Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/521

Rh in a sufficient quantity of air to last them for a considerable time, still have to come up occasionally to breathe, and it is this circumstance of which the hunter takes advantage. The walrus only rises at the edge of the floe in open water, and is hunted with spears, to which are attached lines carrying inflated sealskins, intended for the double purpose of impeding the animal in diving, and of preventing the loss of the spear.

The Esquimaux are so very venturesome in hunting this animal, that they will even go out on floating pieces of ice after it. The seal, however, when it can find an open piece of water, will burrow up through the ice to get to the air, making a small hole on the surface of much the same size and appearance as a molehill. The manner of taking them requires a considerable amount of patience and endurance, for when a hunter hears a seal at work under the ice, he first builds a snow wall, some four feet high, to protect him from the wind, and then sitting down to leeward of it, proceeds to wait for the seal to reach the surface — a weary watch, which sometimes extends to twelve hours.

When by the seal's blowing the hunter knows that it is close to the surface of the ice, he takes his spear in both hands and drives it down into the animal with all his might, having previously fastened the rope attached to it round his body. He has only then to cut away the thin ice all round to get the carcase out. Another way of killing seals is by approaching them under cover of a small white screen, mounted on a little sledge, which is pushed by the sportsman before him. In this manner they can be approached within easy shot, but of course, as in this case they must be either in the water or upon the surface of the ice, and as during the depth of winter there is little open water likely to be found near the ships — this plan will not be practicable then. In shooting them with a rifle care must be taken to hit them in the head, as otherwise they will escape under the ice if only wounded in the body. The Esquimaux practise numerous devices to attract the seals; such as scraping the ice, so as to produce a similar noise to that made by the seal with his flippers, and placing one end of a pole in the water and putting their mouths close to the other end, and making noises in imitation of those made by seals. When they are in good condition and shot instantaneously, they will float; but this depends upon their feeding-ground.

On one occasion, when some specially fine seals had been shot by Sir Leopold M'Clintock's party, they dredged the bottom, and found shell-fish and star-fish, and on another occasion the bellies of some splendid seals were found full of shrimps. Although the flesh of the female seal is good to eat all the year round, during March that of the male is very fetid, having a disagreeable flavour like garlic, which impregnates the whole body to such an extent that even the Esquimaux, who do not generally appear to be very choice in their food, cannot quite manage to stomach it.

 

 From The Saturday Review.

are some things of which we should have neither too much nor too little; and among these are scruples. Unscrupulous is a term of just reproach; the unscrupulous man is dangerous in whatever capacity we have to deal with him, but the man of scruples is not therefore desirable as such. He may be eligible and deserving, but we should like him better without his scruples, for nothing is a graver barrier in social matters than obtrusive scruples which we do not share. Scruples are essentially private things; when two people agree together in an objection or an opinion, we view it in another light, and probably call it something else. Scruples represent private judgment exercising itself in small matters; that is, they appear small to common sense or to prevalent public opinion, though they are large and pre-dominant to the scrupulous mind. Not that scruples are independent of the prevailing tone of thought in the world, but they are the means by which some persons take their share in it, and they constitute the originality of a certain class of intellect — they furnish an opportunity for that self-assertion which is a natural object with thinkers of every class and grade.

Of course virtue has scruples. The minuter duties of morality have, we may say, an equal obligation with the weightier matters of the law; but in one case public opinion is accepted as exponent and interpreter, while the scrupulous conscience owns no law but itself, and sees 