eral of these "whale
factories" on the Labrador coast. They send out a fast steel steamer,
with a harpoon gun at the bow. When a whale is sighted they give chase,
and when near enough discharge into the monster a harpoon with an
explosive bomb attached. The explosion kills him. Then he is lashed
alongside, towed into the station, hauled out on the timberways, and
there cut up, every part of the enormous carcass being utilized for some
commercial purpose.

We stopped again at Hawks Harbor, where the _Erik_, our auxiliary supply
steamer, was awaiting us with some twenty-five tons of whale meat on
board; and an hour or two later, a beautiful white yacht followed us in.
I recognized her as Harkness's _Wakiva_ of the New York Yacht Club.
Twice during the winter she had lain close to the _Roosevelt_ in New
York, at the East Twenty-fourth Street pier, coaling between her
voyages; and now, by a strange chance, the two vessels lay side by side
again in this little out-of-the-way harbor on the Labrador coast. No two
ships could be more unlike than these two: one white as snow, her
brasswork glittering in the sun, speedy, light as an arrow; the other
black, slow, heavy, almost as solid as a rock--each built for a special
purpose and adapted to that purpose.

Mr. Harkness and a party of friends, including several ladies, came on
board the _Roosevelt_, and the dainty dresses of our feminine guests
further accentuated the blackness, the strength, and the not over
cleanly condition of our ship.

We stopped once more at Turnavik Island, a fishing station belonging to
Captain Bartlett's father, and took on a consignment of Labrador skin
boots, for which we should have use in the North. Just before reaching
the Island we encountered a furious thunderstorm. It was the most
northerly thunderstorm which I remember having experienced.

I recall, however, that on our upward voyage in 1905 we ran into very
heavy thunderstorms with electrical displays quite as sharp as any
encountered in Gulf storms on voyages in southern waters, though the
storms of 1905 were met in the neighborhood of Cabot Strait, far south
of those of 1908.

Our voyage to Cape York was a peaceful one, lacking even the small
excitement of the same journey three years before, when, not far from
Cape St. George, all hands were startled by an alarm of fire which
started in one of the main deck beams from the uptake of the boilers.
Nor were we so plagued with fog in the ea