SPORTING ADVENTURES AT SPITZBERGEN.*

MR. LAMONT, of Knockdow, Argyleshire, satisfied himself on the occasion of an incidental trip made to Spitzbergen, in his yacht Ginevra, in August, 1858, that there was wonderful sport, and that of a most original description, to be obtained there by any one who would go at the proper season, with a suitably equipped vessel and proper boats, manned by a crew of men accustomed to the ice and to the pursuit of the walrus and seal.

Full of these impressions, to which he adds dignity by saying that there were some geological evidences of gradual upheaval in these remote and wintry islands to lend support to his friend Sir Charles Lyell's theories, Mr. Lamont proceeded in the spring of 1859 to make those preparations which will show us what was a properly equipped vessel, where a crew accustomed to the pursuit of the walrus was to be found, what was the proper season, and what the wonderful sport to be obtained.

The vessel was a Hammerfest "jagt," which, he tells us, is a small sloop without a topmast, a rig very general amongst the Scandinavian coasters, and which was manifestly the original of the modern family of "yachts." The "jagt" was to be suitably planked, and provided with a square topsail and everything requisite for a summer's campaign against the "feræ naturæ" of the Arctic regions, and to include casks to stow their blubber in, for Mr. Lamont expected to be reimbursed for at least a part of the heavy outlay these preparations entailed by the proceeds of skins and oil. Two suitable walrus boats were also to be constructed at Hammerfest, of a size slightly larger than those commonly used, and finally two skilful harpooners, and men enough to man the boats and navigate the "jagt," English sailors being, we are told, almost as useless as their boats for this description of work.

Lord David Kennedy, "renowned as a sportsman with the rifle and the spear on the plains of India," agreed to join in the excursion, and entered "with heart and purse "into the arrangements. It is needless to follow our yachtsmen from Leith to the salmon-renowned Namsen, and from the Namsen to Hammerfest. Arrived at that most northerly of European towns, the "jagt" Anna Louisa was found to smell so strongly of putrid walrus oil that they sent her off first, and determined to stick to the Ginevra as long as possible. They must indeed have had almost enough of walrus at the onset, but the odour was diversified by acres of cod, ling, and seythe, or coal-fish, and boileries of seal and blubber for the manufacture of cod-liver oil." A short way out at sea, too, on leaving for Spitzbergen, they found a small vessel fishing with seal's blubber for bait for the Arctic shark, which affords more "cod-liver oil" than any other fish, nearly, indeed, its own bulk of fine oil. To what strange lines of business does the progress of civilisation and new modes of treating disease give rise!

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On the 2nd of July they sighted Spitzbergen, and they sailed up the great gulf or sound called Stour Fiord, or Wybe Jan's Water, which, at

* Seasons with the Sea-Horses; or, Sporting Adventures in the Northern Seas. By James Lamont, Esq., F.G.S.

a short distance, they found to be covered with drift ice. Two small vessels were in the gulf "fishing," as they term killing walruses, seals, bears, or anything almost that presents itself. They also got a boat out and rowed amongst the ice for six hours, but they only saw three seals, all of which managed to save their blubber. They were soon after joined by the Anna Louisa, and her people being of opinion that their best chance of sport lay to the north-east of the so-called "Thousand Islands" (there are, in reality, only some hundred groups of trap rocks), where there are extensive submarine banks much affected by the walrus, they sailed from the ice-bound gulf in that direction. On getting into the open sea the ice was found, however, a great deal too thick for the Ginevra, and they were obliged to shift their quarters into the Anna Louisa.

Shortly after parting with the yacht, the look-out man reported walruses on the ice, but they were all old bulls in small troops of two to four, and so extremely shy that they could not get near enough to harpoon them. The next day, however, Lord David shot a cow-walrus through the head as she was shuffling off the ice. She immediately sank, but floated up again in a few seconds, when she was harpooned and secured. This was the first of forty-six. The outer edge of the ice-pack was so closely wedged together at this point that they had, when going in pursuit of the walruses, to drag the boats with great labour for fifty or sixty yards, until they got into opener water inside the pack. The same day Mr. Lamont shot his first cow, after it had rolled two young ones one after the other like barrels into the water, and thus saved their juvenile blubber. This walrus sank to rise no more, but the two young ones came up again and again, as if looking for their dam, but they were precocious enough not to allow their enemies to approach too closely. Nothing, it may be observed, was visible ashore but snow, with desolate patches of bare brown earth peeping through it here and there, or the bare rocks on some "windloved peak," from which the snow had been blown. The greater part of the eastern coast of Spitzbergen was found to be covered with a succession of enormous glaciers, which descended down to the water's edge, and even protruded far into it. These prodigious masses of ice generate fogs, which are more prevalent on the east than on the west side of the country.

On the 9th they spoke a Norwegian sloop, with six men on board, picked up in a boat the day before, after being three weeks drifting about (their sloop had been lost in the ice), with nothing to eat but the dry sealskin mufflings of their oars! The captain had both his feet badly frostbitten, and the Anna Louisa could not receive him; but luckily a small schooner that had her cargo nearly completed did, and took him over to Hammerfest, where his life was saved by the amputation of the greater part of both his feet. "It is a terribly hard and dangerous life," says Mr. Lamont, "these Spitzbergen walrus-hunters live, and I observe that they have all a restless, weary look about the eyes—a look as if contracted by being perpetually in the presence of danger. They are a wild, rough, reckless lot of fellows; bold, hardy, and enduring of cold, hunger, and fatigue; active and energetic while at sea, and nearly always drunk while at home. So many bad accidents have been caused by their having brandy on board, that of late the owners have supplied them with tea and coffee instead, and it is found that men work quite as well, and stand the climate quite as well, upon these as upon spirits; but this enforced temperance

seems to cause a sort of reaction whenever they get the opportunity of indulging to excess.'

Nor did "sport," as our outremanche friends have it, appear to be all "pleasure" with our own countrymen. Whenever a single animal was observed from the ship, they took it by turns to go after it, and as they always slept in their clothes, they were obliged to be ready at a moment's notice, at any hour of the day or night, to start whenever the watch on deck reported anything in sight. By this mode of proceeding a day seldom passed without their bagging at least a seal.

"The pursuit of the great Spitzbergen seal," says Mr. Lamont, "although it lacks the wild excitement of the chase of the sea-horse, is a very delightful amusement. The great seal will never allow himself to be caught napping.' I do not think I ever saw a sleeping seal which did not, about once in every three or four minutes, raise his head from the ice, and look uneasily around, so that he cannot be harpooned in his sleep, like his more lethargic congener the walrus. I imagine this greater watchfulness on the part of the seals to arise from the greater cause they have to apprehend being stalked' by the bears, while taking their siesta; however this may be, recourse must be had to the rifle before the harpoon comes into play, in the case of the Phoca barbata, and to make good work with them requires the perfection of rifle practice, for if a seal be not shot stone dead on the ice, he is almost certain to roll or jerk himself into the water, and sink or escape, and as a seal never lies more than twelve inches from the edge of the ice, the most trifling spark of life is enough. The only part of the huge carcase in which a bullet will cause the requisite amount of sudden death' is the brain, and this, in the biggest seal, is not larger than an orange."

A seal, it is further to be observed, will seldom let a boat approach nearer than fifty yards, and the shot must be made, the boat heaving and the slab of ice on which the orange is lying heaving also. A full-sized Spitzbergen seal is about nine and a half or ten feet long, by six or six and a half feet in circumference, and weighs six hundred pounds or upwards. The skin and fat amount to about one-half of the total weight, and the fat yields about one-half of its own weight of fine oil. In the water the seals come up boldly to the boat, but then it is a most difficult thing to shoot and secure them, and from one-half to two-thirds of the seals that are shot in the water are lost. The head harpooner, Christian, indeed, acknowledged he had one day shot dead eighteen immense seals, and lost every one of them!

On the 12th of July, the fog being very thick, they were tantalised by hearing the snorting and bellowing of a great many walruses in the immediate vicinity, although they could not find them in the fog; but it fortunately cleared up for a little in the forenoon, and enabled them to see a great herd reposing on several large flat slabs of ice.

We instantly (Mr. Lamont relates) went after them in both boats, and although they were very shy we each succeeded in killing a cow and a calf. The cow killed from my boat had a good harpoon and line sticking in her back: it had not been long in the walrus, and appeared to have been lost by the slipping of the knot at the inner end of the line. According to the laws of the ice, both walrus and tackle-even if the former had been dead-were a fair prize of the captors, although Christian said he knew very well to whom the harpoon had belonged.

I never in my life witnessed anything more interesting and more affecting than the wonderful maternal affection displayed by this poor walrus. After she was fast to the harpoon and was dragging the boat furiously amongst the icebergs, I was going to shoot her through the head, that we might have time to follow the others; but Christian called to me not to shoot, as she had a "junger" with her. Although I did not understand his object, I reserved my fire, and upon looking closely at the walrus when she came up to breathe, I then perceived that she held a very young calf under her right arm, and I saw that he wanted to harpoon it; but whenever he poised the weapon to throw, the old cow seemed to watch the direction of it, and interposed her own body, and she seemed to receive with pleasure several harpoons which were intended for the young one. At last, a well-aimed dart struck the calf, and we then shortened up the lines attached to the cow, and finished her with the lances. Christian now had time and breath to explain to me why he was so anxious to secure the calf, and he proceeded to give me a practical illustration of his meaning by gently “stirring up" the unfortunate junger with the butt end of a harpoon shaft. This caused the poor little animal to emit a peculiar, plaintive, grunting cry, eminently expressive of alarm and of a desire for assistance, and Christian said it would bring all the herd round about the boat immediately. Unfortunately, however, we had been so long in getting hold of our poor little decoy duck, that the others had all gone out of hearing, and they abandoned their young relative to his fate, which quickly overtook him in the shape of a lance thrust from the remorseless Christian.

I don't think I shall ever forget the faces of the old walrus and her calf as they looked back at the boat! The countenance of the young one, so expressive of abject terror, and yet of confidence in its mother's power of protecting it, as it swam along under her wing; and the old cow's face showing such reckless defiance for all that we could do to herself, and yet such terrible anxiety as to the safety of her calf!

The plan of getting hold of a "junger" and making him grunt to attract the others, is, it appears, a well-known "dodge" amongst the hunters; and although it was not rewarded on this occasion, Mr. Lamont says he has several times seen it meet with "the full measure of success due to its humanity and ingenuity."

The wondrous productiveness of the Arctic Seas-the great receptacles of marine life-and which for that reason have so much attracted the attention of writers on the natural history of the sea, as with Mignet and his predecessors, is exemplified in the following:

I opened the stomach of a seal of aldermanic proportions, who looked as if he had lately been attending a civic feast, and found in it, not turtle, but about a bushel of beautiful prawns, evidently just swallowed, and so fresh that we might have re-eaten them ourselves, but for an unworthy prejudice. How animal life must swarm in these cold seas to maintain such a multitude of voracious animals! The keeper of the "Talking Seal" in London told me that they "gave her fifty pounds of fish a day, and that she would eat one hundred pounds if she could get it;" so we can form some idea of what the thousands of seals here must devour. The basis of all this gormandising is undoubtedly the Medusa, or jelly-fish, which in places are so numerous as actually to thicken and discolour the sea! Conspicuous amongst these are the small black animalcula, popularly known to the Norwegian frequenters of these regions as "Hvalspise," or "Whales' food" (Clio borealis).

The little animal here alluded to has a body like a tadpole, but it is provided with a pair of wings like those of a bird, with which it propels itself through the water by a sort of flying motion. The sea is literally blackened in some places by the swarms of these molluscs; and they

need be numerous, if, as we are assured, they constitute the chief food of whales.

At three in the morning, of the 13th of July, they were aroused by the cheering cry of "Hvalruus paa Ysen!" (walruses on the ice). Both got up immediately, and from the deck a curious and exciting spectacle met their admiring gaze:

Four large flat icebergs were so densely packed with walruses that they were sunk almost a-wash with the water, and had the appearance of being solid islands of walrus!

The monsters lay with their heads reclining on one another's backs and sterns, just as I have seen rhinoceroses lying asleep in the African forests; or, to use a more familiar simile, like a lot of fat hogs in a British straw-yard. I should think there were about eighty or one hundred on the ice, and many more swam grunting and spouting around, and tried to clamber up amongst their friends, who, like surly people in a full omnibus, grunted at them angrily, as if to say "Confound you! don't you see that we are full ?" There were plenty more good flat icebergs about, but they always seem to like being packed as closely as possible for mutual warmth. These four islands were several hundred yards apart, and after feasting our eyes for a little on the glorious sight, we resolved to take them in succession, and not to fire at first; but the walruses had not been long enough on the ice to have got properly sleepy, and the discontented individuals in the water gave the rest the alarm, so that we only managed to secure four altogether.

Solomon, our untried harpooner, acquitted himself pretty tolerably on this his first fair trial, for he killed one out of the first herd, and two at a time out of the second; but on the latter occasion he as nearly as possible upset the boat, by allowing one of the lines to run over the gunwale aft of the notches, at the bow: the boat most certainly would have been upset, had it not been that it was ballasted with the blubber of the one already killed; as it was, she was half filled with water, and Lord David and the crew were on the point of jumping out, when fortunately she righted again.

This herd consisted chiefly of cows and young bulls, and they then dispersed or got out of reach amongst the ice.

Notwithstanding the abundance of game, they soon began to find these long, dreary, foggy days intolerably irksome, the more especially as their cabin was singularly ill adapted for passing much idle time in, not to mention the awful effluvium caused by the commingling of putrid walrus oil and bilge water. Add to these little agrémens that the thermometer averaged 40 degs. in the cabin, and it will be conceded that they were paying pretty dear for the pleasure of hunting walruses in the Arctic Seas.

Still the number of these gregarious algiveræ or fucivera appears to have been very great. On the 15th they again came in sight of a long line of low, flat icebergs, crowded, Mr. Lamont says, "with sea-horses." We might object to the epithet that Mr. Lamont himself constantly speaks of the males as bulls, of the females as cows, and of the "jungers" as calves; that they are to the sea what the manati are to the river there is, however, no question, and if the one is a river-cow, the other is a seaCOW. But as certain pachyderms are called hippopotami, or river-horses, so the trichechus, walrus, or seal, for such it really is, may be dignified,

* We so designate them; but the whale-horse, or hval-ros, as Octher, the Norwegian, called them before Alfred, appear to eat fish, crustacea, and molluscs, as well as algae and fuci.