SEAL POACHEHS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11046, 25 February 1898, Page 6

SEAL POACHEHS.

, ■ i(.oo3sning the long knives in their bslts ,and grirjpingv handspike aud rifle, they crept quietly up a slopa of rock, smooth-scraped and polished by the .passage of countless seals. The mate well knew the risk he ran, i and was by no.means easy in his mind. If a party of Russian hunters, the rightful ;owners of the ground, had already landed they, might be shot down every man of them, for there is little doubt that the seal poacher meets with rough-and-ready justice at; times. Occasionally these free-Jances of ,the ccean, who may enly kill seais in open iwater, carry a well-stocked armoury on board, and weather-beaten skippers have been heard to boast o£ bsating off cruisers' ;boats in open fight. It is rumoured that in 1892' some of' the schooners vigorously resisted attempts at seizure, and then, as now, the independent sealer was a rankling thorn in the side of British, Russian, and American diplomatists. The Caribou's crew, however, did. not approach the resounding rookery. In the first place, the saveu-foot sac-catch, or bull seal, is a dangerous baast to meddle wits oa the ground he bas fought so hard for; in the second, his fur has generally been hopelessly torn and rent in the fray, and a.sealer seldom molests the breeding amphibians if |he can obtain any others. They followed the broad seal road instead, which led away I inland, until the watery moonlight fell on a ! legion, perhaps a thousand strong, of curious, j flopping .objects dragging themselves, over, j theground. These were the "holluschakie," or bachelor seals, too young as yet to enter the lists and fight with the older bulls for a plase in the rookery. For three months they would flounder about the ledges and dive in the spouting? surf, and then depart to scour the wide Pacific from Kamchatka to Cape Horn, never touching dry land again until such as escaped thresher whale and basking shark should return next year, full-grown, breeding seals. Meanwhile they must herd apart, and avoid the rookeries on peril of their lives. ■At a signal from the mate the mon spread 1 out, and a few moments later with a muffled roar the legion turned round and headed back towards the sea, dragging themselves

along with head three feet in the air at a curious, lumbering lope, until at the end of a hundred yards or so many fell panting to the earth. With practised eyes the Siwash picked oat the most promising victims and hemmed them iD,. leititig the rest wobble painfully away ; and it is curious that while the fur seal will tear an unarmed man to pieces in a rookery, anywhere else it may be driven like a Eheepiy Taen the butchery bfgin. ' He.ndspike'ajid iifie butt fell like flails on tha rounded heads, crnshing in the thin skalls as though they were cardboard, and sood th? hollow beneath the rocks echoed with sue sound of thuddirg blows, the piping of haif-killed seaig, and the hoarse shouts of the Siwash as they drove the stragglers in. The men's breath huag like steam about them in the nipping air, and-the rank odour of the jally blubber, which lies beneath the holluschak's skin, was almost too much at times even for the mate's accustomed nostrils.

In a few hours' time a winrow of limp and furry bodies stretched-away into the darknesp, and the panting men flung themselves down"upon the stones, aching in every joint. The mate's right arm felt heavy as lead, and his sleeve was soaked. with blood to. ths shoulder,- while the perspiration dripped dowa into bin e?e3. But his share of the work was done, for now there remained only the task of Ekinnicg the seals before the daylight came, and this was-ihe Indians' business. So ho curled ,op nnder the lee of a boulder, watching -'Ahe wild, bloodstained figures ply the glinting knives and sucking at bis pipe, until the sea'feg closed down again and blotted out the moonlight.—From " Sayward's Raid," in Macmillan's.