It may not be out of place to make a few remarks here about seals and sealing generally. Most people know that seal fisheries exist, but few have any idea of their extent. The ice-fields of Newfoundland and Labrador produce more than anywhere else; but Greenland, Northern Europe, the seas around Jan Mayen, Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen produce also a great harvest, and the fur-bearing seals of the Aleutian Islands must not be forgotten. Sealing on the east coast of Greenland is entirely in the hands of natives, but the industry in other places is chiefly prosecuted by Europeans and Americans. Lindeman tells us that in 1720 the ports of the Weser sent out ships, that in 1760 Hamburg sent nineteen which took 44,722 seals, that in 1862 five German ships took 17,000, five Danish 5,000, fifteen Norwegian 63,000 and twenty-two British 51,000; so this gives one an idea of the extent to which Great Britain was represented. In 1876 the Dundee ships alone took 53,000, valued at over £34,000. It was the custom for the British sealers to arrive in Bressa Sound, Shetland, about the end of February, and there pick up a considerable part of their crews, getting to the ice about the middle of March. The young seals were in good condition about this time and had not yet taken to the water, so afforded an easy prey to their foes. Around Newfoundland, sealing has gone on with great profit to all engaged for probably one hundred and fifty years, and a glance at the following table will give some idea of its extent:
Roughly, about 350,000 every year, the greatest catch being 685,530 in 1844.
Harvey tells us that in 1857 there were nearly four hundred vessels of 80 to 200 tons burthen engaged in the industry, employing altogether 13,600 men, and that the year's catch was worth $1,700,000. Now, about eight to ten thousand men are engaged, and the seal fishing yields about one-eighth part of the entire exports of the country.
Steam was first used in 1863 and then the sailing ships began to decrease in number. In 1884 more than thirty steamers were used, while the sailing ships had become scarce.
With the advent of steam, the Dundee owners began casting covetous eyes at Newfoundland. The western ocean passage could be made early in the year, and the sealing taken in en route to the whaling. It became necessary to arrange with agents at St. John's, or to build yards where the cargo of seals could be taken care of, leaving the vessel free to proceed north. At this time six ships represented Dundee.
Arctic, Captain Guy
Narwhal, Captain Phillips
Aurora, Captain Jas. Fairweather
Polynia, Captain Walker
Esquimaux, Captain Milne
Thetis, Captain Alex. Fairweather
The Resolute, Captain Jackman, could hardly be called a Dundee ship, and it so happened that the Thetis went on other business this year; but the above were the usual six.
The seals forming our cargo from the Newfoundland ice were harps (Phoca Greenlandica), so called on account of a peculiar mark on each side of the adult, extending from near the shoulder to near the tail, and hoods (Cystophora Cristata), so called on account of a large inflatable sac on the nose of the male. On our trip to Labrador we secured quite a number of hoods, but on our first trip our cargo was practically one of harps. Both these species are migratory, coming south in winter and working north in summer as the ice recedes. As the banks of Newfoundland swarm with fish, they form a pleasant winter resort for the seals, and are very convenient to the floes on which they spend February and March. Harbor seals (Phoca vetulini) and square flippers (Phoca barbatus) are also found on the coast.
The breeding ice of the seal is the goal of every master in the trade, but there are no rules for finding it. One may consider the influence of currents and winds, and may navigate accordingly only to find the seals are not found where expected. In our own case, the Captain told me the day we left St. John's that he had no definite idea of where to go. Nevertheless we awoke one morning to find ourselves surrounded by hundreds of thousands.
Young seals are born on the Newfoundland ice February 15th to 25th, and are in perfect condition for the market by March 20th, as they have been well fed by their mothers until then. They are a yellowish white when born and remain so until they begin to take to the water, when the longish white hair is rapidly shed and the young one quickly loses its condition.
Owing to the exciting nature of the work, a trip to the ice is the desire of nearly every Newfoundland boy. The great danger is fog coming down while the men are sealing far from the ship, and next comes the danger of losing the ship and drifting about on the floes until possibly death takes place from cold and starvation.
In 1872 one hundred men perished, fifty going down with the Huntsman on the coast of Labrador. The Bloodhound and Retriever were lost the same year, their crews escaping to Battle Harbor after terrible hardships.
Scoresby tells us of the classical disaster which occurred in 1774 about sixty miles east of Jan Mayen. The sealing fleet, consisting of over fifty vessels, met at the ice edge on March the 29th.
The whole fleet entered the ice streams and their boats went off sealing. A storm suddenly arose, destroying five of the ships and injuring many more, while most of the sealers who were far from their ships were never seen again, almost six hundred men being lost. One could not talk to a sealer long without learning of some horrible accident which had occurred to himself or a friend, and while some of them were given to romance, there could be no question about the perils they encountered or about their bravery and endurance.
Toward the end of February, the sweilers, as they are called, began to arrive in St. John's looking for berths. As the steamers afforded better opportunities, the able men got them, while the older ones took to the sailing craft, where life was not so strenuous. These men were dressed very much alike and were most athletic; some of them were perfectly wonderful in the way they jumped from pan to pan, barely touching some of the smaller ones in passage. The owners did not overfeed the men on these trips, providing them with sea biscuits and pinnacle tea chiefly, pork and duff being served only three days a week and salt fish on Fridays. The water from which the tea was brewed was obtained by thawing pinnacles of ice. When ice floes came together they rafted one on to the other and shattered fragments stuck up in all directions. Snow piled upon these and was frozen. When water was wanted, a body of men with axes went on the ice and broke off the pinnacles, which were taken on board and stacked on deck. As water was required these were put into a tank and steam turned on. Tea was made with this water, and molasses added in place of cream and sugar. Our water for the cabin use was not obtained from this source.
On steamers the crew received one-third of the catch, on sailing ships one-half. This was made to the Newfoundland men only on the Dundee ships, the Dundee crew getting paid so much a month, as well as a fraction of the catch. When a ship was amongst the white coats, as the young seals were called, the crew lived well, as they ate the livers, hearts and flippers of the seals. The men carried a supply of livers and hearts in their belts and ate them frozen or cooked as opportunity afforded. It is easy to see how little cooking can be done for a crew of three hundred men on a small ship. I have often seen a man tie a cord to a liver and drop it into a pot of tea sitting on the galley stove, drawing it out when warmed up or when the owner of the pot came for his tea.
Sailing ships were allowed to leave port on March 1st, but steamers could not clear for the sealing until March 10th, and the laws were very strictly enforced. It was not unusual for a ship to have her pans of seals pilfered by another ship during a fog, and this often led to legal complications. I have frequently seen our men cut private marks on the fatty sides of the sculps so that they might be identified afterwards. Of course, any ship would pick up a pan which had lost its flag. Sometimes the sweilers had great luck, being gone only a week or two and coming back with their pockets full. A sculp was worth $2.00 to $3.00, and as the men received one-third of all taken, it amounted to a good deal for them, and as it came oft at a season when there was nothing else being done, it added greatly to its value.
Ships engaging in this work had to have their hold hulkheaded off so that, should they encounter bad weather, the cargo would not shift. As the Aurora was tanked, that was all that was necessary. If the ship were long in reaching port after taking her seals on hoard, the fat might break down and the oil flood everything, unless the ship had tanks. In our case the sculps were on board such a short time that they were as fresh looking when landed as when taken. The fat was separated from the skin on shore by a man with a long knife. He drew a sculp over a board and caught the edge of it with his left hand; using the knife with his right, in a few sweeps he removed all the blubber. This was thrown into a sausage machine and afterwards steamed in tanks to extract the oil, which was refined by exposure to the sun's rays. The oil was used for machinery and in lighthouses, and the skins were made into harness, boots, etc., farmers using the refuse for fertilizing purposes.
When one saw this small army of fine looking, hard working and very poor men, he could not help being sorry that their forefathers in emigrating had not gone a little further and settled in Canada or the United States, instead of on this inhospitable land. Think of how comparatively easy their lives would have been, and what a return they would have reaped for their work. Newfoundland meant to every one of them a life of toil with not much more hope than the mother country could have given them. Poor soil and a relentless winter mean this as a rule in a country the mineral resources of which have not been developed.
"The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around;
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound."
March 10th. At five A. M. all was life on board the Aurora. On awaking, I had coffee, which was in the cabin, and, muffling up well, I went on deck, as it was bitterly cold. The night was cloudy and dark but the ship was illuminated with torches, and on each side of the gangway stood the mate and ice-master, calling the roll. The Newfoundland men came on board as their names were called, about three hundred in all, including the quartermasters, who lived down in the quarter-hatch. The men all wore boots made of untanned seal skin, from which the hair had been removed. They were very light and serviceable and came up to the knee. Spikes were driven into the soles to prevent slipping on the ice, and the decks were preserved from these by rough plank sheathing. There was great wrangling and disputing, as many of the men had been celebrating the occasion.
At six A. M. we cast loose and by degrees broke our way from the wharf. The scene, when the sun arose, was intensely interesting; all the sealing ships were out, trying to crush their way towards the narrows, and, as the harbor was entirely frozen over, this was hard work. Two ships, the Resolute and the Polynia, were behind us, and these last sent two or three hundred to assist our Newfoundland crew in pulling on a hawser over our bows, while our Scotch crew on board ran backwards and forwards across the deck to make the ship roll. This rolling often helped greatly when the ship put her bows in a crack. Our method was to go full speed astern for a few yards, and then full speed ahead, the eight or nine hundred men on the ice pulling for all they were worth at the same time, and the Aurora's men on board running across the deck to keep up the roll. As there were thousands of men similarly employed on and about the other ships, and as they were all singing, the scene may be imagined.
The Nimrod and Neptune were moving on, well ahead of us, and when we got into their wake, the Aurora moved along faster. It was eight bells by the time we passed through the narrows; there the ice was much looser, so we all pushed off in our various directions to look for the breeding haunts of seals. Captain Fairweather kept a little nearer shore than the others, and by evening there were only a few ships in sight.
I retired early, as I had been up for many hours, and even the bumping and thumping of the ship, as she went full speed ahead and full speed astern every few minutes all night, did not keep me awake.
March 11th. When I went on deck, a wonderful Arctic scene presented itself. A snow storm was raging and the ship looked as though she had been fast there for years. She was literally buried in snow, and the weather was so cold that the snow had frozen on her yards and rigging. The morning was dark and one could not see very far. Under the starboard bow the ice was heavy, causing the ship to lie over to port. The wind was from the southeast and had driven the ice in on us. There was a great deal of creaking and crunching from moving floes and the wind made a lot of noise in the rigging. By noon the weather had moderated and the snow ceased; by night the wind was coming from the northeast and the ice slackened, the ship being upon an even keel. Of course, snow was not allowed to remain very long on deck, as our big crew had nothing to do but shovel it off.
I looked into the 'tween-decks and saw a horrible mess. The bunks were full of men, many playing cards, as each bunk held four. They must have been stifled. For light, lamps burning seal oil were used, and the reek coming from the main hatch would almost have suggested fire.
During the night, the ship got under way, and her bumping awoke me several times.
March 12th. In the morning, we were again beset. Hearing a noise on deck, I went up. On the poop a lot of duffs were lying about like 64 lb. shot. A crowd of angry men could be seen on the main deck and facing them was the Captain. A big Newfoundland man came up the steps and, breaking a duff in two, held it up and asked the Captain to look at it. It was an awkward moment and called for immediate action. But the Captain was a man of action, so he planted a blow between the man's eyes and asked him to look at that; the man dropped back dazed and the trouble came to an end at once.
The Captain told a story at breakfast about a steward once saying that more tea would not be required for the next voyage as he had been boiling the leaves from the cabin and giving it to the crew. An order was at once issued to serve out good tea of the proper strength instead. Next morning all hands came aft to complain about the black stuff the cook was serving out, and demanding that proper tea, such as they had been having, should be served.
The weather was now fine, and the world very white, the only visible black being a pond of open water half a mile to the east of us. The wind was again from the east and the cold intense; in fact, one could hardly face it on account of small particles of ice driven by it.
After breakfast I took my rifle and went to the lee side of the open water. It was perhaps a fourth of a mile long and a hundred and fifty yards wide. Every little while a few seals would bob up at one end of the hole and then, giving a few plunges, disappear. I crouched behind a pinnacle for shelter and, watching past the side of it, soon had a shot. I fancied I heard the bullet strike, but the seal disappeared; presently another came. This time I was sure that I saw the water around bloodstained, but there was a ripple and it was difficult to see anything lying low on it. I spent several hours at this work and was perfectly certain I had hit many seals. On one occasion, I saw the side of one I had shot, with the water breaking over it, but presently it disappeared. I knew that at this season the animals would float, and as I was on the lee side, why did they not drift down to me? Cold at last drove me back to the Aurora, and, on relating my experiences, the ice-master told me that I would find the dead animals at the weather side of the hole, as the ice, drifting before the wind, would travel faster than the dead and almost completely submerged seals. So taking a man with me, I had the satisfaction of seeing seven big male harps pulled out, the first I had ever killed and the first secured by the ship.
During the afternoon the ice eased off and the ship again proceeded. She was getting along pretty well at bedtime, but not making any particular course.
March 13th. It was about five A. M. when the steward came to my room and lit the lamp. He said we were among the "white coats" and he seemed greatly pleased. I dressed and, going up, found bright moonlight. The ship was hard and fast. In every direction I could hear sounds like the crying of children. I could also see gangs of men on the ice and some coming on board. The men had been taking advantage of the moonlight to begin their work, and all were in splendid spirits, as a full ship meant much to them.
About six the whistle sounded for all hands to come on board for breakfast, and after that they were organized into companies, commanded by their own quartermasters, and proceeded about the slaughter in a well regulated manner. Each man carried a spruce pole, on the end of which was a sort of boat hook called a "gaff," and each also had a tow rope. The method of proceeding was as follows:
A company would go in a certain direction and then scatter. A man would kill four or five whitecoats by hitting them on the head with his gaff. He would pull them together and sculp them, that is, with his sculping knife he would make an incision on the under surface of the body, its entire length, through the skin and fat. How the skin, with its subcutaneous fat, was very loosely adherent to the rest of the body of the young seal, so with a very few sweeps of the knife the body was separated and thrown away. He then made a few holes along each side of the sculp, which was oblong, and through these laced his tow rope. When the four or five had been thus arranged, he towed them to a selected pan, where they were piled with the others, a pole was stuck up, bearing a flag on which was the name of the ship, and this being done, the sealers moved on and established another pan.
While the St. John's men were busy with the sealing, the Scotch crew remained on the ship, throwing the coal overboard. The ship, leaving Newfoundland, took a lot of coal, as she did not know where she might have to go or how long she might be away. In our case, we found the seals at once, so the coal, being of no further use and of no value, compared with the seals, was thrown overboard.
I went aloft to have a look at our surroundings. We were in Bonavista Bay, and in the distance I saw the Neptune sealing. She was a large ship and took an enormous cargo. It seemed too bad that these should be the only two vessels in the midst of this harvest. I saw, with the glass, seals by the thousand; they were principally to the north of us, and it was evident that we would fill the ship, unless a gale broke up the ice too soon. Astern, I noticed a patch of ice on which there were lots of old harps. Getting my rifle and going over to the place, I found a great many seal holes in the ice. I watched. A seal would stick its head out of one and, seeing me, would instantly go down again. This was going on all over the area before me. Sitting down, I decided to take the first head presenting itself. By watching any given hole, one would probably very soon have a shot, but it was more exciting to take the heads as they came up. It was very quick shooting and good sport. Every time I hit a seal, I killed it, because only the head could be seen. At this season, the animals, being in prime condition, floated; but getting one out of its hole was very difficult. If one turned it around and seized the hind flippers, the fore flippers caught the ice, and there was nothing to take hold of about its head. I found, that by sticking an empty cartridge through the nose and catching this at each side, a man could manage to pull the seal out by throwing himself back. I amused myself at this game until eight bells, when I went on board for dinner and found the Captain in splendid spirits. There was every chance of his filling his ship and being first in, and I questioned whether these honors had ever been obtained by any Scotch master at the Newfoundland sealing before. After dinner, I took a man with me who pulled out the seals and sculped them, hauling them to the ship, which remained fast. The crew got on well with the coal and soon had several tanks cleaned out and ready for the nearest pan, and by night we had about 2,500 on board. I went aloft again and saw our pan flags flying in great numbers, while the men were very busy several miles away. After dark, the sealers came on board and reported having killed probably 10,000. Many of the men had given themselves bad cuts with their sharp sculping knives, but all were very happy, forward and aft.
March 14th. Every one up at dawn. The ship was alongside a pan when I came on deck, and the winch was going all the time, while the orders "Heave away port," "Heave away starboard," were being constantly given, and every few minutes a bunch of sculps would be hauled on board and thrown below by the men on deck. When this pan was cleaned up, the officer in the barrel directed the ship's course to the next, and so it went, all day long, a portion of the crew working coal as usual. I went aloft and saw our men, five or six miles away, piling up our cargo. In the afternoon, I went off: in the direction the men were and fortunately I had a gaff: with me. I had on very thick clothes and a pilot jacket over all. When about a mile from the ship, and while walking over a nice, smooth piece of ice, I noticed that it was bending under me. I turned and was getting back to the hummocks, when I went through. Fortunately, the gaff caught on both sides and I only went in up to my arms, so was able to climb out. The cold of the water was intense and I had a fright. Before reaching the ship, my clothes were frozen hard. One great comfort about the Aurora was that she was a steamer, so when any accidents of this kind occurred, it was a great thing, having the top of the boiler to retire to. Here one had warmth at any rate. As there was nothing much separating the top of our boiler from the stoke hole, there was a deposit of ashes and soot, but a little thing like that did not much trouble a man fished out of a frozen sea.
It was cold and dark when the sealers began coming on board and a fog was settling down, so about nine P. M. we were quite uneasy over some who bad not turned up. The whistle sounded frequently, and it was a relief when the last appeared. Some were really very much exhausted and were given rum.
We took on board about five thousand seals and the men had killed many thousand more.
March 15th. A snow storm blowing, so the men could not go to the sealing, and very little new work was accomplished. However, the ship managed to reach a lot of her pans, and the Newfoundland men hauled the sculps from others farther away, so that by night, four thousand more were on board. Coal was worked energetically all day.
The barometer was rising at night and the snow had ceased, so the weather looked more settled.
March 16th. Sealers away when I came on deck, and our own crew very busy with the seals and coal. The ice showed a lot of leads and there were seals in the open ponds, so I spent my time at them with the rifle and had some good shooting.
At dinner the mate told us we had taken on board over three thousand sculps and by night two thousand more were added to these. About sixteen thousand five hundred were now on board.
I spent some time aloft. The glare from the ice was fearfully trying as the sun was very bright. Owing to the open character of the ice, we followed the sealers quite well. We found several of our pans broken by the weight of seals on them; in every case we saw sharks in the open water beside the broken pan. Once the ship had her engines going ahead to keep her bows against the ice, while she took seals on board (I was looking over the rail aft), when I saw a shark gliding up to the propeller. It hit him on the side and cut a flap out about two feet long. He swam about with this mass hanging from him for awhile and then went back to the propeller, which finished him with an awful gash across the neck. This was the only one I saw killed.
The night was clear and the men had no difficulty in getting on board.
March 17th. It was blowing and the ice was rather tight; there was also some snow, so the sealers were employed bringing sculps on board, as pans were being broken. I saw one split in two. Half the sculps had been lost in the water, and there were numbers of sharks around. A man stuck his gaff into one several times, and it did not appear to mind. It was difficult getting the seals on board as the heavy snow squalls prevented our seeing the leads. However, twenty-five hundred more were secured from broken pans in our immediate neighborhood. The ship was drifting south all the time; and the Neptune was still in sight when it cleared in the afternoon.
March 18th. All hands up early and a good start made. Nearly all the coal over the side. I watched the men bringing on board pinnacles in the morning. As they had been sealing steadily for a week and had not paid much attention to their toilets, sleeping in their clothes, etc., and as each one had a fringe of frozen livers sticking in his belt, and the sheathed decks were soaking in oil, the pinnacles had a chance of acquiring a nutritious quality which must have given body to the tea manufactured out of them. However, the men did not mind, and as our cabin supply of water was all right, I did not mind either.
The ship picked up a lot of pans and added five thousand more to our collection. Towards evening it became foggy and cold, and we had several frights about men being lost. One fellow came on board and stated that he had seen so and so two miles from the ship, unable to proceed. Some rum was given to him and with a couple of others he started off to bring the exhausted one in. All were on board safely by nine P. M. There was no doubt but that often the rum served out found its way into throats that were far from being too weak to swallow, but such dreadful accidents have occurred that one acts on the safe side. There was no abuse of liquor on board the Aurora, but the Captain did not hesitate to supply it when absolutely necessary.
March 19th. A nice day for sealing, as there was no difficulty getting about to the pans. We brought on board about two thousand, and the ship was practically full. Now we began to clear out the 'tween-decks and to throw the men's bunks overboard. They did not object to a few days of supreme discomfort because they received one-third of the catch. We had the bunkers filled with coal and a lot of sacks piled upon the poop, and every available place was cleared out for this valuable cargo. The ship began to look dirty, as she had scraped off her paint, and the coal dust and oil bad been liberally applied.
It began to blow in the afternoon, with snow squalls. All the men were on board in good time.
During the day I caught a young seal. It had shed nearly all its long white hair and the short, silvery coat underneath looked very pretty. I amused myself plucking the balance of the original coat. The seal appeared to enjoy it. It was killed accidentally a few days later.
March 20th. Blowing bard with snow squalls. A number of pans were broken and many sculps lost, but we secured all we wanted; about one thousand came on board and the 'tween-decks were nearly full.
March 21st. A fine day, but the ship beset, so we cleaned up and finished off the 'tween-decks; then we put all on deck that we thought the ship would carry. This would not have been done had the ship had to go any distance, but all the time we were sealing we had been drifting south, so that we were now a very short distance from St. John's. The Captain and mate would stand on the ice and look her over and then decide that perhaps she would carry a few more, and so on, until there was not much of the Aurora's bull above the water. The ice opened in the afternoon and we laid our course for St. John's, steaming half speed. The ship was decorated with flags, the men cheering and singing—at least two hundred of them without shelter; they stood upon the forecastle head and among the sculps on deck. The wind had died away and it was a beautiful afternoon. There were plenty of leads and the ice becoming more open every hour.
March 22nd. During the night we passed through Baccalieu Tickle and in the morning we were close to the coast. As we steamed through the narrows, the men climbed the rigging and cheered. We had accomplished a wonderful thing. The ship was the first in of the year, and was also full. Soon we were tied up at our old berth on the south side, and our crew were busy discharging our cargo of about twenty-eight thousand seals. Each young seal counted one in settling with the crew and each old seal counted two; of course, an old seal took up much more room than two young ones, and on a voyage like this, where the ship could be filled with young, the crew were not anxious to kill old ones. On our two trips, the Aurora actually killed 28,150, but the crew were paid for 29,300.
"Now, Brothers, for the icebergs of frozen Labrador
Floating spectral in the moonshine, along the low black
shore!
When the mist the rock is hiding and the sharp reef lurks
below
And the white squall smites in summer, and the autumn
tempests blow."
The work of discharging our cargo began at once—first the sculps on deck, then those in the 'tween-decks and then those in the tanks. Thereafter the ship was given a rough cleaning; new berths were erected in the 'tween-decks and quarter-hatch but not so many as before. The bunkers and tanks were coaled and then we cast about for a crew. All the seals taken on this second cruise would have to be shot, so we did not expect to bring back very many; but the Aurora had her own Scotch crew under pay, and they had to be fed, so she might as well be at sea picking up a few seals as lying in the harbor waiting for May 1st. It was not so very easy finding a crew as they would have little to eat and could not possibly earn much money. However, at last we were ready and on Wednesday, April 2nd, sailed. We had heard nothing of the Arctic, and very little of any of the other ships. The Neptune came in after us with about 40,000, which was a tremendous cargo, but she was a big ship. There was much more room with our reduced Newfoundland crew, and we steamed out of the narrows for the second time with the ship very much more comfortable than on the first occasion.
I must say the appearance of the Aurora at this time was disreputable in the extreme. The paint had been scraped off by the ice, and the filthy sheathing covered the decks, while the fragrant bilge water flowed from her side in a pellucid stream.
The Captain told me that he intended following the seals which were going north towards Labrador and that he expected to fall in with great herds of year-olds, called bedlamers. We left port after breakfast and steamed out onto a calm sea, shaping our course north. During the afternoon we saw patches of ice scattered about and when night came we slowed down and kept a bright lookout.
April 2nd was a blustery day with occasional snow showers. There was no sea, however, to tumble the ship about as there was a good deal of ice. We were easily able to avoid the fields by steaming around them. Some were very heavy looking, having quantities of rafted ice on them. Towards night, it became calm and thick.
April 4th. Steamed dead slow all night as it was thick. In the morning the sea was calm but still foggy. This was pea-soup day. We always had pea soup on Fridays; we also always had fish for breakfast; it was salt cod. The salt was taken out in some way and then the fish was cut into very small pieces and boiled with broken up sea biscuits and butter, pepper, etc. I have never tasted anything so good since. In fact, I have never since tasted anything so good as the food on the whaler after the first month. There was an absurd arrangement about our meals; it was all right at sea, but in Greenland, when we walked about during the night perhaps as much as during the day, it was distressing. Breakfast was at eight, dinner at noon, and tea at five; there was no regulation meal between five P. M. and eight A. M. I modified this by having a special meal at eleven P. M. At that time I took a pot of coffee from the galley and retired to the pantry for a quiet half hour.
April 5th. The day was fine. A good deal of ice was in sight and occasional seals could be seen. When one was seen ahead, or a few points on either bow, the ship bore down upon it. As we came close, the seal would first raise its head to see what was coming, then raise its body upon its flippers and stare.
A number of men with rifles were always on the forecastle head and of this number I was generally one. If some one did not try too long a shot and frighten it, we always killed the seal. We had a large number of punts on board and one was towed astern in the daytime and with it every seal was picked up. They all counted. Some days we had very good sport and I enjoyed it.
April 6th. Sunday. Huff day. We had plum pudding on Sundays and Thursdays. The puddings were not round, but oval. The steward made delicious sauce out of condensed milk and, of course, we had the Spartan sauce with everything. The Captain was very consistent in his observation of Sunday—no unnecessary work was done on that day. If there were whales, we fished, but I never saw a man kept at work on Sunday if it could be avoided. This day we did the usual shooting from the forecastle head. The temptation to shoot first was dreadful. I dare say we picked up fifteen or twenty seals. This was a sad Sunday because of the death of our canary. I was in the cabin when Jack, the steward, discovered the fact. He immediately took the seed box out of the cage to the pantry, filled it and brought it back. Captain Fairweather came down shortly after to breakfast and immediately noticed the absence of the bird, as it was always hopping about and making a noise. Jack was called. A look of surprise came over his face when asked about the canary and he immediately climbed on to the seat and, looking into the cage, said, with tears in his eyes, "Oh, Sir, the poor wee bird is deid;" adding, as he pulled out the drawer, "Well, it is not for want of plenty to eat." I don't think for a moment that the bird died of starvation, but Jack wanted to simplify the post-mortem inquiry by eliminating that possibility. Our steward was a remarkable man and eminently qualified by nature for his position. He could produce a look of absolute innocence or of sympathy at a moment's notice; his suaviter in modo would have fitted him for the diplomatic service; and as a dreamer he was without a peer.
There is a great knack about dreaming. To make a reputation and keep it up even on a whaler requires the judgment of a Delphic priest.
It was the presence of Jack, the steward, that gave the atmosphere of a home to the Aurora's cabin and we all liked him.
April 7th. I saw a most interesting thing today. It was an old dog hood; to call it Cystophora Cristata might give the describer some relief; but it would convey no idea of this angry-looking creature as he reared up and gazed at us. How we all resisted firing until he had exhibited himself, I don't know; but when he was looking perfectly terrible and fifty yards away, a dozen copper-nosed bullets found their billets about his head and neck. He was 7 1/2 feet long and a tremendous size around the shoulders. The bag on his head, when fully distended, must have stood eight or nine inches, and extended from the muzzle to four inches behind the eyes. The hood is only found on the male. It is considered ornamental by the females of the same species, but horrible looking by all other animals, I am sure. The beast added about 400 pounds to our little cargo, but the animal, skin and all, certainly weighed seven or eight hundred. During the day we killed quite a number of hoods, but the first was the largest. We did not make much of a run, but dodged about and picked things up. A young hood is rather blue-looking on the back and white underneath.
The engine slowed down at night, as usual.
April 8th. This was one of the most lovely days, with bright sunshine, and there was dazzling ice in every direction. To the east of us we saw a beautiful barque under canvas; she was playing our game, dodging about and picking up seals. As she was not a steamer, and had a small crew, she was consequently inexpensive to work; there was no reason why she should not pay her owners well, especially if she got amongst the hoods, five or six of which would yield a ton of oil. We kept out to her, and finding she was the Maud of Dundee, I was sent on board to hear the news. I was hospitably entertained by the captain, who gave me some old Dundee papers, but those I brought from the Aurora were much more recent. When I returned, I saw a funny thing happen. We had a Newfoundland cook, Jack; he had a triangular face with the base up; a tuft of hair grew from the apex and was the only decoration. With his long shaved upper lip, he had an amusing look and he was a character.
The ship was bearing down towards ice upon which there was a young hood. It had been injured and made no effort to escape. Thinking it dead, no one fired and we were almost on to it when Jack, looking over the side, saw it. He had not killed a seal that season, so, seizing a gaff, he leaped on to the pan and we all cheered. As Jack lit on the ice, it broke in two. The seal slid gracefully off its half, but Jack's half, almost submerged, swung around under the ship's quarter, where the propeller was threshing away. Jack paused for a moment between Scylla and Charybdis, and then giving a wild leap, he disappeared in the sea as far from the propeller as he could jump. It was most amusing to see this big man give his wild leap; he was fished out by the punt astern. A small matter, like a man being half drowned, always amused these simple people so much.
I have said that the Newfoundlanders were not over-fed on this trip. We had, for cabin use, numerous quarters of Dundee beef lashed in our tops. They kept splendidly up there. One morning the steward reported a quarter of our Dundee beef stolen. One of the Newfoundland cooks was sent for at once and I heard the conversation between the angry Captain and the astonished cook. I heard the cook report every morning how he was on the track of a thief: "Begorra, sor, I have my eye on him;" or, "Begorra, sor, I could put my hand on the man," and so on until we got back without the thief having been turned over; I heard afterwards that the cook certainly could have at any moment put his hand on the man who took the beef.
April 9th. This was one of the most interesting days I spent. At breakfast, I heard the captain and the mate discussing blinks, that is, reflections. For instance, an ice blink at sea would mean a sort of whitish reflection in the sky over an area of ice, or a water blink would be a dark reflection in the sky over a dark area. We were surrounded by ice and were approaching a dark blink. Was it water or seals? Before breakfast was over, the report came from the crow's-nest that the seals were ahead. I went aloft and saw an extraordinary sight. The ice ahead of us appeared to be positively black with seals. They covered acres and acres. We steamed right up to them and then about twenty men, with rifles, went on to the ice and a lot of others followed to sculp and haul the sculps to the ship. This ice was not solid but made up of thousands of pans all detached. They were generally touching in places, but two or three sprawls would bring any individual seal to some sort of a hole through which it could escape; therefore, it had to be killed instantly or it would disappear. The shooting began at once, the men kneeling down and opening up at the nearest animals. Just as fast as they could consume ammunition, they fired at seals close at hand, and, as these disappeared, at those farther away. There was far too much shooting for much result. Presently they began to get closer. A would kneel down and fire as fast as possible so as to use as much ammunition as he could before B would pass him. B would then rush past and begin shooting, and so on. Now, with regard to this rushing about,—we were travelling on pans of ice of all sizes, some a few feet square, some as large as a table, some twenty times that size, but we certainly had to watch where we were going. When the men scattered, they shot better, but it was much more dangerous, as the express bullets were singing about everywhere. I had two men who took me off to one side and who gave me the best shooting I ever enjoyed. The seals were inclined to bask in the sun and enjoy themselves; so, if we went about it quietly, we could easily stalk a pan and advance to within fifty or seventy-five yards; then, if we shot carefully and only hit heads, we would not disturb the others. Should we wound one, it would not only go down itself but would frighten the others on the same pan. I shot off a number of entire pans by quietly getting close and then picking them off.
The seal, properly hit, just drops its head, while the others hold theirs up for you. This was warm work and the barrel of the rifle became so hot that I had constantly to put it on the snow to cool off. I watched some of the Newfoundland men shooting when we started and saw several of them miss every shot. All they did was to endanger their fellow men and wound an occasional seal; of course there were some crack shots among them, but it would have paid well to have tested the ability of all before serving out rifles to them. As there was not a cloud in the sky, we were greatly sunburnt and several had a touch of snow-blindness in spite of wearing colored glasses. We probably picked up three or four hundred seals, and had there been about eight or ten men who understood the use of firearms, they would have killed a thousand easily.
The sealing cap worn by the Dundee men was very suitable. The peak was covered with lamb's wool dyed black, so when turned down it absorbed a great deal of the glare. Wool had to be wound around the metal work of the colored glasses we wore on account of the cold.
April 10th. Nothing makes one rest like a hard day's work in the open air. My shoulder was black and blue with firing and my ears rang with the noise while my eyes smarted and my face burned, but I slept like a log until seven bells.
The ship had not moved all night. We were off the coast of Labrador, but out of sight of land. There was a great deal of ice everywhere and by dawn we were steaming north as fast as possible in the effort to overtake our game. By noon the seals were in sight and we went through the same performance as the day before. I did not attempt it with the main body, but with two good men went off in a slightly different direction. The express was certainly a good rifle, and its trajectory very flat, when we consider the powder. I examined a great many wounds that day and in every case found the bullet had expanded well if it had hit anything hard. These seals were nearly all bedlamers and we did not kill any hoods either of these days, although we had picked up quite a number coming up the coast. This was a shorter day, and we did not kill so many. It was quite late when the ship took the last of her men on board, for they had become scattered. One man had fallen in several times and was very much exhausted. However, I was able to make him swallow some rum and he soon revived. A sailor is very feeble and dissolution near at hand when a little rum cannot be coaxed down with a spoon or other suitable instrument—even then I would not advise leaving the bottle close to him while looking for the spoon, lest, during his unconscious struggles, he should spill it.