A BAY'S HUNTING AMONG THE ESKIMOS. 453 



keel and renewing the fight with the furions adversary. And 

 yet it sometimes happens that after being thus capsized the kaiak 

 man brings the seal home in triumph. 



A still more terrible adversary is the walrus ; therefore there 

 are generally several in company when they go walrus-hunting, 

 so that one can stand by another if anything should happen. 

 But often enough, too, a single hunter will attack and overcome 

 this monster. 



Hitherto the weather has been fine, the glassy surface of the 

 sea has been heaving softly under the rising sun. But in the 

 course of the last hour or two black and threatening banks of 

 clouds have begun to draw up over the southern horizon. Just 

 as Tobias has made fast his seal, a distant roar is heard and a sort 

 of steam can be seen rising over the sea to the southward. It is 

 a storm approaching, and the steam is the flying spray which it 

 drives before it. Of all winds, the Greenlanders fear the south 

 wind {nigelx) most, for it is always violent and sets up a heavy sea. 



The thing is now to get under the land as quickly as possible. 

 Those who have no seals in tow have the best of it, yet they try 

 to keep with the others. One relieves Boas of one of his seals. 

 They have not paddled far before the storm is upon them; it 

 thrashes the water to foam as it approaches, and the kaiak men 

 feel it on their backs, like a giant lifting and hurling them for- 

 ward. The sport has now turned to earnest ; the seas soon tower 

 into mountains of water and break and welter down upon them. 

 They are making for the land with the wind nearly abeam ; but 

 they are still far ofi:, they can see nothing around them for the 

 spray, and almost every wave buries them so that only a few 

 heads, arms, and ends of paddles can be seen above the combs 

 of froth. 



Here comes a gigantic roller they can see it shining black 

 and white in the far distance. It towers aloft so that the sky is 

 almost hidden. In a moment they have stuck their paddles under 

 the thongs on the windward side and bent their bodies forward 

 so that the crest of the wave breaks upon their backs. For a 

 second almost everything has disappeared ; those who are farther 

 a-lee await their turn in anxiety ; then the billow passes, and once 

 more the kaiaks skim forward as before. But such a sea does not 

 come singly; the next will be worse. They hold their paddles 

 flat to the deck and projecting to windward, bend their bodies 

 forward, and at the moment when the white cataract thunders 

 down upon them they hurl themselves into its very jaws, thus 

 somewhat breaking its force. For a moment they have again 

 disappeared then one kaiak comes up on even keel, and presently 

 another appears bottom upward. It is Pedersuak (i. e., the big 

 Peter) who has capsized. His comrade speeds to his side, but at 



