"A seal had come up near us while we were occupied with all this, but I thought to wait before shooting it till the kayaks were ready, and thus be certain of getting it before it sank. Of course it did not show itself again. These seals seem to be enchanted, and as if they were only sent to delay us. Twice that day before I had seen them and watched for them to appear again in vain. I had even achieved missing one--the third time I have missed my mark. It looks bad for the ammunition if I am going on like this, but I have discovered that I aimed too high for these short ranges, and had shot over them. So then we set off across the blue waves on our first long voyage. A highly remarkable convoy we must have been, laden as we were with sledges, sacks, guns, and dogs; a tribe of gypsies, Johansen said it was. If any one had suddenly come upon us then, he would hardly have known what to make of the troupe, and certainly would not have taken us for polar explorers. Paddling between the sledges and the snow-shoes, which projected far out on either side, was not easy work; but we managed to get along, and were soon of the opinion that we should think ourselves lucky could we go on like this the whole day, instead of hauling and wading through the snow. Our kayaks could hardly have been called water-tight, and we had recourse to the pumps several times; but we could easily have reconciled ourselves to that, and only wished we had more open water to travel over. At last we reached the end of the pool; I jumped ashore on the edge of the ice, to pull up the kayaks, and suddenly heard a great splash beside us. It was a seal which had been lying there. Soon afterwards I heard a similar splash on the other side, and then for the third time a huge head appeared, blowing and swimming backward and forward, but, alas! only to dive deep under the edge of the ice before we had time to get the guns out. It was a fine, large blue or bearded seal (Phoca barbata).