SOUTH GEORGIA

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I sent the men ashore, whenever the opportunity afforded, to walk over the island, play football, or visit the people employed at the station, of whom a number were British, chiefly Shetlanders. There was a football ground behind the station, situated at the foot of a high mountain and overlooked by a glacier; the ground was more remarkable, however, for its romantic position than for the condition of its surface. We received a challenge from the Shetlanders, which I accepted. In so small a company as ours, numbering nineteen all told, it was not easy to raise eleven footballers, for many were Rugby players, and had never played the Association game. However, we succeeded in putting out a side which, after a good game, defeated the Shetlanders by one goal to nil. Anxious for revenge, they challenged us to a return match, and beat us. Unfortunately, the opportunity for a third and decisive game did not occur.

I encouraged incidents of this nature, for they provided an entire change from the routine of ship’s work and served to draw the men more closely together on a common level than the routine ship’s work could ever do. Also they gave a new topic for conversation and discussion which lasted for days.

On April 14th the Neko arrived, and I accompanied Mr. Hansen on a visit to her, when I discovered that her master, Captain Sinclair, was an old friend whom I had met in South Georgia eight years before. He readily consented to take Hussey to Rio de Janeiro, where he could transfer to a mail boat for home, and offered him the only accommodation available on board—the settee in his cabin. The Neko is a floating factory. Each spring, as soon as the ice opens, she proceeds to Deception Island, and thence as her captain may think fit. She is accompanied by four steam whale-catchers, which, when they have killed a whale, bring it in and lay it alongside the parent ship. She herself is provided with boilers and vats and all the apparatus necessary for trying down the blubber into oil. The pursuit of whales has changed largely since the days of the old Dundee fleet, when the actual killing was carried out from boats by means of hand harpoons and lances. Now, instead of boats, small but fast steel steamers are used, which carry in their bows powerful guns from which the harpoon is fired. Attached to the harpoon is a strong rope coiled ready for running on a small sloping platform over the bows. A bomb is fitted to the end of the harpoon and forms the point. If the aim is good, this bursts inside the animal, causing instantaneous death.

Photo: Wilkins

THE NORTHERN COAST OF DRYGALSKI FIORD