Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/284

Rh carefully avoiding all disturbance of the snow. Then the sealer remains silently and patiently listening for a seal's "blow." On hearing the second or third "puff," the spear is forcibly struck through the snow to the seal-hole, the harpoon penetrating the unseen seal's head. The seal instantly dives, and runs out the full length, say six to ten fathoms, of the line

that connects the harpoon to the harpooner. The seal's breathing-hole is then "unsnowed" and enlarged to the size of the main, when the prize is drawn forth. Thus seal-holes are found and seals captured during the long winters of the North. Among the Innuits just referred to as now arrived were