THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 655 



CAPT. HALL CAPTURES A SEAL. 



KILLING seals by using harpoons is peculiar to the Esquimaux, 

 whose patience is immeasurable ; they will sit over a seal-hole for 

 twenty-four hours, in the most terrific cold, without moving a 

 muscle, awaiting the animal's appearance, and even if then un- 

 successful in capturing it, they do not manifest any petulance. 

 They declare that no white man can harpoon a seal, but Ca.pt. 

 Hall refuted this statement by a very clever capture which is 

 related in his journals. 



Being directed to a seal-hole which, it must be remembered, 

 is not really a hole, but an excavation made on the under side of 

 the ice, shelved so as to admit the animal's body out of water, 

 while a surface ice is still overhead Hall took his seat over the 

 spot and there remained for an hour without moving, awaiting 

 signs of the seal's presence underneath. At length he heard a 

 softly-breathing and .slightly-scratching noise below the snow and 

 ice. Raising himself cautiously to his feet, he lifted the harpoon 

 over the spot, and with all his strength drove it down vertically ; 

 the blow was effective, for in a moment the line was jei Ued from 

 his hand, but, "quick as a flash," he says, "I seized it again, 

 or I would have lost my prize, as well as the harpoon and line. 

 The sealers far and near saw that I was fast to a seal, and 

 although I called to Nu-ker-zhoo , 'kiete! kietel come here! 

 come here ! there was no necessity for it, for before I uttered 

 a word he and all the others were making their way to me. Had 

 I caught a whale there could not have been more surprised and 

 happy souls than were these Innuits v>n finding I was really fast 

 to a seal. Laughter, hilarity, joyous ringing voices abounded. 

 Almost the last Innuit who arrived to congratulate me was my 

 good friend Ou-e-la, accompanied by his dog, dragging a seal 

 which he had just captured. Last of all came the young ladies, 

 Tuk-too and Now-yer, with dogs and sledge, and a seal which 

 Ar-mou had taken a little while before. All this time nobody 

 had seen my seal, for it was flipping away down in saltwater 

 beneath the snow and ice, still fast to one end of my line while I 

 held on to the other, Fu-ker-zhoQi with hi* petony (long knife), 



