170 VIKINGS OF TO-DAY 



and another will cry out "your ears are dead," the 

 parts having turned snowy white. Then begins the 

 painful and tedious process of rubbing the part with 

 snow woe betide the sufferer who goes in a heated 

 room, or uses hot water ; for a certainty he will lose 

 his ears or his nose then the creeping must be 

 again proceeded with ; or when the nets are partly 

 hauled bad weather will overtake them, perhaps a 

 sudden squall from the high land sweeps down on the 

 little open boat, and the tragedy of " the three fishers " 

 is apt to be enacted over again. In one case, a man 

 described to me how, when out with his brother 

 and another man, while in the act of hauling into 

 the boat a square flipper seal of larger size than 

 usual, the little craft capsized, and his brother, get- 

 ting cramp from cold, slipped off the bottom of the 

 boat to which all three were clinging. Fortunately, 

 the other two managed, it being a calm day, to hold 

 on till a rescue was effected. It is cold work at 

 best, and, as one stalwart fellow said, " jest a bit 

 hard, that when a man comes home real hungry it 

 should take him half an hour to get the' ice off his 

 face before he can find his mouth." " Yes," chimed 

 in another, " I lost two toes and this ear," show- 

 ing that he had been cropped as if at the pillory. 

 I have myself seen the frozen breath hanging from 

 men's beards and moustaches till, from nose to 

 chest, it was one huge white mass. 



The easier way of catching the " old harps " is 

 with a submerged room of net, resembling the cod 



