Sealer

“ As for the personal appearance of the sealers, as they labour at the work of slaughter, they look the most ruffianly set of men in existence. They are dressed in the queerest caps and coats of various shapes, with smuggler-looking breeches and long boots; moustaches and beards are covered with a mass of frozen tobacco-juice, hoar-frost, and Seal’s blood. Their matted hair, gory, greasy, unwashed faces and hands, reek and smell with a strong taint of butchery. ”

“ If the line runs through the nabiring, the harpoon is dragged into the water and impedes the movements of the animal. The hunter then begins at once to cut down the snow covering with his knife, which has been left within easy reach, and hauls in the line. As soon as the seal comes to the surface to breathe it is easily dispatched and drawn up on the ice.
Fig. 398. Tutareang or buckle. (Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. IV A 6710.) 1/1
The arrangements at the seal hole are more elaborate if the sealer expects to wait a long time. ”

“ The Innuits are, as I have frequently said, most persevering sealers, and will go, with their dogs, even in the very coldest of weather, and under most dangerous circumstances, to hunt for seal-holes. The sagacious dog, on snuffing the air and finding it charged with seal odour, follows it to the windward till he leads his master to the very spot where a seal has its hole. The man then proceeds prospecting with his spear through one to three feet depth of snow, until he finds the small opening in the ice leading to the main seal-hole. ”

“ Bass was of opinion, that upon these islands, and those lying scattered round the promontory, which are all more or less frequented by seals, a commercial speculation on a small scale might be made with advantage. The place of shelter for the vessel would be Sealers Cove, on the main land; which, though small, and apparently exposed to east winds, would be found convenient and tolerably secure: fresh water is there abundant, and a sufficiency of wood at hand to boil down any quantity of blubber likely to be procured. ”

“ When the sealers are properly placed they raise a simultaneous shout, at which the affrighted animals rush out in great confusion, and are despatched with wonderful quickness by a single blow on the nose, struck with a club. They are very tenacious of life when struck or wounded on any other part of the body. ”

“ Should, however, an abnormal season recur, in which the larger portion of days during the right period for taking the skins be warmish and dry, it might be necessary, in order to get even seventy-five thousand seals within the twenty-eight or thirty days of their prime condition, for drives to be made from the other great hauling-grounds to the westward and northward, which are now, and have been for the last ten years, entirely unnoticed by our sealers. ”

“ This little spike of rock was a foot or so above the water, even when the sea swelled up towards it—it being not yet high tide—and as it projected out like a bowsprit, there was nothing underneath it for the seal's hind feet to get a hold on, so that everything had to be done by a first leap up from the sea. This leap the seal made over and over again, shooting up sometimes almost like a salmon—his hind feet alone remaining in the water—and grasping the hard little triangle between his fore-arms, or flippers, so as to assist the impetus by hoisting himself upon it. ”

“ True solitude should imply no fleas.
During the time that this large bottle-nosed seal was away, a small common one—the same that lies on the rock in this sea-pool every day from before it is uncovered to the flowing in of the tide—came and disported himself—as usual I had said, but it was not quite the same. He first began to dive and reappear, at regular intervals, as does the great one, and I soon found that he was behaving like him in all things, even to the standing on end in the water, like a peg-top, with his nose straight up in the air. ”

“ A seal comes to its rock there before the tide has sufficiently gone down to let it lie upon it. It plays about the rock, fawns upon it, caresses it, woos it, one might say, dives down and circumnavigates it, tries or pretends to try to lie upon it, even under the water, swims away and returns, and does the same thing several times; and as soon as the water is sufficiently shallow to allow of it, it reclines, sea-washed and gently heaving, till the receding tide leaves it high and dry. A pretty thing it is—very—to see a seal thus waiting for its chosen rock to appear. ”

“ It seems funny to be looking over a ledge, all day long, and to eat one's lunch whilst so doing. But I just look up to make my notes, and on looking down again, almost right under me, I see a seal hanging lazily in this quiet shore-pool of the sea; for to-day there is hardly a foam-line round the stacks and rocks. ”

“ If the fish is caught by the tail, it is then turned head foremost and swallowed whole. They also feed under water and swallow with as much ease as in the air, but in a different manner, which is to open its mouth partially.
Seals are animals of passage; when on their travels or migrations, vast droves are [66] seen moving along through the openings of the ice, swimming with their heads always out of the water. They are very timid, seldom sleeping above five minutes at a time. Three of the common seal were taken a few years since on our coast in a net ”

“ Their bed-times are not governed by the ebb and flow of the sea.
The larger seal which I spoke of yesterday is called here, locally, a bottle-nosed seal, or at least some so designate it. He is here again to-day, rising at intervals and staring at the sky, in the other of these two-in-one-contained bays, which seems to be more particularly his own. When he rises he remains for a full minute standing upright, as it were, in the water, with his muzzle about six inches above it and pointing straight into the sky. ”

“ Also, though he often pegtops it, he has never yet pointed his nose straight up into the sky, which my bottle-nosed seal invariably does. Generally he soon adopts the horizontal attitude, and continues in it for the rest of the time he is up. When he goes down, he rolls round, as well as over—by which I mean both like a porpoise and like a barrel—and then his spotted, or rather blotched, belly makes a splendid mosaic under the water, for it is not only itself, which were enough of beauty, but the most lovely glaucous green is flung upon it, through which, all glorified, the pattern appears. ”

“ The blubber of the seal is either eaten, or converted into oil for the winter lamps; the skin, with the hair on, is made into frocks, breeches, boots, and stockings; and with the hair scraped off, and well oiled, the skin serves also for a covering to their houses and boats: numbers of them, heaped together with the skins of bears and deer, constitute their beds: lastly, after having carefully skinned a seal, the females sew the hide neatly up; then fill it with wind, like a bladder, and dry it in the sun ”

“ How the cormorants dive and fish in it, how the gull tears at the drifted carcase of its kind, how the puffins, in ceaseless flight between ocean and their myriad burrows, arch and dome it in! Oh, it is a fine apartment! Its portals on either side are columns of spouting foam, and beyond lies the wild, houseless sea. A seal's dormitory!—how well do the wild things choose! So here, at once, one learns something different to what one is told. Seals care nothing about tides when they can get great slanting slabs that lie high and dry above them. ”

“ The seal is an exceedingly useful animal to the Esquimau, for it not only supplies him with food and clothing, but its blubber furnishes the fuel for cooking its flesh, lighting the igloo, and drying its skin before making into clothing. The skin also is made into dog harness and traces, whip lashes, boots and shoes, gun-covers, water-pails, bags for the storing of oil and blubber, and his boats are covered with it. Seal-skin bags, inflated and fastened to walrus lines, are used in hunting walrus and whales, and finally, the summer dwelling of the Esquimau is a tent made of seal-skin. ”

“ The seal rose, like a cork, up to its fore fins as if it had suffered much torture from long retention of its breath, and, swifter than thought, R——'s gun flashed, and with a sharp report seemed to take a bucket of water from the Fiord, and fling it into the air. When the light gray smoke of the powder had rolled in a revolving cloud from the space intervening between us and the spot where the animal was observed, the water was white with froth, but no sign of the seal could be seen. ”

“ At length, with a mighty yawn and stretch, he turns full upon his vasty stomach, and immediately, by virtue of the different appearance which his fur has when wet or dry, becomes a much smaller seal that « 326 » has climbed up upon a buoy—the lower, wet part of him looks like that; the upper, alone, is himself. Then gradually he soaks all over, till he is, again, huge and indivisible, a great, naked, blue, greasy, oiled bladder,—yet firm still, as though he grew to the rock. ”

“ Captains Kelly and Hobbs, who visited the Islands, very many years ago, and who saw a good deal of the old race of sealers, say that these poor women were mostly purchased of their parents, either for the carcasses of the seal, or for hunting dogs. But quarrels springing up between the two races, in which several of each side were killed, the natives grew chary of intercourse with the whites, and this species of barter was so much interrupted, that at last women could only be obtained by force. ”

“ The round, plump, expressive face of a seal, the beautiful, limpid eyes, the hand-like fore-paws, the sleek body, tapering towards the flattened hinder fins, which are directed backwards, and spread out in the form of a broad fin, like the tail of a fish, might well give the idea of an animal having the anterior part of its body human and the posterior half piscine.
In the habits of the seals, also, we may trace those of the supposed mermaid, and the more easily the better we are acquainted with them. All seals are fond of leaving the water frequently. ”

“ After sinking down—down—nobody knows how far, they at length reached a door, which, being open, led them into a range of apartments, filled with inhabitants—not people, but seals, who could nevertheless speak and feel like human folk; and how much was the seal-killer surprised to find that he himself had been unconsciously transformed into the like image! If it were not so, he would probably have died, from the want of breath. The nature of the poor fisher’s thoughts may be more easily conceived than described. ”

“ The large ground seal (Phoca barbata) is skinned in a different manner. Its skin is very thick, thicker even than sole leather, and therefore extremely durable and suitable for all sorts of lines, particularly traces, lashings, and harpoon lines, and for soles, drinking 521 cups, and boat covers. This seal is very large, sometimes attaining a length of ten feet. The skin of the back and of the breast dries unequally, and therefore a piece covering the throat and breast is taken out before the rest is skinned, and the parts are dried separately. ”

“ In hunting the seal, they take a different plan. The seal is very fond of its young. The hunters will take advantage of this by lying flat on the ice and making a sound like the cry of a young seal. In this way they manage to call the old seal out on the ice. But even then it is not always easy to catch the seal, for it has a strong, flexible tail, by means of which it is able to throw itself a good many feet at a time, so that even when on the ice it sometimes gets away with its awkward rolls and flops and jumps. A seal is very active and almost always in motion. ”

“ Simple as the invention of these two forms and the art of sealing may now appear, the discovery that an impression of a seal could be obtained by pressing it on clay or other plastic substance was nevertheless one of the most momentous that has yet been made, and the seal-impression furthermore suggested the idea of decoration in bas-relief. From the invention of the simple seal to the complex printing-press with its moveable types appears a long way to travel, but that we have the germ of this great invention in the simple seal is obvious when we come to think of it. ”

“ The captain was equally anxious to get some seal-skins, and he told us that, after we had visited the wreck, and explored the island, we should try and catch some of the animals.
Seals are curious-looking creatures. The head, with its large mild eyes, and snout, and whiskers, looks like that of some good-natured, intelligent dog; and one expects, as they are swimming, to see four legs and a thin curly tail come out of the water. Instead of that, the body narrows away till there is seen a tail like that of a fish. ”

“ The finest quality of seal-skin in the eastern North American waters, which are devoid of fur seal, is that of the kos-se-gear, or fresh-water seal, which is found at or near the mouths of nearly all rivers emptying into the sea. ”

“ They feed on birds, crabs, and small fishes, and are very tenacious of life.
The uses of the seal are various, and to some nations highly important. It yields train-oil, and its skin is extensively employed in making shoes, and, when dressed with the hair, in covering trunks. To the Esquimaux the seal is everything. Its flesh is food, its fat gives light, and its skin, dressed so as to be waterproof, is used for covering for boats and tents, and for garments.
The Phoca vitulina is the common species in the Greenland Sea, especially near Jan Mayen. The hooded seal is common near Spitzbergen. ”