THEIR BAD SUCCESS IN SPORT. 171 



they had managed to kill some hundreds of 

 eider-ducks ; from the fact of there being no 

 drakes amongst them I concluded these had 

 been killed on their nests. It was a lone: 

 time before they had succeeded in killing a 

 deer at all, and said that, but for the eider- 

 fowl and their eggs, of which they had found 

 great numbers, they would have been obliged 

 to go over to Hammerfest for provisions. 

 They admitted that they had found the deer 

 ^'very difficult to liit^^ and as they could make 

 nothing of the breech-loading rifle, they had 

 been obliged to make bullets for the shot-gun 

 which I had also lent them, by cutting a piece 

 of wood round at the end, and then boring 

 holes in the sand, into which they poured the 

 lead, and then beat these plugs into a spherical 

 shape. The bullets manufactured by this 

 ingenious process must have considerably im- 

 proved the bore of my gun by the attrition 

 of the sand attached to them. They stoutly 

 maintained having killed several seals, but 

 "they had all sunk." Seal not being very 

 good " grub," I doubted whether much time 

 had been devoted to the cliasse of that animal. 

 I was very glad to find that my sailing- 

 master, Mr. Wood, had devoted great attention 



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