On the 15th of July we started looking for whale or bear in the mist again, but with never a sign of either. So painting was the order of the day for the writer, such a chance, no letters, no newspapers, nothing to take one’s mind off looking at the effects of this end of the garden. Hours flew, middag mad of bear passed, painting still going, only interrupted by expeditions forward, where our men were packing the bear and seal skins in salt in barrels. Later we went ashore—i.e. on to the blue floe—blue ice covered with white crystals, you might call it snow. Three of our party and the dog, a young Gordon setter, wild with joy at freedom of movement, they go off a mile or so over hard, smooth surface, which grows more and more faint in the sunny haze and distance. The surface on this particular floe was smooth and hard and easy to walk on. In most places you see the light coming up as through a carpet of white crystals on pale blue glass beneath your feet. Where there is a little water it is quite blue, and where it is dry you shovel your feet through loose white crystals on the top of the blue. So this is rather different from Antarctic floes, which, as far as I can remember, were covered with fresh snow, so the walking was generally more difficult than here. Before I had seen northern floes my Dundee whaler companions used to tell me how they often played football matches on the northern ice, and I wondered!—now I understand. I also believe now what I doubted, that whilst doing so one misty day, Dundee sealers against Newfoundlanders, referee, silver whistle and all in great style, a bear intervened and took their walrus bladder football; what a sweet picture in greys that would make, the sailor-men bolting for the ship, their dark clothes look so delicate and ethereal on the floe in this fine mist, and to see a bear’s faint yellow coat in contrast!
Our party came back towing a drift pine stem which we had spotted far off on the ice from the mast-head. Quite an important find in the wide world of ice. They towed it to the ship with a lasso.
Gisbert and the writer did quite a lot of lasso practice, partly at a stick set in ice, partly at our dog, as it ran to fetch a glove—great sport for us, but the dog soon showed a desire to climb on board by the rope ladder. As we cut off the ice-worn root with our ice axe we discussed the possible journeyings of the pine stem; from its roots we knew it had grown on rocky ground, from the rings, its slow growth and age, and consequently of the climate it had survived in; from the known currents and drifts we calculated it came from far-away eastwards, say from the Lena river in Siberia. When tired of lassoing, De Gisbert showed me something about splitting logs. I am not a great expert with an axe, and he is rather, he cut his sea-boot soon almost through the leather of the inside of the instep without cutting his foot. To show him what I could do, with a mighty welt I split a log, and the axe glanced and cut my instep through the sea-boot and two pairs of stockings. A chopped tree and a chopped foot may not appear to have wide or deep interest to anyone but the owner of the foot, and may not seem worthy of record in such Arctic notes as these. But let us pause and consider, if there is not something wonderful and almost inexplicable in this apparently trifling incident. Here you have East meeting East, North meeting North! A “gentleman of Scotland born” proceeds by a devious route from Edinburgh via Hull to an ice-floe in the North Polar basin. And here, from some unknown river in far Siberia, possibly the Lena, by the great polar current, after possibly years of voyaging, comes this lonely barkless pine stem, and they meet. And the gentleman chops the extremity of the tree with the ship’s axe and his own extremity at the same time—namely his left instep, as before mentioned. Does not this incident, though trifling in itself, recall the divine words of the Immortal William: “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will.” Perhaps, without any claim to originality, we may, under the circumstances, be allowed to conclude, from the above combination of circumstances, that the world is small.
So the snow had other red than the bear’s. Gisbert got his “first aid” out within a second of the time I had got my own, he is very quick: but the captain was first with his, and Archie administered a small tot of medicine from three bens and three glens which he had brought in a little flask all the way from Arthur Lodge, Edinburgh. It will be a sell if I cannot go on one foot after the next bear or whale.
About these North Polar basin currents we have many interesting talks, for De Gisbert has studied them for many years. He has asked me to accompany the Spanish expedition in the vessel which will accompany his Spanish Government ship as far as Cape Tsdieljulskin. This possibly because as an artist he is so well content with trying to depict effects of his “end of the garden,” most possibly because his, Gisbert’s, wife and child are to go so far, and as she is a Campbell-Gibson she naturally dotes on the bagpipes.
At night the mist cleared up a little and we made some miles to west, pushing through floes. When we came to a blue fresh-water pool on one, we again set to work and bailed our tanks full of fresh water.
Then on again, charging the floes with many a bump, which is rather alarming to those of our party who are not salted to such shocks. We hope the floes won’t close up behind us altogether, but when you enter the pack, as the whalers say, “there’s no looking over the shoulder,” and one must take risks in all occupations.
To-day we had a splendid bear chase, none the worse because our prey escaped. The morning was exquisite, the mist rose and lay in lavender wisps across the distance of the floes, and the sun shone and the sea became a cheery glittering dark blue, and you could hardly keep your eyes open when you came out of the cabin for the blaze of light. What a change, everything sharp and clear, compared to the veiled misty ice effects of last week!