THE SEAL FISHERY. 1 23 



wrecked sealers to burn their vessel and naake their way 

 ashore over the ice. One of Mr. Bradford's most suc- 

 cessful paintings represents a sealer " nipped " by the 

 ice, the crew abandoning her after having set fire to their 

 vessel, and walking with mournful steps over the ice in 

 the direction of land. The delicate blues of the ice, 

 the sullen, neutral tints of the sky, the red glare of the 

 flames breaking out of the burning ship, and the warm 

 tints of the costumes of the men in the foreground, 

 vivjdly portray a most tragic scene, enacted only too 

 often on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



To return to our statistics : a " crew " of sealers on 

 the ice is composed of fifty men ; each one, if successful, 

 securing five seals. Two hundred and fifty pelts may 

 be brought back after each sally from the vessel. In 

 this way, when the seals are abundant, from 2500 to 3000 

 sealskins are taken in a single day, 9000 making a cargo. 

 The shares in the enterprise are ;^6o each man. The 

 captain takes half, "leaving the men in the lurch," as 

 our informant said, which being interpreted means that 

 the men realize little or no profits from the voyage. 



A sealskin is worth $4.00, a full cargo, perhaps, sell- 

 ing in the rough to traders for $30,000 or $40,000 ; the 

 profits on a full cargo are therefore considerable, but the 

 men's "half," being distributed among a large number, 

 does not amount to much for each man. This spring 

 (1864) the seal fishery was a failure. 



The young seals are killed by knocking them on the 

 head with a boat-hook or club, and the old ones by 

 shooting them with heavily loaded old muskets. The 

 hunters make holes in the ice and then watch for their 

 heads to appear above water. Of all the different kinds 



