inwards I felt a strong desire to return. ‘What are you doing?’ said Mr.
Pip, aghast, from the top. ‘ Going home,’ I replied. ‘ And leave the Seals?
he almost screamed. ‘ You'll never get such a chance again.’ I made various
feeble excuses— that I was no rock limpet, that I had a wife and children, and
that I had lost my nerve for the day, but he would not hear of it, and just to
show what one man who is a skilful leader can do with another who is in
no mood to face the disagreeable, he actually got me to tie a rope round my
body, and half climbing, half being pulled, I got up and over that horrible
place.O
nce at the top we naturally thought all would be plain sailing, but not a
bit of it. We had not gone many yards before a fresh difficulty in the shape of
a great chasm, which cut the island right in half, confronted us. The narrowest
point was about eight feet across, and it sf§i not nice to know that if your foot
slips there is a hundred foot drop into water from which there is no escape. Yet
Pip took it like a bird, and finding he went over it so easily I summoned up my
courage and followed him. Now we felt a sense of relief at last; for right in front
of us was a high point which I knew commanded the Seals at what I judged to be
about a hundred and fifty yards distance. After descending a steep gully and
climbing up some great boulders, I peeped .round the edge of the rock, and there
were the great fellows lying exactly as I had first viewed them. Getting out the
telescope I had a magnificent sight of a group of these animals; most of them were
quite dry, so I spent some ten minutes in examining the different colours of their
skins. There were two or three old grey and grizzled-looking animals, with the
usual black ropes round their necks, but these were by no means the largest. Several
were lying fast asleep on their backs, just like men, showing their white bellies and
chests heavily marked with black. The majority were of the heavily marbled type,
dark ash-grey markings on a light grey ground, and there were at least three that
looked quite black all over except the grey back of the head. Those that were lying
nearest to the breaking sea were uneasy and quarrelsome, and whenever one hustled
or approached another he would growl like a bear and throw out his neck to seize the
intruder. The largest Seal of the lot was an immense male, perfectly black and, as
far as I could judge, well over 9 feet long. He was lying number three from the
right, and I saw that if we could worm ourselves down to a ledge about forty yards
to the right of the Seals, I should be practically certain to bag him. This manoeuvre
meant some pretty close crawling for nearly a hundred yards, our only cover being
obtained from the top turnover of the rock overlooking a channel which ran