SEAL POACHERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6120, 5 March 1898, Page 7

SEAL POACHERS.

• {From " SayicarA'a .Raid," in Macmillan's I Magazine.) ,-..,-■.*• Loosening the 16ng knives in their belts, and gripping hand-spike and rifle, they .crept quietly up a slope of rock, smoothscarped and polished by the passage of countless seals. The mate well knew the risk he ran, 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 doubb that the seal-poacher meets with rough and ready justice at time3. Occasionally these free-lances of the ocean, who may only kill seals in open water, carry a well-stocked armoury on board, and weather-beaten ekippers have been heard to boast of beating 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, tho independent sealer was a rankling thorn in the side oi' British, Russian, and American diplomatists. Tho Caribou's crew, however, did not approach the resounding rookery. In the first place, the seven-foot see-cateh, or bull-seal, 'is a dangerous beast to meddle with on the ground he has fought so hard for ; in the second, his fur has generally been hopelessly torn and rent in the fray, and a sealer seldom molests tho breeding amphibians if he can. obtain any others. They followed the broad seal road instead which led away inland, until the watery moonlight fell on a legion, perhaps a thousand strong, of curious, flopping objects dragging themselves over tho ground. These were the holluschakie, or bachelor seals, too young , as yet to enter the lists and fight with the older bulls for a place 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 Karnschatka to Cape Horn, never, touching dry land again until such as escaped thresher-whale and basking shark should return next year, full-grown, breeding seal3. Meanwhile they must herd apart, and AVOID THE ROOKERIES ON PERIL OP THEIR LIVES. At a signal from the mate the men spread out, and a few minutes later with a muffled roar the legion turned round and headed back towards the sea, dragging themselves along with heads 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 out the mo3t promising victims and hemmed them in, letting the rest wobble painfully away. r 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 sheep. Then the butchery began. Hand-

as though they were cardboard, and soon the hollow beneath the rocks echoed with the sound of thudding fclows, the piping of half-killed seals, and the hoarse shouts of the Siwash as they drove the stragglers in. The men's breath hung like steam about them in tho nipping air, and THE RANK ODOUR OF THE JELLTBLUBBEE. which lies beneath the lwlluschah's skin, was almost too much even at times for the mate's accustomed nostrils. In a few hours' time a winronr of limp and furry bodies stretched away into the darkness, and the panting men flung themselves down upon tho stones, aebina: in every joint. The mate's right arm felt heavy as lead, and his sleeve was soaked with blood to tho shoulder, while the perspiration dripped down into his eyes. But his share of tho work was done, for now there remained only the task of skinning tho seals before the daylight came, and this was ttio Indians' business. So he curled up under the lee pf a. boulder, watching the wild blood - stained figures ply the glinting knives, and sucking at his pipe, until the sea-fog closed down again and blotted out the moonlight.