THE WHITE SEAL

Press, Volume L, Issue 8583, 9 September 1893, Page 3

THE WHITE SEAL

<8, liudya.l'3 Kipling in the Argus. Part I. • All these things happened several years ago at * place called Novastoshnah, or North-East Point, on the I-land of St. Paul, away and away in the Behring Sea, Limmernhin ti e winter wren told mc the tale when he wa« blown on to the ringing of a steamer going to Japan, and I took him down into my cabin and warmed him and fed him for a coupla of clays, till he ymt fit to fly back to S . Paul's a&ain. Limnierehin is a very quaint little bird, but be knows how to tell the truth. Nobody Cjmes to Novastoahnah except en business, and the only Deople who have business there are the seals. They coma In the summer months by hundreds and hundreds of thousand* out of the cold grey sea, for Nova*tushnah beach has the fluent accommodation for ee.tls of any place in all the world. Sea Catch knew that, and every spring he would ewlm from whaie ver place he happened to be in—would swim like a torpedo-boat straight tor Norastoehnah, and spend a month fighting with his companion* for a good place on the rocks as close to the sea as possible. Sea Catch was fifteen years old, a huge grey fur seal, with almost a mane on his shoulder* and long wicked dog teeth. When he heaved himself up on his front flippers he stood more than 4ft clear of the ground, and his weight, if anyone had beeu bold enough to weigh him, was nearly 7001b. He was scarred all over by the marks of savage fights, but he was always ready for just one fight more. He would put his head on one side as though he were afraid to look hia enemy in the face; then he would shout It/ out like lightning, and when the big teeth were firmed fixed in the other soal'e neck the other seal might get away if he could, but Sea Catch would not help him. Yet Sea Catch never chased a beaien seal, for that was against the rules of the beach. Ho only wanted room by the tea for his nursery; but as there were forty or fifty thousand ochor seal* all huntIng for the same thing each spring, the ■whistling, bellowing, roaring, and blowing on the beach was something frightful. From a little hill called HutchtnHon'e Hill you could look over three miles and a half of ground covored with fighting Meals, and the surf was dotted all over with the heads of seals hurrying to land and begin their •hare of fighting. They fought in the breakers, they fought in the sand, and (hey fought on the smooth-worn basalt rocks of the nurseries, for they wore just ■V! stupid and unaccommodating as men. Their wives never came to the island till late in May or early in June, for they didn't care to be torn to pieces; and the young two, three, and four year old seals who bad not begun housekeeping went inland about half a mile through the ranks of the flgbtere, and played about on the sand-dunes iv droves and legions, and rubbed off every single green thing that grew, They were called the holluschickie —the bachelor*—and there were perhaps two or three hundred thousand of them at Novastoshnah alone. 80a Catch had just settled his forty fifth fight ono spring when Matkah, his soft, •leek, gentle-eyed wife came up out of the •co, aud he caught her by the scruff of the neck, and dumped her down on his reser ration, saying, gruffly: "Late as usual; where have you been ?" It was not the fashion for Sea Catch to eatanything at all during the four months ho stayed on the beaches, and so his tempo was generally bad. Mdtkah knew better than to answer back, tihe looked round and cooed, "How thoughtful of you! You've taken the old place ugain." "I should think I had," said Sea Catch. "Lwkat mc!" He was scratched and bleediug in twenty places. One eye was almost out, and hie aides were torn to ribbons. "Oh, you men, you men t" Matkah said, fanning herself with a hiud-ilipper. "Why can't you be sensible aud settle your places quietly f You look as though you hud been fighting with the Killen whale." " I haven't been doing anything but fight ■luce the middle of May. The biach is disgracefully crowded this season. I've met at least a hundred suaU from Likannon beach, house-huntimi. Why cau't people Itay where they belong ?" "I've often thought we should be much happier if we hauled out at Otter Island, lartead of this crowded place," said Matkah. " Bah I only the holluschickte go to Otter Island. If we went there they would say w* were afraid. We inuet preserve appearances, my dear." Sea Catch sunk his head proudly between hl» fat shoulders aud protended to (to to sleep for a few minutes, but all the time h* kept a sharp look-out tor a fight. Now thatiU the seals aud their wives were on I*a4 you could hear their ciamour miles «>ttk to sea above the loudest gale*. At the lowest counting there were over & million •eaUon the beach—old seals, mother seals, May babies and holluschickie, fighting. Muffling, bleating, crawliug, and playing together—going down to the sea and Wining up from it in gangs aud regiments, lying over every foot of ground as bras the eye could reach and skirmishing »bout in brigades through the fog. Ie is nearly always foggy at Novasroshnah, •xcept whon the sun comes out and makes everything look all pearly, and rainbowcoloured for a little while. Kotick, Matkah's baby, was born in the middle of that confuslou, and he was all head and ehoulders, with pale watery blue eyes, as tiny seals must be, but there was something about his coat that made his mother look at him very closely. "Sea Catch," she said at last, "our »bye going to be white." " Bmpty clam-shells and dried sea*reed I "snorted Sea Catch. "There ne»er hs* been such a thing in the world as a White seal." can't help that," said Mutkah, there's going to be now ;" aud ah« sang tee low crooning seal-song tlia; all mother »6*li ting to their babiea :— You saoitn't Bwim till you're cix week's old Or you* hoad will be sank by your beol* ; And •ummor-gtles and kiUer-nh*lea Are bad for baby Heals. Of course the little fellow did not understand the words at first. He paddled and •crambled about by hi* mother's aide, and learned to scuffle out of the way when his father was figliiiair. witu another seal, and the two rolled aud roared up and down the slippery rocks. Matkah used to go to eta to get things to eat, and the baby was only Jedoucuiu two daye, but then he ate all •

he could, and throve upon it. The first thing he did was to crawl inland, and there he met tens of thousands of babies of bis own age, and they played together like puppies, went to sleep on the sand, and played again. The old people on the nurseries took no notice of them, and th e holluschlckiekepr.tothelrowngrounds.and the babies had a beautiful time. When Matkah came back from her deep-sea fishing she would go straight to their playground and call as a sh-ep calls for a lamb, and wait till she heard Kotick bleat. Then she would take the straightest of straient lines in his direction, striking out with her foreflippers, and knocking the youngsters head over heels right aud left. There were always a few hundred mothershuntir.K for theirchildren through the playgrounds, and the babies were kept lively; but as Matkah told Kotick, 'So long as you don't lie in muddy water and get mange, or «et the hard sand into a cut or scratch, aud bo long as you never go swimming when there is a heavy sea on, nothing will hurt you." Little seals can no more swim than little children, but they are unhappy till they learn. The first tima that Kotick wdnt down to the sea a wave carried him out beyond his depth, and hie big head sank and his little hind-flipper* flew np exactly as his mother had told him iv the song, «uid if the next wave had not thrown hitr back again he would have drowned. After that he learned to lie in a beach-pool and let the wash of the waves just cover him and lift him up while he paddled, but he always kept au eye open for big waves that might hurt. He was two weeks learning to use bis flippers, and all that time he floundered in and out of the water, and laughed, and grunted, and crawled up the beach, and took cat-naps on the sand and went back again, till at last he found that he belonged in the water. O, then you can imagine the times that he had with his companions; ducking under the rollers, or coming in on the top of a combar, and landing with a swash and a splutter as the big wave weut whirling far up the beach, or standing up on his tail and-scratching his head as the old people did, or playiug "I'm the King of the Castle " on slippery weedy rocks that just stuck out of the water. Now and then he would see a thin fin like a big shark's fin, drifting along close to shore, and he knew that that was the killerwhale—the Grampus —who eats young seals when he can get them, and Kotick would head for the beach like an arrow, and the fin would move away slowly as if it were looking for nothing at all. Late in October the seals began to leave St. Paul's for the deep sea by families and ! tiibee, and there was no more fighting over the nurseries, and the holluschickie played any where they liked. "Next year," *ald Matkah to Kotick, " you will be a hoHuschick, but thh year you must learn how to catch fish." They set out together across the Pacific, and Matkah showed Kotick how to sleep on his bank with his flippers tucked down by his side and his little nose just out of water. No cradle is co comfortable as the long rocking swell of the Pacific. When Kotick felt his skin tingle all over, Matkah told him he was learning the "feel of the water," aud that tingly prickly feelings meant bad weather coming, and he must swim hard and get away fiom it. "In a little time," she eaid, "you'll know where to swim to; but just now we'll follow Sea Pig, for he is very wise." A shoal of porpoises were ducking and tearing through.the water, and little Kotick followed them as fast as be could. " How do you know where to go?" he panted. The leader of the shoal rolled bis white eye and ducked under. " Jly tail tiugles, youngster," he salJ. "That means there's a gale behind mc. Come along. When you're south of tho sticky water (he meant the equator), and your tail tingles, that means there's a gale in front of you, and you must head north. Come along. The water feels bad here.' This was one of very many things that Kotick learned, and he was always learning. Matkah taught him to follow the cod and the halibut along the under-sea banks and wrench the rockllng out of his hole among the weeds ; how to skirt the wrecks lying a hundred fathoms below water and dart like a rifle-bullet into one port-hole and out at another as the fishes ran; how to dance on the tops of the waves when the lightning was racing all over the sky, and wave his flipper politely to the stumpy-tailed albatross and the man-of-war hawk as they went down wind; how to jump three or four feet clear of the water like a dolphin, flippers close to the side and tail curved ; to leave the flying fish alone because they are all bony; to take the shoulder piece out of a cod at full speed ten fathoms deep,, and never to stop and look at a boat or a ship —but particularly a row boat. At the end of six months what Koiick did not know about deep-3ea fishing was noc worth the knowing, and all that time he never sec flipper on dry ground. Oue day, however, as he was lying half asleep in the warm water somewhere oft the itland of Juan Fernandez, he felt faint and lazy all over, just as hutnan people do when the spring is in their legs, and he remembered the good firm beaches of Novastoshnah, 7000.miles away, the games that his companions .played, and the smell of the seaweed, the seal roar and the fighting. That very miubte he turned north, swimming steadily, and as he went on he met scores of his mates, all bound for the same place, aud they said, " Greeting! Kotick I This year we are all holluechlckle > and we can dance the fire dance In the breakers off Lukannon, and play on the new graea. But where did you get that coat f Kotick'e fur was altnoet pure white now, and though he felt very proud of it he only said, " Swim quickly 1 My bones are aching for the land." And they all came to the beaches where they had been born, and heard the old seals, their fathers, fighting in the rolling mist. That night Kotick danced the flre-rUace with the yearling seals. The sea is full of fire on summer uights all the way down from Novastoshnah to Lukannon, and eacb seal leaves a wake like burning oil behind him and a flaming flash when he jumps, and the wavee break in tfreat phosphorescent streaks and swirls. Then they Went inland to the hollu-cliickie grounds, and rolled up and down in the new wild wheat, and told stories of what they had done while they bad bee a at sea. They calked about the Pacific as boys talk about a wood that they bare been nutting in, and if anyone had understood them he could have gone away and made such a chart of that ocean as never waa. Then the three and four year-old holluschickie romped down from Hutchlnson's hill, crying: "Out of the way, youngsters! The sea is deep, and you don't know all that's in it yet Wait till you've rounded the Horn. HI you yearling I Where did you get that white coat f " "I didn't get it," eaid Kotick, "it crew;" and just as he waa going to roll the speaker over a couple black-haired men with flat red faces came from behind a sand dune, and Katick, who had never seen a man before, coughed and spat and lowered his head. The holluschickie just bundled off a few yards and eat staring stupidly. The men were no less than Kerlck Booteriu, the first chief of the seal hunters on the Island, and Patalamon, his son. They came from the little village not halt a mile from the eeal nurseries, and they were deciding what seals they should drive up to the killing pens—for the seals were driven just like aheep—to be turned into sealskin jackets later on. "Hol"eaid Patalamon. "Look 1 there's a white aeall" Kerlck Bootarin turned nearly white under hie oil aud smoke, for he wan an Aleut, and Aleuts are not clean people. Then he began to mutter a prayer. " Don't touch him, Patalamon. There haa never

been a white seal since—since I was born. Perhaps it is old Zaharrof3 ghost. He was lost last year in the big gale." ''Tm not going near him," said Patalamon. "He's uniacky. Do you really think he is old Zaharrof come back? I owe him for some gulls' eggs." "Don't look at him," said Kerick. "Head off that diove of four-year-olds. The men ought to skin 200 to-1 ay, bat if a the beginning of the season, and they are new to the work, A hundred will do. Quick 1 " Patalamon rattled a pair of seal's shoulder-blades in front of a herd of holluschickie, and they stopped dead, puffing and blowing. Then he stepped near, and the seals began to move, and Kerick headed them inland, and they never tried to get back to their companions. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of seals watched them being driven, but they went on playing just the same. Kotick was the only one who asked questions, and none of his companions could tell him except that the men always drove seals iv that way for six weeks of every year. "I am going to follow," he said, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head as ho shuffled along in the wake of the herd. " The white seal is coming after us," cried Pat&lamon. " That's the first time a seal has ever come to the killing-grounds alone." "Hush. Don't look behind you," said Kerick. "It is Zaharrot's ghost 1 I mast speak to the priest about this." The drive to the killing ground was only half a mile, but it took an hour, because iif the seals went too fast Kerick knew that they would get heated, aud then their fur would come off in patches when they were skinned. So rhey went on very slowly, past Sea Lion's Neck, past Webster-house, till they came to the Salt bouse, just beyond the eight of the seals on the beach. Kotick followed, panting and wondering. He thought that he was at the world's end, but the roar of the seal nurseries behind him sounded as loud as the roar of a train in a tunnel. Tlu-n Keiick sat down on the moss and pulled out a heavy pewtec watch, and lee the drove cool off for thirty minutes, and Kotick could hear the fog dew diipping off the brim of his cap. Ihen leu or twelve men, each with an ironbound club, Sfc or 4ft long, came up, and Keiick pointed out one or two of the drove that were bitten or too hot, and the men kicked those aside with their heavy boots, made of a walrus's throat, and then Kerick said, "Let go," and the .men clubbed the seals on the head as fast as they could. Ten minutes later little Kotick did not recognise his friends any more, for their skins were ripped off. from the nose to the hind flippers—whipped oft and thrown down on the ground in a pile. That was enough for Kotick. He turned and galloped (a seal can gallop very swiftly for a short time) back to the sea, his little new moustache bristling with horror.