“But why do you call them killing-clubs? Surely they don’t beat the poor brutes to death with those things.”
“Not exactly. But they kill them with a single blow on the head, and then cut their throats.”
“What a barbarous way!” cried Phil, indignantly.
“Oh no,” replied the teacher. “It may seem so to you, but it really is not. The seal’s skull is so thin that a heavy blow crushes it and kills him instantly.”
“Why not shoot them?”
“Because that would be a less certain and more expensive method, and then the noise would alarm all the other seals. They are easily panic-stricken, tame and fearless as they seem. For that reason not a gun or a dog is allowed on these islands.”
While they were thus talking the killing-gang, by command of their native foreman, was separating a “pod” of about two hundred seals from the rest of the drove. These were urged to a short distance from the others, where they were closely huddled together until they were directly beneath the uplifted clubs. At another word of command the cruel clubs descended with terrific force, and the work of killing was begun.
“Oh!” cried Phil, “I can’t stand this! It is too horrible! Come on, Serge. Let’s get away from here.”
So, to the surprise of the teacher, who had imagined that his new friends would be particularly interested in this scene, to which he had become hardened by a life-long familiarity, they turned from it and hurried away.
If they had remained they would have seen the dead seals skinned with marvellous dexterity, and the skins loaded into mule-carts to be driven to a salt-house, where they would lie in pickle for several weeks before being rolled into bundles of two each, and stored in the company warehouse. At the end of the season, which closes in August, during which month the seals shed their coats, the seventy or one hundred thousand skins representing the year’s take would be shipped on the company’s own steamer to San Francisco, and from there to London, to be prepared for use, as described in a previous chapter.