70 TRANSACTIONS. 1 897-8, 



hauling-ground; some of them steal quietly between the seals 

 and the water or between the young males and the breeding 

 seals if the drive is made from behind a rookery. Great care 

 is taken to prevent stampedes, as when once thoroughly 

 frightened the seals cannot be controlled. They are not 

 hurried and a very few men sufhce to prevent any lateral 

 movement. If the morning be warm they cannot be driven 

 at all and sometimes drives are not finished, the seals being 

 allowed to return to the hauling-grounds or to the water. 

 The killing-ground is usually reached between 3 and 5 o'clock 

 in the morning, and the killing is begun as soon as the seals 

 have cooled off. A pod or bunch of between 20 and 40 seals 

 is separated from the band and driven to where the clubbers 

 await them. They are killed with long clubs much the shape 

 of a base-ball bat, but about twice the length. Five or six 

 clubbers surround the pod that has been driven to them, the 

 agent of the sealing company points out the seals he believes 

 to be of the size to afford the best skins and they are quickly 

 dispatched by a blow or two of the club. The natives who 

 do this work are exceedingly skilful, and seldom miss the seal 

 pointed out to them or strike another. When clubbed the 

 seals are dragged aside by the skinners and a fresh pod driven 

 up. After being clubbed each seal is stuck with a knife to 

 ensure its being dead, and after cooling for a few minutes is 

 quickly skinned. In this too, the natives are remarkably 

 expert, some of them being able to remove the skin in less 

 than one minute. The seals which are thought too large or 

 too small, or whose skins appear to have been injured, are 

 allowed to escape and ultimately reach the sea; many of them 

 return to the hauling-grounds whence they are again driven. 

 This process of re-driving cannot be otherwise than injurious 

 to them, but while the present methods are practiced there 

 seems to be no way of obviating it. After all the seals have 

 been killed and skinned (and more than a thousand are often 

 killed during one morning) the skins are taken to the salt- 

 house when after being counted they are salted. They are 

 laid flat on the floor, care being taken that the edges are not 

 turned in, salt is then shovelled over them until they are com- 

 pletely covered, when another layer of skins is laid down and 

 so on until the kench or bin in which they have been placed 

 is full. In ten days or two weeks, they are taken from the 

 salt, well shaken, and then re-salted. A week or two later 

 thev are ready for bimdling. Two skins are laid face to face 

 with the fur outwards, the edges are turned in and then rolled 



