noon
Drawing their knives the party commenced the less pleasant and exciting task of flaying and butchering their victims . The ten `` hoods '' were enormous fellows , averaging eight feet in length , and nearly six in circumference , and weighing from five to six hundred weight each . Only two were eviscerated for the sake of the heart and membranous vessels ; but the heads of all were struck off for the sake of the brains , and the large sinews were extracted for `` sewing thread . '' It was noon when the first load was sent off , under the care of Regnar and La Salle , to the home berg , and , two hours later , when they returned to the floe , they found , with pleasure , that the distance between the two points had materially lessened . -LSB- Illustration -RSB- Climbing the highest point of the floe , La Salle looked down upon a strange spectacle . Reaching away a mile or two to windward was a succession of floes , similar to the one on which he stood . Upon them all the seals were gathered in hundreds , and beyond the last of the chain a huge iceberg -- a perfect mountain of congealed water -- rose nearly a hundred feet into the air .