Just as we had made fast to a floe, to take in water from a bright blue
pool which slept on its hollow surface, I was called upon deck to witness
"a seal's wedding." This ceremony was performed in a manner which, however
nuptial it may have appeared to seamen, was not quite in accordance with my
ideas of the hymeneal contract. A "seal's wedding" seems to be a seal's
dance, or a combination of gambols, which these animals act together, while
swimming rapidly forward in company, leaping above the surface of the
water, rolling, tumbling, going "tail up" after each other, and enacting a
thousand wild freaks, as unexpected from such grave-looking and
clumsy-built harlequins as can be imagined. Yet why should not the solemn
visaged, double-chinned phoca partake of one of the most universal habits
of animal life--the love of frolic?--a desire which is equally as diffused
throughout the living creation as the inclination for fighting. A shoal or
"school" of beautiful unicorns also swam past our vessel at this time; they
were particularly large, and, from the numerous horns projected from the
water, there must have been many males amongst them.
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