THE VOYAGE OF THE HURON AND THE HUNTRESS 



having landed them in a whaleboat, sailed back to Yankee Harbor. Now 

 followed alternate periods of fierce activity and utter boredom. The method 

 of killing and skinning the seals has been described by many writers from Cap- 

 tain Cook's time, but that renowned Duxbury mariner, Captain Amasa Delano, 

 does it as well as any: 



". . . The method practised to take them was to get between them and 

 the water, and make a lane of men, two abreast, forming three or four 

 couples, and then drive the seal through this lane; each man furnished 

 with a club, between five and six feet long and as they passed, he knocked 

 down such of them as he chose, which are commonly the half-grown. 

 . . . When stunned, knives are taken to cut and rip them down on the 

 breast from the under jaw, to the tail, giving a stab in the breast that will 

 kill them. After this the hands got to skinning. I have seen men, one 

 of whom would skin sixty in an hour. They take off all the fat, and 

 some of the lean, with the skin, as the more weight there is to the skin, 

 the easier it will beam."^° 



The curing or "beaming" process was accomplished by scraping the fatty 

 tissue away, and then washing the surface thoroughly, and Delano states: 



"This is done in the same manner in which curriers flesh their skins, 

 after which it is stretched and pegged on the ground to dry. . . . After this 

 they are taken out of pegs and stacked in the manner of salt cod-fish. 

 They will sweat whilst in the pile, so as to render it necessary to open 

 them and give them air, two or three times. After which they may be 

 stacked in a ship's hold, and will keep for years ... if kept dry."'^^ 



[34] 



