88 The Sea Elephant 



minutes' rest at long intervals all through the night at 

 the unfamiliar work of skinning those great beasts, 

 then securing the masses of fat-laden hide to a rope, 

 dragging the greasy plunder over the intervening space, 

 of a roughness hardly conceivable. Yes, it was a crude 

 experience, and remembering the triviality of the 

 reward, I am filled with wonder at our folly for ever 

 undertaking it. But we did not know, nor did we 

 take the trouble to enquire. I must not forget to 

 mention before I leave this uninviting part of my 

 subject that vSandy did not lose his arm. In spite of 

 the bones being broken, nay almost ground to pulp in 

 several places, and the extensive laceration of the flesh, 

 also the exceedingly primitive surgery, he was able to 

 use the arm again in six weeks, and long before that 

 was assisting as best he could in the work with one 

 arm. 



Strangely enough, I could put no heart in my work, 

 for I could not help feeling all the while that I WcLS in 

 the position of the unprovoked aggressor, and that 

 whatever happened to me, I should deserve all I got. 

 And that is no frame of mind to go a-whaling or 

 a-sealing in. But perhaps I had better not extend my 

 personal recollections of the Sea Elephant any farther, 

 or I may convey quite a wrong impression of him. It 

 is true that by accident he or she, as the case may be, 

 does inflict serious injury upon the aggressor. But 

 this is quite accidental. I am persuaded that the Sea 

 Elephant, except among his fellows at the mating 

 season, and even then in far less proportion than the 

 common seal, is harmless. As his diet will testify, 

 he is no insatiable hunter after higher organisms. 

 Cuttle-fish, those snaky, uncanny things, that seem 

 to have been created in order to provide food for a 

 full half of the sea mammals, and the lower mollusca, 



