Qujâvârssuk made no answer, as was his custom, but the old man said to him:
“We use only speckled skin for whales. And they are now at this time in the mouth of the river.”
After this, they went to rest.
Qujâvârssuk slept, and awoke, and got up, and went away to the north. And when he had gone a little way to the north, he came to the mouth of a small fjord. He looked round and saw a speckled seal that had come up to breathe. When it went down again, he rowed up on the landward side of it, and fixed the head and line to his harpoon. When it came up again to breathe, he rowed to where it was, and harpooned it, and after this, he at once rowed home with it.
The old man made the skin ready, and hung it up behind the house. But while it was hanging there, there came very often a noise as from the bladder float, and this although there was no one there. This thing the old man did not like at all.
Hunter in kayak. The creature behind is a monster that frightens all the seal away.
Hunters encountering Sarqiserasak, a dangerous troll, who rows in a half kayak himself, and upsets all he meets with his paddle.
To face p. 34.