crosswise, on which stockings and mittens, and various garments made of seal-skin, are laid to dry. No other fire can be seen than that which the lamps supply, nor is any other needed. So many persons are crowded into the confined interior that it is insufferably hot, while the whole place reeks with the smell of seal-flesh, seal-oil, and seal-skin! * * * * * It is natural enough that we should here introduce an account of the Eskimo mode of catching seals. The great season of the seal-hunt is the spring, when the inoffensive _phocæ_ gambol and sport in the open water-ways near the coasts, or clamber on the ice-floes to enjoy the rays of the tardy sun. They are of a wary and timid disposition, and we may suppose that their traditions have taught them to be on their guard against man; but as all their habits and ways are well known to the Eskimo, they do not succeed in eluding his dexterous perseverance. Sometimes the hunter attires himself in a seal-skin, and so exactly imitates their appearance and movements that he approaches within spear-range of them before the disguise is detected; or else he creeps into their haunts behind a white screen, which is propelled in front of him by means of a sledge. As the season verges upon midsummer less precaution becomes necessary; the eyes of the seals being so congested by the fierce radiance of the sun that they are often nearly blind. In winter they are assailed while labouring at their breathing-holes, or when they rise for the purpose of respiration. If an Eskimo satisfies himself that a seal is working away beneath the ice, he takes up his station at the suspected point, and seldom quits it, however severe the weather, until he has captured the animal. To protect himself from the freezing blast, he throws up a snow-wall four feet in height, and seating himself in its shade, he rests his spears, lines, and other appliances on a number of little forked sticks inserted into the snow, in order that he may move them, when wanted, without making the slightest noise. He carries his caution to such an excess, that he even ties his own knees together with a thong to prevent his garments from rustling! about [Illustration: AN ESKIMO SEAL-HUNTER.] To discover whether the seal is still gnawing at the ice, our patient watcher makes use of his _keep-kuttuk_; a slender rod of bone, no thicker than ordinary bell-wire, cleverly rounded, with a knob at one end and a sharp point at the other.