LESSON XLIV.

THE STORY OF A SEAL-SKIN COAT.

“And there we hunted the walrus,The narwhal and the seal.Ha! ’twas a noble game!And like the lightning’s flame,Flew our harpoons of steel.”

“And there we hunted the walrus,

The narwhal and the seal.

Ha! ’twas a noble game!

And like the lightning’s flame,

Flew our harpoons of steel.”

—H. W. Longfellow,in The Discoverer of the North Cape.

GARMENTS OF PRICE.

The Arabian legends tell us of a magical carpet, upon which one can seat himself, and then, wishing to be in a certain place, the carpet rises into the air, and safely and swiftly carries him where he would be. When Catherine showed to me a costly seal-skin coat, her Christmas gift, I proposed to her that we should use it as a magic carpet, and flying to the home of the fur seal, should trace the coat through all the changes of its history.

“Let us go at once!” cried Catherine.

“If we go now,” I said, “not a seal shall we behold, for they are now far off at sea. It will be useless to make our trip before the fifteenth of May.”

On the fifteenth of May, accordingly, Catherine and I spread out the seal-skin coat and began our journey. We went northwest, crossed the high Rockies, left behind us the new State of Washington, moved still west by north, and finally arrived at three small islands in Bering Sea, called the Pribylov Islands, from a Russian who discovered them in 1786. “Our fortune is good,” said I to Catherine; “this is just such weather as seals like. They delight in cool, moist, foggy days, so that the sun is obscured, and casts no shadows. This is the usual weather on the Pribylov Islands, where the sun shines clearly but few days in the year. Seals spend about eight months in the water, and four months chiefly on the land. When they land they choose a dry locality of hard sand and pebbles, shelving toward the sea, so that no water or slime shall be left on the ground, for if their fur becomes matted with mud it falls out at once.”

“Here we are at St. Paul’s Island; date, May eighteenth; day, mild and hazy. We stand on a ledge of rock, and to the left of us we see five or six giant seals walking. They come up on the rocky beach and calmly take their places on large rocks and sit looking seawards; they are watching for their mates, friends, and neighbors to arrive. We need not fear to approach them; unless attacked, even the largest seal is entirely gentle. His eyesight is good, but only for moderate distances, but his sense of smell is as keen as the hearingof a manatee. If we keep on the side to which the wind is blowing, so that he cannot detect us by his sense of smell, we may approach close to him.

“Look at him now. He is seven feet long, and weighs four hundred pounds. He has a small, round head, the skull bones are thin and light, and the brain fills almost the entire skull cavity, for the seal is a highly organized and very intelligent animal. The eyes are large, of a bluish hazel, and very beautiful; the nose is like that of a Newfoundland dog, but the mouth has not loose skin like the dog’s mouth, but firm, well-outlined, human-like lips.

“Open the mouth and there are large, sharp, dog-like teeth. A gray moustache ornaments the upper lip, outdoing Victor Emmanuel’s in length, and sweeping down upon the breast. At the back of the round head are two small, pointed, drooping ears. The neck and shoulders are very large and heavy; the tail is merely an apology for a tail, being but four inches long. The seal has four limbs or flippers. The front flippers are hairless, blue black, ten inches broad at the body, eighteen inches long, and taper to a point. There are no fingers, and the arm and the forearm are embraced in the body, and hidden under the skin and blubber. In fact, the flippers are only hands, the arm part remaining enclosed in the covering of the chest. These fore flippers are used as feet, the seal stepping on them with alternate up and down movements, and carrying his head three feet from the ground, in an erect and graceful attitude.

“The hind flippers are very odd. They are much longer than the front ones, light, slender, and ribbon-like; they looklike a pair of empty, wrinkled, black kid gloves. They are twenty-two inches long, and at a little distance from the ends have each three strong nails. The heels are horny and projecting, and on them the seal rests the hinder part of the body, for the upper part of these hind flippers, bones, and joints are embraced in the body, as are the fore limbs. At every other step the seal pauses and gives his hind flippers a sidewise fling, as if to keep them out of harm’s way.

“Having slowly walked up the beach, this seal, who is an adult male, seats himself and surveys the ocean, his front flippers hang idly down, but he fans himself in the most comical style with his long, ribbon-like, hind flippers. He is exceedingly fat; under his skin lie several inches of blubber, and well it is for him that he is so provided, for now that he has come out of the water, he will not return there nor taste food or drink for the next three or four months.[82]All the time that he is on land he maintains an absolute fast. In the water his food is fishes, crustaceans, and squids,[83]of which he eats enormous quantities.”

“But the fur!” cries Catherine, “the fur! I see nothing on this beast like my lovely, soft, dark cloak. This creature is covered with coarse gray hair.”

“Step a little closer, my Catherine, and let us examine into this important matter. The seal wears two coats: the outer one is this coarse, grizzly hair, the inner one is a short, close, soft, elastic, silky fur. This fur is darkest on the back and shoulders, lightest on the flanks and breast.This adult male seal does not have that glossy nut-brown, or that delicate light gray or cream-colored fur which belongs to young seals, and to the females, and which presently we shall see prepared for your use.

“These big seals have come out of the water to make ready for spring housekeeping. Each one selects a dry, sloping place which will suit the mothers and their little ones, and this home he is prepared to defend against all intruders. About the fifteenth of June the mother seals begin to come out of the water. They are obliged to come out and nurse their little ones on land, as even a human baby will not be more helpless in water, or drown more quickly than a baby seal.

“As we watch the mother seals swimming toward land and walking up the beach, we shall see that they are only about one-sixth of the size of the big seals we have been examining. They are of a much more slender and graceful make, have remarkably handsome heads and necks, and are not encumbered with the mass of blubber under the skin. They do not need the blubber, for they go regularly into the water to feed, and even remain away two or three days, leaving the male seals to keep house and defend the children. Meantime these big seals fast and use up their store of blubber to maintain their vitality.

“The big seals meet the mothers coming up the beach, and escort them to their homes and to comfortable seats among the rocks. The mother seals sit down and fan themselves with their flippers, and croon or sing. They turn their pretty heads artlessly from side to side, and croon to each other.No mother seal will stay alone for a minute; from six to fifty mothers always keep together in one home.

“The big male seal has four distinct calls or notes. He has a chuckling whistle whereby he converses with the mother seals; a loud, angry roar for any other big seal who meddles with his family; a low growl, with which he talks to himself; and a sound like a cat spitting, when he is alarmed. Mother seals have the crooning song for their mates, and a bleat like a sheep for their little ones. Baby seals cry just like little lambs.

“A mother seal seldom has more than one baby or “puppy” at a time. These mothers are exceedingly gentle, patient creatures, and very quiet. On shore they fan themselves, croon, and curl up for cosy naps, but the big seals are nervous and restless, and never sleep when ashore more than a few minutes at a time.

“Baby seals cannot swim. They make their ba-a-a-ing cry all the time that they are awake. Their eyes are wide open at once; they are not blind at first, like kittens and puppies, but they do not know their mothers from any other seals. The mother seals know their own children by their cries, though to human ears their looks and cries are all exactly alike. No matter how far off the puppy may roll, no matter how many scores of puppies are heaped into a warm, furry ba-a-a-ing heap, the good little mothers can find each her own. Perhaps the sense of smell aids them as well as the bleating cry.

“The mother seal is not a very anxious nurse. She pays no heed if any one picks up her baby, carries it off, or treadson it. She leaves it for two or three days at a time, while she is off in the water enjoying herself; meantime the little one sleeps and ba-a-a-s, and does not seem to suffer from hunger. When the mother returns from her excursions she curls down by her baby and gives it plenty of rich milk. These baby seals have dark blue eyes, but the eyes become browner after a while. All seals have long, thick eyelashes.

“As the baby seals grow older they begin to roll about the shore, which from much trampling has been worn into hollows filled with tide-water. These hollows are muddy and the seal mothers do not wish their babies to get into them. The naughty little seals, like frolicsome children, trot to the puddles and go into them a dozen times a day, and their mothers pull them out.

“As the little ones reach the age of three months they go nearer the water’s edge in their rambles and venture in. At first they cannot swim, and clamber out, sputtering and spitting and crying ba-a-a at the top of their lungs. Still, after a little nap, they go back and try it again and again, and in a few days they know how to swim; but they are a full year old before they know how to dive, swim, fish, roll, and sleep in the water, as well as the adults.

“In swimming the seal carries his long hind flippers stretched backwards to serve as a rudder, and uses the fore flippers for propulsion. When the little ones can swim they are weaned, and they betake themselves to the water to stay, and are able to catch squids and crustaceans for themselves. They are three or four months old when they thus go to the water to find a home, and they do not come backfor two years. A seal can sleep as comfortably on the water as on shore. To sleep it turns on its back, holds its nose and feet above the surface, and takes a profound nap, gently rocked by the waves.

“While the young seals are on shore the big seals defend them and take care of them so long as they keep at home. If they wander away, even though they do not go out of sight, they pay no attention to them.

“By the middle of September the homes are broken up and the seals return to the water to remain until May or June. Now, my Catherine, that we have thus observed the seals in general, let us look after the making of your coat. The fur came neither from a big male seal, a baby seal, nor a mother seal. Then from what seal did it come?

“Let us, on a July day, turn our eyes from the crowded rookeries, or seal homes on the rocks, and at some distance off on the shore we shall see thousands of other seals which the Indians call ‘bachelors.’ These are seals from two to six years old, young males fresh from the water, but not allowed by the big adult seals to approach the homes on the rocks. They do not seem troubled by the decree of exile; they are in good temper and high spirits, and they have very jolly times at play. They roll and tumble and gambol as do kittens and puppies. They lie on the grass, shut their eyes, and roll to and fro; they sit and fan themselves; they stretch out and gently comb themselves with the nails on their hind flippers; they take naps; they run races; they play leap-frog over each others’ backs, and snort and roar with great hilarity.

“These young seals have the long, coarse over-hair, less gray than the big seals, and the soft, rich under-coat is silken and of a delicate brown color. The down and feathers on a duck’s breast are arranged much as the hair and fur on a seal. In August seals begin to shed and renew their coats: in June and July they are at their best. These, then, are the seals from which the skins for commerce are to be taken, and in June and July it must be done. They are so docile and gentle that it is very easy to kill them.

“The seal-killers are Indian natives of the islands who understand their work. A number of these natives go to a herd of bachelors, and passing around them just at daybreak ‘cut out’ from one to two thousand, just as a shepherd ‘cuts out’ a drove of sheep from a great flock. Surrounding and gently driving them, they turn them to the slaughter-houses. Seals walk easily and quickly, and they go as they are driven with the docility of sheep. Arrived at the houses, they are allowed to lie down and rest and cool for half an hour.

“Then an expert man goes out with several others armed with clubs. The expert points to different seals and says: ‘Don’t kill him, he is too young.’ ‘Don’t kill that one, he is shedding his coat.’ ‘Don’t kill that one, he is too old.’ ‘Let that one go, he is sick.’ And so on. When he has thus pointed out the exceptions, the men with the clubs lift the clubs high and bring down a crashing blow on the skull of each seal, killing it instantly. As the seal is killed it is dragged from the group, laid on its back, and bled at once. If this is not done immediately the body heats very soon and the fur falls off.

“Then expert skinners strip off the skin, making cuts around the snout, tail, and flippers. Next the skins are carried to the salt-house, piled on each other in bins, ‘fur to fat,’ in layers like piles of paper; salt is thickly strewn on them, and they are held in place by heavy planks. In two or three weeks they are taken out, rolled in bundles, two skins together, corded tightly, and shipped to London to be dressed. Now, my Catherine, we must leave the Pribylov Islands, and go to London to follow the fortunes of your seal-skin coat.[84]

“In the seal-skin dressing establishment the skins are carefully heated to loosen the coarse hair and not disturb the fur; then the hair is very carefully combed out, leaving the soft, silky fur, which is at once dyed to a rich, even brown color. The difference in the price of seal-skin garments arises chiefly from the greater or less labor and skill expended in combing and dyeing them.

“The process of preparing the skins is this: they are stretched on frames or beams, and the flesh side is well scraped; the skins are next washed to remove grease, and are then dried, tacked on frames to keep them smooth. When dry they are again soaked and well cleaned with soap and water. Next the skin is dried by heat, and while still warm the coarse hair is combed out, the skin being kept warm and pliable, so that the hairs will not break. Once more being dried, the surface of the fur is shaved evenly. Then the skins are made soft by a fulling mill, or by being covered with sawdust and then trodden upon until pliable.

“After all this the skins are examined, mended where torn,and two skins are laid together fur to fur, with paper fastened between. In this way they are shipped to the United States. It requires three skins to make your coat, my Catherine; if the style demanded very long coats it would require five. Being safely at the furriers in the United States, the skins are cut into coats and muffs and collars of the latest fashion, beautifully lined with quilted silk, and you, my Catherine, walk forth defiant of the cold, clad in the soft, warm garments which a year ago were swimming, rolling, plunging, feeding, sleeping in Bering Sea.”

FOOTNOTES:[82]See U. S. Govt. Reports of the Pribylov Fisheries.[83]A kind of cuttle-fish.[84]Many seal skins are also dressed and dyed in Germany.

[82]See U. S. Govt. Reports of the Pribylov Fisheries.

[83]A kind of cuttle-fish.

[84]Many seal skins are also dressed and dyed in Germany.

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