"Certainly, Conseil.
But tell me, haven't you finished classifying these superb specimens of marine fauna?"
"Master is well aware," Conseil replied, "that I'm not seasoned in practical application.
When master has told me these animals' names . . ."
"They're seals and walruses."
"Two genera," our scholarly Conseil hastened to say, "that belong to the family Pinnipedia, order Carnivora, group Unguiculata, subclass Monodelphia, class Mammalia, branch Vertebrata."
"Very nice, Conseil," I replied, "but these two genera of seals and walruses are each divided into species, and if I'm not mistaken, we now have a chance to actually look at them.
Let's."
It was eight o'clock in the morning.
We had four hours to ourselves before the sun could be productively observed.
I guided our steps toward a huge bay that made a crescent–shaped incision in the granite cliffs along the beach.
There, all about us, I swear that the shores and ice floes were crowded with marine mammals as far as the eye could see, and I involuntarily looked around for old Proteus, that mythological shepherd who guarded King Neptune's immense flocks.
To be specific, these were seals.
They formed distinct male–and–female groups, the father watching over his family, the mother suckling her little ones, the stronger youngsters emancipated a few paces away.
When these mammals wanted to relocate, they moved in little jumps made by contracting their bodies, clumsily helped by their imperfectly developed flippers, which, as with their manatee relatives, form actual forearms.
In the water, their ideal element, I must say these animals swim wonderfully thanks to their flexible backbones, narrow pelvises, close–cropped hair, and webbed feet.
Resting on shore, they assumed extremely graceful positions.
Consequently, their gentle features, their sensitive expressions equal to those of the loveliest women, their soft, limpid eyes, their charming poses, led the ancients to glorify them by metamorphosing the males into sea gods and the females into mermaids.
I drew Conseil's attention to the considerable growth of the cerebral lobes found in these intelligent cetaceans.
No mammal except man has more abundant cerebral matter.
Accordingly, seals are quite capable of being educated; they make good pets, and together with certain other naturalists, I think these animals can be properly trained to perform yeoman service as hunting dogs for fishermen.
Most of these seals were sleeping on the rocks or the sand.
Among those properly termed seals—which have no external ears, unlike sea lions whose ears protrude—I observed several varieties of the species stenorhynchus, three meters long, with white hair, bulldog heads, and armed with ten teeth in each jaw: four incisors in both the upper and lower, plus two big canines shaped like the fleur–de–lis.
Among them slithered some sea elephants, a type of seal with a short, flexible trunk; these are the giants of the species, with a circumference of twenty feet and a length of ten meters.
They didn't move as we approached.
"Are these animals dangerous?"
Conseil asked me.
"Only if they're attacked," I replied.
"But when these giant seals defend their little ones, their fury is dreadful, and it isn't rare for them to smash a fisherman's longboat to bits."
"They're within their rights," Conseil answered.
"I don't say nay."
Two miles farther on, we were stopped by a promontory that screened the bay from southerly winds.
It dropped straight down to the sea, and surf foamed against it.
From beyond this ridge there came fearsome bellows, such as a herd of cattle might produce.
"Gracious," Conseil put in, "a choir of bulls?"
"No," I said, "a choir of walruses."
"Are they fighting with each other?"
"Either fighting or playing."
"With all due respect to Master, this we must see."
"Then see it we must, Conseil."
And there we were, climbing these blackish rocks amid sudden landslides and over stones slippery with ice.
More than once I took a tumble at the expense of my backside.
Conseil, more cautious or more stable, barely faltered and would help me up, saying:
"If Master's legs would kindly adopt a wider stance, Master will keep his balance."
Arriving at the topmost ridge of this promontory, I could see vast white plains covered with walruses.
These animals were playing among themselves.
They were howling not in anger but in glee.
Walruses resemble seals in the shape of their bodies and the arrangement of their limbs.
But their lower jaws lack canines and incisors, and as for their upper canines, they consist of two tusks eighty centimeters long with a circumference of thirty–three centimeters at the socket.
Made of solid ivory, without striations, harder than elephant tusks, and less prone to yellowing, these teeth are in great demand.