A BAY'S HUNTING AMONG THE ESKIMOS. 451 



will sometimes come towing as many as four seals, or even more 

 at a pincli. 



Tobias, in the meantime, another of the best hunters of the 

 village, has not been quite so fortunate as Boas. He began by 

 chasing a seal which dived and did not come up again within 

 sight. Then he set off after another ; but as he is skimming over 

 the sea toward it, the huge head of a hooded seal * suddenly pops 

 up right in front of the kaiak, and is harpooned in an instant. It 

 makes a frightful wallowing and dives, the harpoon line whirls 

 out, but suddenly gets fouled under the bird-dart throwing stick ; 

 the bow of the kaiak is drawn under with an irresistible rush, 

 and before Tobias knows where he is, the water is up to his arm- 

 pits, and nothing can be seen of him but his head and shoulders 

 and the stern of the kaiak, which sticks right up into the air. It 

 looks as if it were all over with him ; those who are near him 

 paddle with all their might to his assistance, but with scant hope 

 of arriving in time to save him. Tobias, however, is a first-rate 

 kaiak man. In spite of his difficult position, he keeps upon even 

 keel while he is dragged through the water by the seal, which 

 does all it can to get him entirely under. At last it comes up 

 again, and in a moment he has seized his lance and, with a deadly 

 aim, has pierced it right through the head. A feeble movement, 

 and it is dead. The others come up in time to find Tobias busy 

 making his booty fast, and to get their pieces of blubber from it.f 

 They can not restrain their admiration for his coolness and skill, 

 and speak of it long afterward. Tobias and Boas, however, are 

 the best hunters of the village. It is related of them that, in their 

 younger days, they were such masters of their craft that they 

 even disdained the use of bladders. They made fast the harpoon 

 line round their own waist or round the kaiak ring, and when 

 the harpooned seal was not killed at the first stroke they let it 

 drag themselves and the kaiak after it instead of the bladder. 

 This is looked upon by the Greenlanders as the summit of possi- 

 ble achievement, but there are very few who attain such mastery. 



The hunting is often more dangerous than that described 

 above. It will easily be understood that from his constrained 

 position in the kaiak, which does not permit of much turning, 

 the hunter can not throw backward or to the right. If, then, a 

 wounded seal suddenly attacks him from these quarters, it re- 

 quires both skill and presence of mind to elude it or to turn so 

 quickly as to aim a fatal throw at it before it has time to do him 



* Hiettescjcl^ the full-grown male of the Klapmyts (bladder-nose). It has a hood over its 

 nose, which it can inflate enormously. 



f When a seal is killed, each of the kaiak men in the neighborhood receives a piece of 

 its blubber, which he generally devours forthwith. 



