February, 1S65.1 A Sccd Sccurcil 1)7/ Ingenuity. 145 



a few days, now, lie was placed under serious Mpprehension that SJioo- 

 sJte-arJc-noolc would induce all to leave him with Ebierbing and Too- 

 koo-li-too, to get along- the best way they could alone. The fel- 

 low was, not long after, brought to terms when his own necessities 

 returned upon him. 



Ebierbing, on the 19th, shot a seal weighing 125 pounds. It was 

 too fat to sink, and its blubber made more than four gallons of oil. 

 The meat was divided equally among all the families. Having no 

 other means of securing a second seal which he had killed at too great 

 a distance from the land-ice to be reached by his harpoon, he had 

 endeavored to lodge in its body a line shot out from a rifle-grooved 

 ball ; but, each time, his line broke. His companions, talking over the 

 matter, returned to the spot with Hall, and found the water now cov- 

 ered with a thin coat of ice. Lashing together a number of poles and 

 flats, and making of them an oonar (seal-spear) a hundred feet in length, 

 they fastened to its end a harpoon carrying a seal-line, and then 

 pushed this long pole through a hole in the ice toward the seal. It re- 

 quired skill to direct it, as the sea-ice is not transparent, but on the second 

 attempt, after sunset, the seal was reached, and the harpoon withdrawn 

 an arm's length and struck into the animal by a skillful blow. Snow 

 was next kicked upon the body, and then thoroughly rubbed off" with 

 the feet, to prevent its hairy coat from being loaded with ice. A hole 

 was cut in its nose and a line passed through it, by a loop of which, 

 thrown over Hall's shoulders, he dragged it to his igloo, sharing it 

 equally with all. 



On the 24th and 25th a severe gale prevailed from the north- 

 northwest, the thermometer ranging from —23° to —34°, and the snow 

 drifting thickly. Over the Welcome, the fog-bank showed that the ice 

 S. Ex. 27 10 



