The seal's flesh supplies the natives with their most palatable and
substantial food, which however has a fishy flavour, as the creatures
feed chiefly on fish. Seals are sometimes taken on land, when
surprised basking in the sun, with their young. As soon as they are
alarmed by the sight of their enemies, they scuttle away, and make for
the sea[4]. It is on the great deep that the Esquimaux, driven by
hunger, chiefly seeks his precarious food. In his light canoe, which
is made of seal-skins stretched over a slight framework of wood, he
hunts, in all weathers, for his prey, especially for the much-prized
Narwhal.
There, tumbling in their seal-skin boat,
Fearless, the hungry fishers float,
And from the teeming seas supply
The food their niggard plains deny.
[Footnote 4: See ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES, _Common Seal_. Published by the
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.]