66 THE LIFE OF E. J. PECK 



Dr. Nansen, in his book on Eskimo Life, gives a 

 most spirited account of what can be done and is 

 done every day in the use of the kayak in Green- 

 land waters. The hunter attacks successfully from 

 it the monsters and treasures of the deep. Some- 

 times he will come home in triumph towing as many 

 as four seals behind him a good bag for a day's 

 sport. Sometimes he will have had a battle with a 

 walrus, or even a grampus. It needs a very cool 

 head and no little daring to hold the weapon ready 

 to seize the favourable moment for hurling it 

 from the hand while a 1 6-foot ferocious monster, 

 with formidable tusks, is coming upon him apace. All 

 the time, too, there is the knowledge that others 

 may rise up out of the deep at any moment, and 

 the huntsman in his frail canoe may be surrounded 

 by enemies on all sides. His method of catching 

 seals is ingenious and exciting. A long line is 

 attached to his harpoon. To the end of this line, 

 remote from the harpoon, is secured an inflated 

 bladder or sealskin. With this apparatus he paddles 

 cautiously over the water towards the game he has 

 sighted. With a well-directed aim he presently 

 hurls his harpoon at the seal. If struck the animal 

 dives, but the inflated sealskin soon brings the 

 wounded, exhausted thing to the surface, when it 

 is finally despatched with a kind of lance. 



Cheap firearms have found their way among the 

 natives in many localities, and then they will 



