SEAL HUNTING. 221 
turpentine seen without the blaze. I was soon envel- 
oped in crapy mist. 
" To shoot seal, one must practice the Esquimaux 
tactics of much patience and complete immobility. It 
is no fun, I assure you after full experience, to sit mo- 
tionless and noiseless as a statue, with a cold iron 
musket in your hands, and the thermometer 10^ below 
zero. But by-and-by I was rewarded by seeing some 
overgrown Greenland calves come within shot. I 
missed. After another hour of cold expectation, they 
came again. Very strange are these seal. A coun- 
tenance between the dog and the mild African ape — 
an expression so like that of humanity, that it makes 
gun-murderers hesitate. At last, at long shot, I hit 
one. God forgive me ! 
" The ball did not kill outright. It was out of range, 
struck too low, and entered the lungs. The poor beast 
had risen breast-high out of water, like the treading- 
water swimmers among ourselves. He was thus sup- 
ported, looking about with curious, expectant eyes, 
when the ball entered his lungs. 
" For a moment he oozed a little bright blood from 
his mouth, and looked toward me with a sort of start- 
led reproachfulness. Then he dipped ; an instant aft- 
er, he came up still nearer, looked again, bled again, 
and went down. A half instant afterward, he came 
up flurriedly, looked about with anguish in his eyes, 
for he was quite near me ; but slowly he sunk, strug- 
gling feebly, rose again, sunk again, struggled a very 
little more. The thing was drowning in the element 
of his sportive revels. He did drown finally, and sunk ; 
and so I lost him. 
"Have naturalists ever noticed the expression of 
this animal's phiz ? Curiosity, contentment, pain, re- 
