the proceeds of the voyage are divided as wages among the men, but in steamers only a third is thus distributed. The captain gets a certain number of cents per seal. The food of the men is none of the daintiest, and no one who is at all squeamish about what he "eats, drinks, and avoids" need attempt to go "swile huntin'." The diet consists of biscuit, pork, butter, and tea sweetened with molasses. On three days of the week dinner consists of pork and "duff," the latter item consisting of flour and water with a little fatty substance intermixed "to lighten it." When boiled it is almost as hard as a cannonball. On the other four days of the week all the meals consist of tea, sweetened with molasses, and biscuit. Such is the rough fare on which these hardy fellows go through their trying and laborious work! When, however, they fall in with seals, their diet is improved. They cook the heart, liver, flippers, and other parts, and feast on them ad libitum, and generally come ashore in excellent condition, though the odour that attends them does not suggest the "spicy breezes which blow soft from Ceylon's Isle." When out on the ice it is a common practice to string upon their belts a dozen or two of seals' kidneys, and eat them raw as appetite prompts. The hearts of seals are treated in the same way. The use of fresh seal meat in this fashion is highly conducive to health, and the best preventive of scurvy. Very little sickness occurs among the men while leading this rough life. They are often out for eight or ten weeks without seeing land, and enduring the hardest toils. When seals are taken in large quantities the hold of the vessel is first filled, and then the men willingly surrender their berths, which are packed full of "white-coats." In fact, every nook and corner is crammed with the precious fat; and the sealers sleep where they can-in barrels on deck, on a layer of seals, or in the coal-bunks. It is marvellous to see men, after eight or ten weeks of such a life, leap X ashore hearty and vigorous. Their outer garments are polished with seal fat and the blood of their victims, and it is advisable to keep to windward of them till they have procured a change of clothing. The experiences of a sealing voyage are various, being influenced by the ever-shifting condition of the ice and the direction of the winds. The grand aim of the sealers is to reach that portion of the ice which is the "whelpinggrounds" of the seals, while yet the young are in their plump oleaginous babyhood. The position of this icy-cradle is utterly uncertain, being dependent on the movements of the ice and the force of winds and waves. It has to be sought for amid vast ice-fields. At times, in endeavouring to push her way through, the vessel is caught in the heavy ice; and then the ice-saws are called into requisition to cut an opening to the nearest "lead" of clear water, that she may work her way north. But the heavy Arctic ice. may close in under the pressure of a nor'-easter, and then no amount of steam power can drive her through. Howling night closes in; bergs and floes are crashing all around, and momentarily threatening her with destruction; the wind roars through the shrouds, driving on its wings the arrowy sleet and snow, sharp as needles, which only men of iron can stand. Thus locked in the embrace of the floe the luckless vessel is drifted helplessly hundreds of miles, till a favourable wind loosens the icy prison walls. It is no uncommon occurrence for a hundred vessels to be thus beset by heavy ice through which no passage can be forced. Some are "nipped," some crushed to atoms, and the men have to escape for their lives over the ice. Others are carried into the great northern bays, or borne in the heavy "pack" up and down on the ocean for weeks, returning to port "clean," that is without a single seal. There are seasons when the boldest and most skilful captains fail. At other times, by a turn of good fortune, a vessel "strikes the seals" a day or two after leaving port, and finds herself in the middle of a "seal patch" sufficient to load the Great Eastern. The whole ice for miles around is covered thick with the young "white-coats," and in a fortnight from the time of the departure she returns to port loaded to the gunwale, her very decks being piled with the skins and fat of the seals. When approaching such an El Dorado as this, the excitement on board may be imagined, as the welcome whimpering of the young harp seals is heard. Their cry has a remarkable resemblance to the sobbing or whining of an infant in pain, which is redoubled as the destroyers approach. Young hunters who now ply their gaffs for the first time are often almost overcome by these baby lamentations. Compassion, however, is soon gulped down. The vessel is "laid to," the men eagerly bound on the ice, and the work of destruction begins. A blow on the nose from the gaff stuns or kills the young seal. Instantly the sculpingknife is at work, the skin with the fat adhering is detached with amazing rapidity from the carcase, which is left on the ice still quivering with life, while the fat and skin alone are carried off. This process is called "sculping," a corruption no doubt of scalping. In skinning, a cut is made through the fat to the flesh, a thickness of about three inches, from the throat to the tail. The legs, or "flippers," and also the head are then drawn from the inside, and the skin is laid out flat and entire, with the layer of fat adhering to it; and in this state the skin is called the "pelt," or "sculp." It is generally about three feet long and two and a half feet wide, and weighs from thirtyfive to fifty pounds. The hunter nicks two holes along the edge of each side of the skin, and then lays them one over the other, passing the rope through the nose of each pelt, and then lacing it through the side holes in such a manner that, when pulled tight, it draws them in a compact |