centre of a floe,
and near a hole. There was a swell running,
which made rowing difficult. Nevertheless,
we reached the edge of the floe before the seal
moved. At that moment it raised its head and
shoulders to observe us, showing us its small
black face splashed with white bristling mous-
taches. Its head appeared very diminutive
indeed compared with its big body, round as a
pudding.

Waiting until it presented its chest to me,
I shot it between the fins at the base of the
neck. The shot paralysed it ; its head fell on to
the ice. As, however, it still moved a little,
and it lay right at the edge of its hole, I fired a
second time and killed it.

We stepped on to the ice, and for the first
time I had the pleasure of being able to inspect
one of those blue seals of which the Norwegians
had often spoken to me. The animal's fine
skin was blue, very different from that of the
barbata seal which is found to the north of
Spitzbergen. Its head appeared very small,
and was quite out of proportion with its body ;
its moustache was whiter and more silky than
that of the barbata, each hair curling towards

SEALS 193

the end. It measured almost seven feet from
the nose to the tips of its hind fins. I had it
skinned, and was surprised at the quantity of
black blood which escaped from it ; the cold
air caused its stripped muscles to contract as
though it were still alive.

The blue seal shares the ice-field with the
hooded seal. The head of the adult male of
the latter species is hideous, but altogether
it is less repugnant than the blue seal, possessing
at least the form of an animal. This species
is widely scattered over the Greenland ice-fields,
where one finds them singly or in couples, but
never in groups.

Few old males are to be met with. Neverthe-
less, I have killed several, the largest of which
measured almost ten feet, a quite remarkable
length even for these animals. Its skin was
very beautiful, being covered with black and
white spots, but its head, with the glaucous, slit
eyes, was horrible.

The hooded seal is so called because a small
black bladder surmounts its head which, when
the animal is angered, expands and assumes
the shape of a mitre. It is for this reason called
Cystophora cristata. In the male this bladder
is used for defensive purposes, rendering it
impossible for a man to kill the animal with a

194 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

club. Further, when wounded and incapable
of flight, it sometimes becomes dangerous and
inflicts serious bites. When the animal has
been killed, its hood, no longer being inflated,
sags downwards, becoming a limp mass of bkck
and flaccid skin. In fine, it is a nightmare
animal of the sea.

During my expedition of 1909 I did not kill
a single adult hooded seal, but from the deck
of the Belgica, and from the boat, I shot thirty
young ones of this species.

When young, it is attractive rather than
repulsive, its colour being uniformly iron grey,
darkening slightly over the back. Its face is
black, lit up by intelligent eyes, and as yet there
is no sign of the malformation which in the
future is to render it so repulsive. They are
very agile, not at all timid, and when their skin
is dry they wait until the very last moment
before diving.

The ones I killed were about two years old,
and measured from three to four feet in length,
in one or two instances even more. Of all seals,
this one undoubtedly is the most intelligent.

The Greenland seals are to be found in the
Barentz, as well as in the Greenland seas. They
are gregarious, and congregate in great numbers,
sometimes swimming from one region to another,

SEALS 195

sometimes resting on the ice. From the distance
they appear like coffee beans dotted over the
snow, extending away to the horizon. The
females congregate towards the middle of April
on the ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and at
Jan Mayen. Their young, whose skin is at
first quite white, cannot enter the water until
they are fifteen days old. This is the period
when the enemies of the species attack them.

A flotilla of Norwegian and English ships
make for that part of the ice-field where the
young are to be found ; the sailors then land,
and during several days kill the young seals
with clubs.

Such a massacre is repugnant in the extreme,
and, notwithstanding the restrictive laws the
Powers have passed to limit such slaughter,
from three to five hundred thousand seals are
destroyed in this way every spring. As the
female bears only one, or at the best two,
young ones, it is surprising, considering all the
circumstances, that the species has not yet dis-
appeared from the Arctic regions. As a matter
of fact, however, they are still so numerous
that, notwithstanding these periodical heca-
tombs, the Norwegians contrive to shoot even a
still greater number of adult seals during the
summer.

196 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTI

I need hardly say that young seal-hunting
with clubs did not attract me. On one occasion,
however, I encountered a considerable group of
Greenland seals, and I permitted my Norwegians
to kill several of them in order to study their
methods. There were young seals with grey
and black spotted skins, and several groups of
old males, the marks on whose backs resembled
either a saddle or a harp. The English call
these the saddle-back or harp seal.

We were coasting the eastern side of Jan
Mayen Island on June 22, 1909, when the
Captain, from the crow's-nest, sighted ahead an
ice-floe. About midday we encountered the
first ice drifts, and saw several seals in the
water. The ice rapidly thickened, and from
aloft the Captain announced the presence of a
large group of seals amid the floes. I entered
a boat and prepared for sport. We quickly
arrived at the spot where the seals were as-
sembled ; there were thousands of them scattered
everywhere over the ice in groups more or less
numerous. Two or three young ones were to
be seen on each of the smaller floes, while on
the larger ones were hundreds of old Greenland
seals, easily recognised because of their black
heads, their white bodies, marked on the back
with a ' V,' the point of which divided the head.

SEALS 197

The young ones were not at all timid, and
permitted themselves to be slaughtered without
seeking to escape. The old ones, on the other
hand, were not to be approached, and dived
into the sea as soon as they saw our boat in the
distance.

We commenced with the young. I installed
myself in the bows of the boat, sitting at the
bottom between my two rifles, my head just
above the gunwale. Joe hid himself in the
stern with his camera ; Swensen and two men
were at the oars.

On the first floe we found three young seals,
who stared at us with their round eyes, but made
no attempt to move. Nevertheless, as a pre-
caution, everyone hid at the bottom of the
boat, except a man noiselessly rowing and
steering. When we came within range I fired,
killing one of them instantly. The others
raised their heads at the noise and looked from
one side to the other without making any attempt
to save themselves by diving.

I shot them one after the other.

If the hunter is a good marksman, and
succeeds in killing the first animal with his
first shot, the other seals on the same ice do
not take alarm, and, seeing their companion
motionless, do not take to flight. But if the

i98 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

wounded seal becomes convulsed, or falls into
the sea, they all dive in a second.

My third seal shot, the Captain and old
Hermann stepped on to the ice, dealt each seal
a blow on the head with the boat-hook to make
death certain, skinned them, and removed the
grease, leaving only the carcasses, together with
the heads and fins.

The skins we soaked in the sea to wash away
as much blood as possible, and afterwards flung
them into the boat. The men re-embarked, and
we made for another floe where the same thing
occurred.

It takes from one to two minutes, according
to the skill of the man and the size of the animal,
to skin a seal.

We continued going from floe to floe whilst
seals remained. It was massacre rather than
sport. At the same time, shooting was difficult
because a fresh breeze was blowing. We were
amid loose ice ; the boat bumped and rolled
constantly, while the surface swell caused
the floes the seals occupied to rise and fall
constantly. As a result, it befell more than
once that I only wounded a seal, which dived,
dyeing the water with its blood. Whenever
this occurred, flocks of petrels settled instantly
to drink the blood. These birds followed us

SEALS 199

like vultures after a time. As soon as a seal
was killed, they clustered on the body, and it
was necessary to drive them away before we
could skin the animal. As soon as that opera-
tion was ended, the birds commenced to fight
over the remains.

The petrels still escorted us when we returned
aboard, and Rachlew captured several of them
with a hand net. We placed them on the
bridge, from which they could not escape, there
being insufficient space for them to spring.
Not that they desired to escape ! For as soon
as they saw the skins they flung themselves
upon them and commenced feeding.

From this little expedition I brought back
thirty-five skins.

Unfortunately, I had lost several animals,
old males for the most part, which I had been
compelled to fire at from a great distance.
It is extremely difficult to kill an old male with
a single shot, even when within quite easy range.

We took some tea, and then set out again, to
the delight of the sailors, whose wages would be
augmented by the price obtained for the seal
grease. Even before leaving the deck, I shot
five more seals that came to inspect the ship.

This second expedition also proved very
successful.

200 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

The sun, bursting through the clouds, shone
obliquely on the ice blocks, which, worn by
the sea, were both curiously and picturesquely
shaped. Some were flat, others rose in columns
reminding one of some temple of the Egyptians
or the Dolmans, forming indigo blue caverns
where the sea was open.

Little by little the Beerenberg cleared,
and for several minutes we were able to admire
that snow-capped giant towering high above us,
seeming to rise from the sea like an enormous
ice sugar-loaf.

At eight o'clock I returned aboard with
forty-six skins, among which were several very
fine specimens of old males. The following
morning at nine o'clock more seals were sighted,
and I embarked, accompanied by Rachlew,
determined on the present occasion strictly
to limit the slaughter. The sea being J very
rough and the wind very penetrating, shooting
was difficult, but, from a sportsman's point of
view, interesting.

I commenced by killing several young ones,
then we came to the larger floes on which were
hundreds of old males, stretching and scratching
themselves, rolling and roaring, twisting about
in every possible way.

Through the binoculars I studied them at

SEALS 201

play and watched them diving into the water,
then remounting the ice by gripping it with their
fore fins, which are veritable fur-gloved hands,
having very sharp nails, however.

As soon as we approached, they dived.
They swam in a line, all diving and reappear-
ing at the same moment, elevating half their
bodies above the water.

On one floe, from which we drove a numerous
band of these old males, we beheld a dark,
motionless mass.

The men said it was a dead seal, but having
just seen it surrounded by others, and well
knowing how rarely seals will remain near a
corpse, I disagreed with them and determined
to examine it closely.

Passing near the animal, which was lying
on its side as though asleep, I observed that one
of its fins moved. I decided, as it manifestly
was not dead, to capture it alive.

The men persisted in saying, however, that
that would be impossible. Rachlew proved
them wrong by stepping on to the ice and
running right up to the seal.

The animal awoke, and attempted to escape,
but Rachlew barred the way with his ice-pick, and
the seal remained quiet, drawing its head between
its shoulders, crouching as if awaiting a blow.

202 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTK

Two of the men seized its hind fins and flung
it into the bottom of the boat, where it remained
motionless.

Whether it was asleep, or too old or too fat,
I do not know, but it is the one and only occasion
I saw a seal wait for a man to approach it. It
was a living lesson for those that had escaped,
showing how idleness and obesity render self-
defence impossible.

Having killed six large males, I returned
aboard, and we resumed our north-westerly course.

The ice was rather fast, and threatened to
become still more so, so we steamed through
the open canals at full speed. From time to
time snow fell and the cold was intense.

The seal which I had just captured, and
which had been flung aboard without ceremony,
suddenly became animated and began to assert
itself in a manner not at all pleasant. It
successively charged every man aboard, snap-
ping at our calves and boots. A general sauve qui
peut ensued. Nevertheless, we were rather
pleased at being able to study intimately the
supple and powerful motions of this animal,
which a few minutes before had seemed like
nothing so much as a large pudding.

Merite was jubilant, and photographed it
from all points. As regards Recamier, who had

SEALS 203

intended to examine the intestinal parasites of
the seal, he was so overcome and sickened by
the vile-smelling excrement of our new pen-
sioner that he abandoned the idea. In the
name of hygiene, he commanded that the deck
should be instantly soused with water.

So ended my day's sport.

We preserved the captured seal aboard for
two months. It was confined, in the first place,
in one of the iron-plated casks destined for
pickling skins. Then, when it became more
used to us, we let it roam the deck. It became
quite familiar, following the cook or my valet,
Louis, who fed it like a dog.

Being unable to supply it with fresh fish, we
gave it seal and bear fat, salt cod, and later, at
Spitzbergen, the bodies oi young guillemots,
which it gulped down whole. This food could
not have agreed with it, although it took it
readily enough, for, despite all our care, it
grew thinner and thinner. As its fat decreased
it took a chill, and finally died before our return
to Europe.

If our return had occupied no more than a
month or six weeks, we could have brought it
back alive and in good health, because it only
began to grow thin and display signs of suffering
during the last week.

204 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC

Each morning the men turned the hoses
upon it when washing the deck. Curiously
enough this sousing, instead of pleasing it as
I had thought it would, made it absolutely
furious.

During our imprisonment amid the ice in
the Kara Sea we had another seal as pet,
but this one was never brought aboard.

When the thaw opened a hole in the ice for
the ship, a small vetulina seal appeared regularly
to inspect us. It remained for long intervals
with its head above the water not ten yards from
us, curiously inspecting the Belgica, and mani-
festing no fear of us when, leaning over the
taffrail, we welcomed it. Because it displayed
no fear we did it no harm.

Let us hope that the confidence in man-
kind it probably acquired from the experience
of those few weeks' familiarity with us, never
led it to approach the neighbourhood of a seal
fisher !

THE END

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