The west shore., June 07, 1890, Page 712, Image 8

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WKST .SHORE.
Urn led over occasionally when we shipped a sea, one
could only be cheerful in a moderate way. Not that
we had no episode. A Hood of waU-r down the fore
castle scuttle, or the stove taking its draught down the
chimney instead of up, or the dinner all adrift in the
cabin, would furnish us with theme for joyful con
templation and vigorous comment. Twice we sighted
whalers coming down from the Arctic ocean, plunging
on the mnjintic heave of the swell, with canvas stand
ing crisp and -arly white against the sky. Once we
had some capital cod fishing on banks frequented by
the deals; and sometimes would encounter one of these
curious M-opl ostentatiously asleep, with llipcra
folded across his breast. One was killed while engaged
in rubbing his eyes, and we had him, fat and fishy,
for dinner.
At the end of two weeks, under a wonderfully
bright, blue sky, with a fresh breeze astern, we lxire
down uon two gleaming, white sjMits, and at sundown
then had grown into a large island, all snow-clad to
the sea, the skyline broken with a swell of low hills.
It was HI. Paul's. We stood in towards nightfall to
ward the southwestern part, and under the Ice of the
land, with darkened tortholca and a covered skylight.
Making a tack which brought us abreast of a cove on
the north side of the bay, we anchored and took in
sail, leaving all slaek that wo might more readily get
under way. From hero we rould descry the immense
seal rookery, the stench of which came down to us on
the wind, suggestive of Kultry, together with a most
absurd babble of bleats, screeches and dog-bnrks. The
night was fair, and there was no surf ashore, and
plenty of wind to take us out of sight of land before
the day should break. The seals were there in hun
dred of thousands, nay, in millions; and yet, instead
of getting out the dories and taking 4K) ikins, worth
nearly .1,(SSI, that night, we gathered on tho poop
and niMftmVi.
The tkipKr had promised in Victoria that as soon
as we got to sea he would furnish a written agreement
that for every skin taken each man should receive a
share of the precis. Hut this agreement had not
lvn furnished when we made the Shumagim islands.
One of us at that time being unhappy about the mat
ter, and also drunk, ahusl the skipjx'r ujn.n general
principles; then art himself and his baggage in one of
the dories and rowed away indefinitelr, with a remark
that he was p.ing "fishing." The old man made a
den.onstr.Uon with his rille, but the trigger snapped
twice, so that no signals were actually made, while the
attempt to signalire was blandly disregarded by the
gentleman in the dory. HP .Awards consented to
ling bought back, but M.e hours were stn-nt i
hunting for his bagg,g, hh he had mislaid some-
unrre. o document had Urn furnished when
made that disastrous raid on St. George island, and
our whole company was demoralized if such a process
can obtain in the absence of all morals whatsoever.
No document had ken furnished; and while hundreds
of thousands of seals were barking and bleating and
smelling all around us, while many of them came up
by the side ami snorted at us and curiously inspected
us as a show gotten up for their amusement, the clubs
were down in the coal bunker and the raiders talking
on the poop. The crew might have all the documents
they pleased at a bit a skin. Nay, the crew must
have two bits, or go hone.
The captain and mate went ashore prospecting,
taking Oscar and the boy; and while they were away
it was promised that we should alip the cable and go
home, the ditliculties of navigation and of explaining
matters afterwards being too small to mention. Final
ly tho dories returned, having made BOine soundings
and taken nineteen seals, which last lay snorting and
dying dolefully on the deck, while we made sail and
weighed and put to sea.
We thought that as the snow-clad hills and fore
shores of the land melted into the murk of the night
there came a sound of many voices, sneering at us,
jeering at us, with loudest mockery.
At midnight we were well at sea, and I went below
for a cup of coffee. The skipper asked me if I wero
one of the "gang." I told him my interests were with
catch or codfihh.
we
htm, my sympathies with the forecastle. I had under
taken tho voyage to study sealing for the newspaper
prow, and now found that I could make no report,
so 1 wa8 un(Iyr obligation to the skipper for
wkmg me. How could my expenses even be paid
unless I shared something besides the risks and hard
Hl'ips of the voyage? The skipper offered me a share
,n " profits, and when I kid this matter before tho