i82 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 





The seal was a large female, almost six feet in 

 length, its fat in places being four inches thick. 



At ten o'clock at night I observed another 

 seal on a floe a few hundred yards away. 

 It appeared monstrous to me, who, flushed as 

 I was with my recent success, promptly had 

 the boat lowered, and we pulled silently towards 

 it. Unluckily for me, it presented its back 

 towards me. I had to wait patiently until 

 it turned. This it did after some time, and, 

 taking advantage of the movement, I planted in 

 its neck a bullet, which made it spring high into 

 the air. It fell backwards on to the floe, and 

 again I fired. For a moment it remained stiff 

 and motionless, then swiftly it dived into the 

 sea, to reappear farther away. We could then 

 see that the front of its head had been blown 

 away, blinding it. Pulling hard we quickly 

 came up to it. It dived, and reappeared a 

 second time still farther away. 



Jonas asked me to finish it, so yet once more 

 I fired, and this time succeeded in killing it. 

 It sank just at the moment the bow of our boat 

 touched it, and from my place in the bows I 

 saw the animal slowly descending to the sea 

 bottom amid a flood of blood. Jonas, despite 

 all his efforts, failed to harpoon it before it 

 vanished into the depths. 



