In fact, Papa
told me that he once sat for three days at one seal hole, and then it
did not come up. During all this time the hunter must keep perfectly
still--that is, he must not walk around or move his feet off the ice.
He can move his body to keep up a circulation of the blood, or move his
feet inside his stockings if they are sufficiently loose to allow of
such motion, but no noise must occur which would alarm the game if in
the vicinity of the hunter.
Some funny incidents occur at these prolonged sittings. I remember one
experienced old seal-hunter who told me that when he was a young man he
was once out all night watching a blow-hole and got very sleepy--so
sleepy, indeed, that he could not keep his eyes open. After vainly
endeavoring to arouse himself, he finally succumbed, and, falling
asleep, tumbled over backward and wandered in the land of dreams.
Suddenly awakening he saw what he supposed to be a man with hostile
intentions standing and looking down upon him through the dim
starlight. Every time he moved in the least, in order to get up, the
strange man moved in a threatening sort of way, and he had to lie still
again. At last, after getting thoroughly awakened, he discovered what
he had taken for an enemy, and had caused him such alarm, was only his
own leg sticking up in the air and resting against the snow-block seat
from which he had tumbled when he fell asleep.
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