pooner could let fly, a shudder ran along the flank-and all was over. Some one may exclaim: Mere coincidence! The whale was struck at the instant, as it chanced, of his heart's last beat. He was already a dead whale.' Yet I have never heard a whaleman say so. Many of my Norwegian friends have been frankly unbelieving of the whole affair; a few have allowed the possibility. None of them, however, had ever seen a dead whalethat is, a whale which had died from natural causesmuch less witnessed such a death. Any stray carcase they had encountered on the high seas had borne evidence of violence: harpoons trailing broken lines, wounds caused by collisions with ships (rare), or lacerations and incisions inflicted by the ferocious Killer and Thresher. One old gunner, indeed, declared his strong belief that no man had ever seen the body of a whale that had died, so to speak, in his bed; and when I asked: What about the carcases not so seldom found on the beach, often in apparently good and healthy condition?' he replied: If there had been no collision-and a collision might leave less outward show than you think-then either the whale has been scared ashore, or he has blundered there, maybe after food, on an ebbing tide.' I was considering this when my friend continued: 'The whale has his old age-maybe three hundred yearsand his diseases, just like you and me; but he knows when he is going to die, and like the elephant, as I have heard tell, he wishes to be alone. And so he goes down into the deeps, or under the ice, and he dies. And the sharks and squids and other hungry things attend to his funeral, and no man sees him any more.' Well, I must leave it at that.

Through conscientious, artless repetition Captain Cook in his narrative conveys, as no practised writer would convey, an understanding of the dreariness, the disappointments, and the exasperations of Arctic whaling. 'July 14, we lowered boats for a whale, but lost run of him among the ice-floes.' Aug. 2, at 5 p.m., we lowered five boats for a small whale, but the boats came back at noon (next day) without being able to get near him.' 'Aug. 3, after thick snow-storm, we lowered boatswithout success.' Aug. 6, we lowered boats, but the whales went in among the ice-fields, where it was

impossible to follow.' 'Aug. 7, we lowered boats... but got nothing.' 'Aug. 17, at 3 a.m., we lowered six boats; at 6 a.m. the port bow boat succeeded in harpooning one -our first whale for the season.' During the five remaining weeks of that season they lowered on fourteen occasions-nothing is said of the toils of the chase-and got four whales. Then, in company of nine other unprosperous ships, they went into ice-quarters to spend a second winter away from home.

'Jan 1,

They made the best of a bad job, those skippers. Several of them, including our Captain, had their wives with them, and it was a friendly community, with normal social instincts and activities. Oct. 15, Captain Sherman, of the " Beluga," gave a birthday party, it being his son Bertie's fifth birthday. The dance and supper were largely attended and enjoyed by all.' 'Nov. 10, all were invited to a banquet given by Captain Wing, of the "Karluk," at 7 p.m.' 'Nov. 15, with the thermometer 20° below zero and a snowstorm, in the evening all went to see a theatrical company perform aboard the "Beluga.' 'Dec. 1, a large attendance at divine service.' 'Dec. 25, Christmas Day, thermometer 42° below zero.' all the captains and officers called on the different ladies.' Jan. 20, surprise party on board the "Beluga,' to celebrate Mrs Porter's birthday, she being thirty-one years old. Whist till 10 p.m., when we sat down to a substantial supper of everything that could be found. In the midst of it, a native came in and reported that some of our men had stolen firearms, dogs and sleds, and deserted.' The deserters, by the way, were glad to be caught. Thus, in spite of accidents, illness, a death, also a birth, they kept up their spirits throughout the winter darkness and till July, when the ships escaped from the ice. Followed another poor season, and on Nov. 3, 1896, Captain Cook reached home, after a cruise of nearly thirty months.

During the next eight years he made voyages with fortunes as varied as the adventures; but I must now pass on to his account of that cruise which was destined to be his last in the Arctic. On March 18, 1903, the steam-bark Bowhead,' refitted with everything necessary for spending two summers and a winter in the North, sailed out of San Francisco. This time Mrs Cook,

whose daughter had lately been married, had planned to stay at home, and her husband, who in the past had been in the habit of entrusting many details to her care, confesses himself at a disadvantage. He was hopeful, however, of a prosperous voyage, and could congratulate himself on his officers, men of experience, all but one of whom had sailed with him before. He had used particular care in selecting a crew, and had signed on twenty-six good men, ordering them to be on board on the morning of the Bowhead's' sailing. And on this page he says: Could I have looked into the future and caught a glimpse of what I should have been called upon to do, I never would have been tempted [to make this voyage] with all the riches in store.' It was after the business of getting the ship under way and guiding her out of the Golden Gate, that his first officer made the startling remark: A big proportion of the men forward were never on a deck before.' Then was made the disturbing discovery, that there had been 'substitutions' ashore in the night, and that most of the men who had come on board were scallywags and scoundrels, would-be deserters, whose game was to obtain a free passage to some point within reach of the Alaskan goldfields. A bad enough beginning to a voyage such as that which lay ahead of the whaler, but worse was to follow. On March 29, one of the boat-steerers, a worthy fellow and valuable member of the crew, in helping to secure a sail, fell overboard and was seen no more; and five days later, while yet a gloom hung over the ship, a crank-shaft of the engine gave way, necessitating a return to Frisco for repairs. To sign on a new crew at this time of day would have cost more than the venture could afford, and while repairs were being effected, the scamps, most of whom had had already enough of the sea, were held aboard by an armed guard. Two, nevertheless, got away by taking to the water. The Bowhead' sailed again at the end of April, a precious month of the season being lost. At the last moment, and too late to reach San Francisco in time, Mrs Cook changed her mind, and, three months later, she joined the ship at Nome. Had he dreamed then what was before them, declares the Captain, he would have sailed without her.

Not till Sept. 3 did they take their first and last

-whale of the season, and so stormy was the weather that, after 'cutting in' the head, they were compelled to let the carcase, with its hundred barrels of oil, go adrift. The 'bone,' however, weighed twenty-one hundred pounds -a worth-while whale. Soon after this the ships which had not done profitably enough to go home went into winter quarters, and by Oct. 4 the 'Bowhead' was frozen in. There was no idleness. The ships had to be put in shape for the winter, their hulls banked up with snow, stores of ice-blocks cut for the water supply, sledging parties sent to the mainland for stocks of deer meat, business done with the natives for further supplies, including fish and ptarmigan. Their friendly relations with the natives were to stand the Americans in good stead before the end of that Arctic voyage. The winter was passed cheerfully, on the whole.

On June 27, 1904, the ice released its grip. On the same day, Robert Hansen, a good shipmate, died after three months' illness. On July 23 they took their first new season's whale, a big one, but with great labour owing to the crowding floes. 'Luck or fate,' says the Captain, in one of his rare black moods, has worked, and is continuing to work, against us.' Yet a week later, two whales having been got in the interval, he is bright again. 'It would take but a short continuation of our good work of last week to show a profit on this cruise.' What an unaffected chap he is! Surely, on the business of whaling so frankly human a book as this has never been written! If one must find fault, there are pages on which he might so easily have told us more. Often he says next to nothing about the hunt; he dismisses the capture, or saving,' to use the correct word, of a whale, however troublesome and exciting, in a few lines. He is so familiar with his subject that, like many learned men, he does not allow for the ignoramus; he sometimes seems to forget that he is writing mainly for landlubbers. So, perhaps, after all, there is something to be said for the mere writing man who goes whaling. In mid-August he is down-hearted again. 'Impossible on account of the ice to get where the whales are.' It was to prove a second lean season for many ships in those waters, and Chapter XXI has the sorry heading, 'Another Winter in the Arctic.' Again they

made the best of it, but the reader senses the struggle against depression. And in the 'Bowhead' was trouble with some of the scallywags. One of them, a mighty bruiser, if no sailor, felled the first officer, whereupon the Captain, single-handed, seized and clapped the steel cuffs on his wrists. There the trouble seemed quelled; none the less, it was an evil omen.

Once more, on July 5, 1905, we see the Bowhead' safely released from the ice. But her bad luck holds. A month later, while yet her harpooners have 'saved not one whale, she speaks three lucky ships which have been home for the winter and, since re-entering the Arctic, have captured two, three, and five whales respectively. Galling-yes-and another month is to pass before the 'Bowhead' gets a poor couple. And about this time Captain Cook made a discomforting discovery. While comparatively little ice was in sight, the temperature of the sea was extraordinarily low for the time of year. Doubts, vague, amorphous, at first, crystallised into a definite dread. I dare say he had visions of the disaster of 1871, when thirty-two American whalers were caught, flung up, let down, and crushed by the ice, though, marvellously, not a life was lost. Reluctantly, dutifully, anxiously, he turned his ship towards the West-towards her course for home. Said his wife: 'Aren't you starting rather early, and sacrificing a chance to take some more whales?' He told her of the thermometer's warning, adding: 'You know we could not possibly exist, with our supplies of every kind so reduced as they are, for a third winter here. I am not going to take any chances.' Whereupon she declared she would rather die than face a third winter. Poor lady! Even as she spoke the way home was being barred, and on Sept. 18, the Bowhead,' after many desperate attempts to break out, was 'frozen in solid.' In like plight were the ships Alexander,' 'Karluk,' and 'Jeanette.' The prospect was a bleak one; hopeless it would have been but for the natives, who said: 'We will take care of you. None shall starve. Deer and moose will be found plentiful.'

'Mrs Cook,' says her husband, who had stood by me amid the privations and hardships of a life aboard an Arctic whaler for eleven years without a murmur, now gave up completely, her nervous system going all