Danskeöen. Thursday, June 11th
During the night whilst we slept we were aroused by a rustling outside. Wharton (who having met so many bears had the feeling that we might meet some here) wakened me with a hard dig in the ribs, shouting: “Load your gun. Polar bear outside.” It was, however, only three hunters who had spent the winter on the east side of Spitzbergen in a little arm of Hinlopen Strait, called Lommebukten (or Pocket Bay). They had rowed the long distance round the north coast in a little boat which was deeply laden with fox-skins, the remainder of their provisions, and all the outfit they had used during the winter. The use of their boat afforded us a great deal of pleasure. We rowed about auk-shooting in the forenoon, and later we went out in it round the islets collecting fresh eggs.
There we were received by eider-duck and gulls, kittiwakes, sea-swallows and geese, which flew up in thousands from the nests, chirping, whistling and shrieking as they in desperation swooped down over the heads of the robbers of their nests, flapping their wings about our eyes. We hit out at them with our caps, but did not allow ourselves to be frightened back to our boat again. Nest after nest has to be looked into—it is principally the nest of the eider-duck we care about. There are about five or six eggs in each and a handful of down. We are not actual robbers for we leave one egg in each nest and a little bit of down so that the hen will continue to lay—she will come back and bustle about till the nest is all right again. (If we removed all the eggs and the down, the hen would desert the nest.) Egg and down collecting is not a pleasant occupation from the point of view of smell.
When we get to within about ten to fifteen meters from the nest, the male bird starts to cry “Oi-oi-oi-oi-e,” while the hen sits close over her eggs. She sits immovable, only a blink now and again of her black eyes betrays that she is watching us. (Will she manage to deceive us into believing that her nest is a moss-covered stone?) But like all menfolk the male bird is frightened at the bottom of his heart. We only take two or three steps towards the nest when he rises up and sets noisily out towards the sea. The deserted hen follows. But at the last moment when she rises she makes one final frantic effort to save her eggs. Had we not been coarsened by our stay up here she might have succeeded in saving them, but as it is, we plunder the nest.
It has stopped raining. White clouds drive across the blue sky and it is warm in the sun. The air is fresh and mild; to lie here now on the island is like being in the fields at home in Norway in the summertime.