I wonder if the gentle ancestors of this little smuke pige that waits at our table formed one of the attractions of these round tours by our fathers. How delighted she was to stand for a few minutes and to have her portrait presented to her. On the previous page there is a fountain-pen ink jotting of what I remember of the original. Is she not a familiar type? We might meet her in Kent or Caithness.
I forgot to say we made arrangements, before we left Trömso, about our Port and Starboard bears. The Port bear goes to Spain, and Hamilton and I take Starboard to Edinburgh, to present him, between us, to our new Scottish Zoological Park, which promises to be the best in the world, and of which this writer had the honour of being first Honorary Treasurer! We will hand it over with the greatest pleasure, and then modestly withdraw; for the more you know of these two bears, the more you become of a retiring nature. I think we must have our Lord Provost to grace the ceremony of its presentation to the Park. The Right Honourable the Lord Provost, in his scarlet and ermine, and all the bailies, in reds and purples of various tints, what a grand spectacular effect! (Our company, we hope, would be excused.) And the Lord Lyon King-at-Arms we would have to come too, for colour effect, vermilion and gold, in his English tabard.—Ghost of Sir David Lindsay! with only one wee lion; and in the second quartering!
Fancy the bear’s contemplative pause after the address of welcome and before it has decided what part it will take in the ceremony. I must make a picture of this in oils.
Our Spanish comarados intended to take their bear to Madrid, but they hear the temperature there has lately been one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade, so they fear it would melt, consequently they decide to build a large iron enclosure across a small river which runs through their estancia and the cork woods of their northern hills. There was such a den or prison already in Spain, where I am told the bear, also a polar bear, worked out an honourable old age, fishing salmon and trout for the family of its owner. It must be a pretty sight to see a white bear beside the foam of a fall, waiting its time to clip out a silvery grilse or salmon.
The process of discharging a cargo of live polar bears is fraught with considerable interest. If they escape their captors’ ropes and chains they go overboard, and as happened here, two got loose and landed at the fish-market steps. Trömso natives are accustomed to visits from all sorts and kinds of people and beasts. Grand Dukes and Laps, walrus, whales, and bears, but not bears at large. They fled, and the bears tucked into the fish stalls, and the bill for their lunch amounted to one hundred kroner (£5, 10s.)—probably any other visitors might have bought all the fish in the market that day for ten kroner. They fortunately took to the water again after their meal, and were recaptured. Once a walrus escaped at Trömso from board-ship, and it also took to the water, and it was also recaptured! It loved the captain’s wife and she whistled to it and it came back.
Our bears’ cages, all tattered wood and iron bars, were lifted, bears and all, by the winch over the side, and of course sank almost to water-level. One of the iron bars was levered up a little with a crowbar, which gave, in Starboard’s case, an opening for his delicate paw, which instantly came out and tore the cage to smithereens, and out he came, and, evidently to his great content, wallowed about in the sea and washed his face, and took a dive or two and rubbed his paws, saying “Bé-waugh” and “B-e-a-r” frequently, and looked perfectly happy and amiable. Just to prevent him swimming ashore and going into the fish-market, we put a stout little rope round his neck, and he continued to enjoy his bath, whilst we made ready a new cage, each batten of which is covered with sheet iron on the inside and has the appearance of strength which I should desire for such an opening ceremony as I have above suggested, if I have to be present. When this cage was in order, our duty was to get the big strop or ring of heavy rope round his waist, so as to haul him out of his bath with our sixty-horse-power winch, and this was done with some escape of steam and some splashing and profuse remarks from the bear. Now he is in his new quarters, into which he cannot get his teeth, and he ruminates peacefully and eats and drinks what is given him. I wonder what his teeth will go into when he first comes out.
Christabel and William we are selling for much moneys by telegraph to a certain millionaire. They will make charming pets and William, as already mentioned, promises to be a musician as well, but they will never attain, in captivity, to the size that Port and Starboard may be expected to attain, for the latter have already spent several years on the floes eating seal galore.
Bears have gone up in price; very few have lately been landed, as far as we can hear, in Northern Europe. Recent years have been rather bad for expeditions. We know of several which have been wrecked; some of the crews are dead.[17] Gisbert is going to hang on with the Fonix at Trömso and may go North again in search of survivors.
Slipping down the Norwegian coast amongst the islands in a passenger steamer feels very luxurious after being in such a small vessel with always a certain amount of risk; and after views of ice and sea, bears and seals day after day, rocks and trees and little farms or fishermen’s houses nestling in the greenery, with mountains and snow-fjeld far behind them are very welcome. There is the “human interest,” which I have previously said has been remarked for its absence in the polar regions by careful observers.