IN THE SHETLANDS 347 
burst of sound, like subaqueous thunder ; whether 
caused by the swirl, as they go down, or being a 
growl, half-choked under the water, I do not know. 
Seals seem to lead a most happy life. I have 
mentioned one leaping out of the water, as it went 
along, in pure enjoyment—for what else could it have 
been? But how different is all this to the lonely 
sleep of that great thing yonder !—Falstaff—Proteus 
—Bottle-nose—but that last is a calumny on a very 
respectable feature. There is no real contrast, how- 
ever. The common kind often sleep their leesome 
lane. With the play it may be different. I have not 
seen the great seal sportive. 
A phoca has just come up with something white 
in its mouth, which it is eating—a fish, no doubt. 
This, too, it does in a playful manner, flinging 
open its jaws, and seeming to disport with it, in 
them. Full of the enjoyment of life they are; 
and the way up, through evolution, is to leave 
all this, and to acquire a multitude of cares, with 
gluttony, diseases, vices, cant—with a pat on the 
back from a poet, or so, now and again, making 
us out to be gods, and telling us to go to war. 
A queer scheme, ‘a miserable world,” as Jacques 
says—but not for seals. Except through us, that 
is to say. We do skin them alive, which raises 
another point. Not only is man—highly civilised 
man—the most miserable being that exists, or has 
ever existed, upon this planet, but it is through him, 
for the most part, that the robe of misery has been 
