I do not write these details for bear-hunters, but the game is excellent sport per se on deck, say, on a P. & O. liner outward bound in August; it would be splendid on any deck, better than deck quoits. It would be excellent for a garden-party or sports for Boy Scouts.
You beg or borrow, from the bos’n or laundry-maid, five fathoms of rope—log line is the best. Splice a metal eye to the end to make a loop or lasso. Then you fix up a spar, with a cross-piece, and stand as in this sketch, with the loop—larger than A, or to taste—and cast over B, with right hand, and haul taut with left hand. The next thing is to cast a half-hitch over C. You imagine B is a bear’s head and you wish to throw a half-hitch over (C) a fore paw, so as to haul the paw up to the neck and throw the bear. Then you can try left-hand or right-hand casting over X, which is not so easy!
To cast the first lasso loop (note position of hand and eye in loop A) you swing the loop round the head and let fly and let the coils of line in left hand go free. This is a little difficult at first; casting on the half-hitch is much easier if you lay the line properly, as in Fig. (4). If you lay it as we did at first, as in Figs. (1) and (2), the loop falls short as in middle Fig. The idea is to have plenty line to your right, so as to make a big flowing hitch, as shown in lower Fig. (4).
Gisbert and I worked out this discovery in the morning till we could put on hitches every time, and in the afternoon we challenged the “Professor,” as we call young Don José—because of his skill in throwing the loop—and his cousin, Don Luis Velasquez, for a bottle of champagne, and holding our hand, we easily beat them and felt very slightly ashamed of ourselves for taking advantage of our small discovery of a knack.
This morning in sunny mist appeared a dot, far away over the snow, and we put glasses on it and made out a seal. As our young men thoughtfully hung back from a stalk, it was left for De Gisbert and the writer to make the effort. Finally the writer started over very rough going, with very little chance of getting within shot, still, just to show an example, we felt one of us must try.
So we climbed over the bow and got on to the floe-edge and away from ship. It was very charming on the floe amongst these ice tombstones and ledges fringed with huge icicles that, in a wide view, are simply monotonous white, but which all become very sweet and beautiful when you are close to them and can examine the details at leisure. The only way to see nature thoroughly is to have it rubbed into you. Who can see a rainstorm with an umbrella up? When you have one leg in a hole in the floe and the other on the floe, and hands, rifle and staff going, you do not know how deep, there is plenty of time for the dripping icicles over the blue ledge in front of you to impress themselves on your memory; and for a time at least, the seal you are stalking, or even the bear that may be stalking you, or when you think of the beauty in front, the cold in your boots, become of little importance.