seal-flesh are cut off and all carried on board the boat. Then the men row on to where the next seal lies on a floe some hundred meters away. Hardly has the boat rowed off when the remains of the dead animal are being fought over by flocks of sea-gulls and sea-mews. They tear the remainder of the fat and flesh into pieces, swallowing one big lump after another, until there is not one morsel to be found. But, even then, they cannot leave the place, as they have become so heavy it is impossible for them to fly. An hour after the boat returns with four seal-skins as their “bag,” also provision for the larder: “Fresh meat this evening, Steward!” Then the engines start again and “Hobby” continues southwards along the coast. About 10 P.M. we “lay to” for the night, slightly to the northeast of Lavöen outside Brandy Bay. The seal-boat rows out once more as the crew wish to make the little extra money which a night’s seal-hunting will bring them. From the deck we watch them row away between the ice-floes. We hope it will not turn out for these three men on board the little boat as it did for the three others who once landed east of Spitzbergen and went inland to search for eggs and eiderdown on the Tusindöene. We heard of them from a seal-skipper whom we met in King’s Bay. “They took with them only a hook in a small lifeboat, and hardly had they landed when the drift-ice closed in between the island and the vessel, which lay some hundreds of meters away. The fog descended around them and everything disappeared in its density. The three men decided to wait. They waited eight days before the fog cleared. They turned the ship’s boat over them to give them shelter from snow and wind, while they lived on eggs and uncooked birds, for any available fuel was too wet to use. When the fog lifted the vessel had disappeared, and they had no other way to save themselves but to cross over the ice-floes in their little boat towards the mainland-coast round South Cape, and nineteen days afterwards they arrived thin and emaciated, but otherwise in good condition, at the Swedish coal-fields in Bellsund. From there they were able to get a coal-boat to Tromsö. Arriving home, they found that their vessel had not returned, however, as it had remained to search for Kristian and his companions, and when it arrived several days after their return it was flying its flag half-mast, causing Kristian, who stood on the quay, to burst out in loud laughter as he shouted, ‘Hullo, father, what have you done with the top of the flag cord?’