march. T*i63.] Notwe Moch of Sealing . 151 



frozen ideas, from which he can escape only by the most violent 

 physical exercise." 



On the Gth, after a protracted and severe struggle with a walrus 

 found sleeping on the drifting ice, seven miles out, Eliierbing and Nu-ker- 

 zhoo, after freely using their harpoons and lances, at last pierced his neck 

 with a well-directed bullet. Night coming on, the two left their rifles 

 on the ice and returned to their huts. The next day, Hall with three 

 of his friends made their way over the rough sea-ice — a temper-trying 

 field of chaos made up of piled blocks of every conceivable shape, 

 size, and position, fractured and raised by the pressure of the floes 

 upon such ice as had become fixed. They found the creature still fast 

 to the line b}^ which Ebierbing had tied him to a hummock ; but the 

 current, at the last, swept this line under the land-ice, broke it, and 

 took from them their prize. Four flocks of the eider-duck {Anas mollis- 

 sima) were seen, which they estimated contained 1,000 each, the males 

 predominating. Hall notes as of interest to naturalists, their winter- 

 ing in very large numbers in waters of such high latitude as the 

 Welcome. 



The customs of the natives in sealing during the winter are detailed 

 as follows : 



When the hunt is prosecuted over seal-holes, no seal is seen by the sealer 

 until he has made fast to it. The locality of the hole is found by a seal-dog only, 

 and the sealer then proceeds to prospect with the long: spindle shank of his 

 oo-nar, piercing the snow until it penetrates the exact spot of the hole which 

 leads up through the sea-ice. Then, with one eye, a sight is taken through this 

 spindle-shank hole, to determine whether it is about the center of the seal-hole, 

 as this is the point where the spindle-shank hole must be located. 



When the seal comes to this hole to blow, the listener prepares himself 

 for striking his harpoon vertically through it ; and on the second or third puff 



