AFTER THE SEAL 



or spear the animals almost at leisure. This practice is 

 probably copied from the Eskimos, who even used to go 

 the length of sewing themselves in sealskins and, at the 

 risk of being torn to pieces, crawl among a herd and kill 

 as many as possible with their bow and arrows. 



Sealing among the British, American, Dutch, Scandi- 

 navian, and Japanese fleets is a most important industry, 

 and is carried on as systematically if not as profitably 

 and with as much risk as whaling. Good-sized ships 

 of 800 tons and over are fitted out for the work, each 

 carrying oil-tanks, boilers, etc. British Columbia alone 

 owns several fleets of such ships. The means of catching 

 depends on the neighbourhood, time of year, etc. For 

 open-sea work, harpooning or shooting from small boats 

 is the surest; and, where the fishermen are active and 

 industrious, two men can often garner a boat-load in a 

 few hours. In spring, this method is terribly dangerous 

 in the northern regions, for the ice is breaking up, and 

 huge hummocks of it are floating about ; the sea is rough 

 or choppy by reason of the melted snow torrents that are 

 everywhere emptying themselves into it, and the weather 

 is still bitterly cold. 



The greatest peril is from the floating ice ; an oarsman 

 who knows his way about, can easily dodge a single block 

 that is making for him ; but let him get into a current 

 among a couple of dozen perhaps a couple of hundred 

 of such blocks, which are cheerfully jostling and clashing 

 together ! I am not quoting an isolated or out-of-the-way 

 case ; such a position exists only too frequently, and the 

 annual list of casualties that arise in this manner is an 



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