SEAL HUNTS. 
417 
hata), lying upon a floating piece of ice. The captain's 
ball went through his heart; and my own, equally 
deadly, within a few inches of it ; but the unwieldy 
creature continued struggling to reach the water, until 
a shot from Mr. Lovell, close upon him, drove a mus- 
ket-ball through his head. He measured eight feet 
from tip to tip, five feet eleven inches in his greatest 
circumference, and five feet six inches in girth behind 
the fore-flippers. His carcass was a shapeless cylin- 
der, terminating in an awkward knob to represent the 
head. 
We lost two seals by sinking. Hitherto, when kill- 
ed on the instant by perforation of the brain or spinal 
maiTow, they had invariably floated. But the rule 
does not hold always. I wounded one so as to carry 
away the crown of his skull, and Captain De Haven 
gave him a second shot from within a few yards di- 
rectly through the head, and yet we lost him. As the 
balls struck, he discharged, almost explosively, a quan- 
tity of air, and went down like a loon. The whalers 
say, wound your seals ; but my own experience is, that, 
if they are fat, it is best to kill them at once. A Dan- 
ish boy, who had joined us by stealth at Disco, told 
us that the animal's sinking was a proof that he had 
no blubber. He was probably right : we certainly did 
not secure any that were in good condition. 
The next day gave us excitement of a different sort. 
We had been lying in the young ice-field, close under 
the southeast shore of Storoe, with the current setting 
strong toward it, and a grim array of bergs to the west 
of us. It was an ugly position ; but we were fairly 
entangled, and there was no escape. Early in the 
morning, the wind freshened, and blew in toward the 
island ; the ice piling against the rocky precipice under 
Dd 
