Leaving the transport out of the question, this seal-hunting is a very tame sport.  An old Arctic hand or an Eskimo would certainly be astounded to see the placid calm with which the Antarctic seal allows itself to be shot and cut up.  To them Antarctica would but it seldom removes itself many yards at a time, for the motions of the seal are just as clumsy and slow on land as they are active and swift in the water.  When it has crawled with great pains to a little distance, there is no sign that the interruption has made any lasting impression on it.  It looks more as if it took it all as an unpleasant dream or nightmare, which it would be best to sleep off as soon as possible.  If one shoots a single seal, this may happen without those lying round so much as raising their heads.  Indeed, we could open and cut up a seal right before the noses of its companions without this making the slightest impression on them.

About the beginning of November the seals began to have their young.  So far as we could make out, the females kept out of the water for several days without taking any food, until the young one was big enough to be able to go to sea; otherwise, it did not seem that the mothers cared very much for their little ones.  Some, it is true, made a sort of attempt to protect their offspring if they were disturbed, but the majority simply left their young ones in the lurch.

As far as we were concerned, we left the females and their young as much as possible in peace.  We killed two or three new-born seals to get the skins for our collection.  It was another matter with the dogs.  With them seal-hunting was far too favourite a sport for the opportunity to be neglected.  Against a full-grown seal, however, they could do nothing; its body offered no particularly vulnerable spots, and the thick, tight-fitting skin was too much even for dogs’ teeth.  The utmost the rascals could accomplish was to annoy and torment the object of their attack.  It was quite another matter when the young ones began to arrive.  Among this small game the enterprising hunters could easily satisfy their inborn craving for murder, for the scoundrels only killed for the sake of killing; they were not at all hungry, as they had as much food as they liked.  Of course, we did all we could to put a stop to this state of things, and so long as there were several of us at the hut, we saw that the whole pack was tied up; but when Lindstrom was left by himself, he could not manage to hold them fast.  His tents were altogether snowed under in the weather that prevailed on the seaboard in December.  There were not many dogs left in his charge, but I am afraid those few wrought great havoc among the young seals out on the ice of the bay.  The poor mothers could hardly have done anything against a lot of dogs, even if they had been more courageous.  Their enemies were too active.  For them it was the work of a moment to snatch the young one from the side of its mother, and then they were able to take the poor thing’s life undisturbed.