midday
What with making things more comfortable in their hut and attending to the garden , which bloomed out apace each day , the hours did not lag on their hands by any means during the next week or two . There was occupation enough , even in this interval , to pass the time pleasantly away ; but , when the month of November was ushered in , the seals then coming to the island in shoals , they found plenty to do from morning till night . There was work of all kinds to be done : -- first , boating round the coast after their prey ; secondly , hunting the animals into their caves and killing them , taking care to secure their bodies before they sank into deep water and were thus irrecoverably lost ; thirdly , getting off the skins and salting them down to prevent their putrefying ; and , lastly , boiling blubber -- oh , yes , they had enough work to employ them , and no time to be idle ! Before this busy period , however , every morning , again at midday , and in the afternoon , Eric would go up and down the tussock-grass ladder by which he scaled the precipice on to the tableland above , whence he was able to reconnoitre the west coast , the favourite resort of the seals , according to the information of young Glass , the Tristaner who instructed them in the matter . The lad did this daily as a matter of duty , `` climbing the fore cross - trees for a look-out , '' as he termed the scramble up the gorge ; and , as regularly , three times every day , after his morning , midday , and afternoon observations , he would come back to Fritz with the same unsatisfactory tale -- that no seals were in sight . One afternoon , however , towards the end of the month , he reported more cheering news . `` Oh , there are such a lot of seals on the rocks ! ''