survived to tell the tale.

[Footnote: Crantz, London edition, 1820, Appendix, p. 310.]

As we returned towards the land, we came to a small rising on the
level surface of the floe not larger than a common molehill, and
of much the same shape, at which one of the Esquimaux immediately
stopped. His companions, still walking on, called us away,
explaining that what we saw was the work of a seal, and that it
was probable the animal was about to complete his hole and to come
up on the ice, in which case the man would endeavour to kill him.
We watched the man at the hole, however, with a glass, for more
than half an hour, observing him constantly putting his head down
towards the ice, as if in the act of listening for the seal, but
without otherwise changing his position; after which he followed
us on board without success.

If, however, a man has any reason to suppose that a seal is at
work beneath, he immediately attaches himself to the place, and
seldom leaves it till he has succeeded in killing the animal. For
this purpose, he first builds a snow-wall about four feet in
height, to shelter him from the wind, and, seating himself under
the lee of it, deposites his spear, lines, and other implements
upon several little forked sticks inserted into the snow, in order
to prevent the smallest noise being made in moving them when
wanted. But the most curious precaution to the same effect
consists in tying his own knees together with a thong, so securely
as to prevent any rustling of his clothes, which might otherwise
alarm the animal. In this situation a man will sit quietly
sometimes for hours together, attentively listening to any noise
made by the seal, and sometimes using the _keip-kuttuk_, an
instrument hereafter described, in order to ascertain whether the
animal is still at work below. When he supposes the hole to be
nearly completed, he cautiously lifts his spear, to which the line
has been previously attached, and, as soon as the blowing of the
seal is distinctly heard, and the ice consequently very thin, he
drives it into him with the force of both arms, and then cuts away
with his _panna_ the remaining crust of ice, to enable him to
repeat the wounds and get him out. The _neitiek_ is the only seal
killed in this manner, and, being the smallest, is held while
struggling either simply by hand, or by putting the line round a
spear with the point stuck into the ice. For the _oguke_, the line
is passed round the man's