But the companionship and the exceeding _Our Arctic province

assembled together annually, makes them bold; largely due, perhaps,

to their fine instinctive understanding, dating, probably, back

many years, seeming to know that man, after all, is not wantonly

destroying them; and what he takes, he only takes from the ravenous

maw of the killer-whale or the saw-tipped teeth of the Japan shark.

As they sleep in the water, off the Straits of Fuca, and the

northwest coast as far as Dixon’s Sound, the Indians belonging to

that region surprise them with spears and rifle, capturing quite a

number every year, chiefly pups and yearlings.

When fur-seals were noticed, by myself, far away from these islands,

at sea, I observed that then they were as shy and as wary as the

most timorous animal would be, in dreading man’s proximity—sinking

instantly on apprehending the approach or presence of the ship,

seldom to reappear to my gaze. But, when gathered in such immense

numbers at the Pribylov Islands, they are suddenly metamorphosed

into creatures wholly indifferent to my person. It must cause a very

curious sentiment in the mind of him who comes for the first time,

during a summer season, to the Island of St. Paul—where, when the

landing boat or lighter carries him ashore from the vessel, this

whole short marine journey is enlivened by the gambols and aquatic

evolutions of fur-seal convoys to the “bidarrah,” which sport

joyously and fearlessly round and round his craft, as she is rowed

lustily ahead by the natives; the fur-seals then, of all classes,

“holluschickie” principally, pop their dark heads up out of the sea,

rising neck and shoulders erect above the surface, to peer and ogle

at him and at his boat, diving quickly to reappear just ahead or

right behind, hardly beyond striking distance from the oars. These

gymnastics of _Callorhinus_ are not wholly performed thus in silence,

for it usually snorts and chuckles with hearty reiteration.

The sea-lion up here also manifest much the same marine interest,

and gives the voyager an exhibition quite similar to the one which I

have just spoken of, when a small boat is rowed in the neighborhood

of its shore rookery; it is not, however, so bold, confident, and

social as the fur-seal under the circumstances, and utters only a

short, stifled growl of surprise, perhaps; its mobility, however,

of vocalization is sadly deficient when compared with the scope and

compass of its valuable relative’s polyglottis.

The hair-seals (_Phoca vitulina_) around these islands never

approached our boats in this manner, and I seldom caught more than a

furtive glimpse of their short, bull-dog heads when traversing the

coast by water.

The walrus (_Rosmarus obesus_) also, like _Phoca vitulina_, gave

undoubted evidence of sore alarm over the presence of my boat and

crew anywhere near its proximity in similar situations, only showing

itself once or twice, perhaps, at a safe distance, by elevating

nothing but the extreme tip of its muzzle and its bleared, popping

eyes above the water; it uttered no sound except a dull, muffled

grunt, or else a choking, gurgling bellow.

What can be done to promote the increase of fur seals? We cannot

cause a greater number of females to be born every year than are

born now; we do not touch or disturb these females as they grow up

and live; and we never will, if the law and present management is

continued. We save double—we save more than enough males to serve;

nothing more can be done by human agency; it is beyond our power to

protect them from their deadly marine enemies as they wander into the

boundless ocean searching for food.

[Illustration: NATIVES GATHERING A “DRIVE”

Aleutes selecting Holluschickie for the day’s killing at English

Bay, St. Paul’s Island]

In view, therefore, of all these facts, I have no hesitation

in saying, quite confidently, that under the present rules and

regulations governing the sealing interests on these islands, the

increase or diminution of the seal-life thereon will amount to

nothing in the future; that the seals will exist, as they do exist,

in all time to come at about the same number and condition recorded

by this presentation of the author.

By reference to the habit of the fur-seal, which I have discussed at

length, it is now plain and beyond doubt that two-thirds of all the

males which are born, and they are equal in numbers to the females

born, are never permitted by the remaining third, strongest by

natural selection, to land upon the same breeding-ground with the

females, which always herd thereupon _en masse_. Hence this great

band of “bachelor” seals, or “holluschickie,” so fitly termed, when

it visits the island, is obliged to live apart wholly—sometimes and

in some places, miles away from the rookeries; and, by this admirable

method of nature are those seals which can be killed without injury

to the rookeries selected and held aside of their own volition, so

that the natives can visit and take them without disturbing, to the

least degree, that entire quiet of those breeding-grounds where the

stock is perpetuated.

The manner in which the natives capture and drive up “holluschickie”

from the hauling-grounds to the slaughter-fields near the two

villages of St. Paul and St. George, and elsewhere on the islands,

cannot be improved upon. It is in this way: At the beginning of

every sealing-season, that is, during May and June, large bodies

of the young “bachelor” seals do not haul up on land very far from

the water—a few rods at the most—and, when these first arrivals are

sought after, the natives, to capture them, are obliged to approach

slyly and run quickly between the dozing seals and the surf, before

they can take alarm and bolt into the sea; in this manner a dozen

Aleutes, running down the sand beach of English Bay, in the early

morning of some June day, will turn back from the water thousands

of seals, just as the mould-board of a plough lays over and back a

furrow of earth. When the sleeping seals are first startled, they

arise, and, seeing men between them and the water, immediately turn,

lope and scramble rapidly back up and over the land; the natives

then leisurely walk on the flanks and in the rear of this drove thus

secured, directing and driving it over to the killing-grounds, close

by the village. The task of getting up early of a morning, and going

out to the several hauling-grounds, closely adjacent, is really all

there is of that labor expended in securing the number of seals

required for a day’s work on the killing-grounds. The two, three, or

four natives upon whom, in rotation, this duty is devolved by the

order of their chief, rise at first glimpse of dawn, between one and

two o’clock, and hasten over to Lukannon, Tolstoi, or Zoltoi, as the

case may be, “walk out” their “holluschickie,” and have them duly on

the slaughtering field before six or seven o’clock, as a rule, in the

morning. In favorable weather the “drive” from Tolstoi consumes from

two and a half to three hours’ time; from Lukannon, about two hours,

and is often done in an hour and a half; while Zoltoi is so near by

that the time is merely nominal.

A drove of seals on hard or firm grassy ground, in cool and moist

weather, may be driven with safety at the rate of half a mile an

hour; they can be urged along, with the expenditure of a great many

lives, however, at the speed of a mile or a mile and a quarter per

hour; but that is seldom done. An old bull-seal, fat and unwieldy,

cannot travel with the younger ones, though it can lope or gallop as

it starts across the ground as fast as an ordinary man can run, over

one hundred yards—then it fails utterly, falls to the earth supine,

entirely exhausted, hot, and gasping for breath.

The “holluschickie” are urged along over paths leading to the

killing-ground with very little trouble, and require only three or

four men to guide and secure as many thousand at a time. They are

permitted frequently to halt and cool off, as heating them injures

their fur. These seal-halts on the road always impressed me with a

species of sentimentalism and regard for the creatures themselves.

When the men drop back for a few moments, that awkward shambling

and scuffling of the march at once ceases, and the seals stop in

their tracks to fan themselves with their hind flippers, while their

heaving flanks give rise to subdued panting sounds. As soon as they

apparently cease to gasp for want of breath, and are cooled off

comparatively, the natives step up once more, clatter a few bones,

with a shout along the line, and this seal-shamble begins again—their

march to death and the markets of the world is taken up anew.[133]

I was also impressed by the singular docility and amiability of

these animals when driven along the road. They never show fight any

more than a flock of sheep would do; if, however, a few old seals

get mixed in, they usually grow so weary that they prefer to come

to a stand-still and fight rather than move; otherwise no sign

whatever of resistance is made by the drove from the moment it is

intercepted, and turned up from the hauling-grounds, to the time of

its destruction at the hands of the sealing-gang.

This disposition of the old seals to fight rather than endure the

panting torture of travel, is of great advantage to all parties

concerned, for they are worthless commercially, and the natives are

only too glad to let them drop behind, where they remain unmolested,

eventually returning to the sea. The fur on them is of little or no

value; their under-wool being very much shorter, coarser, and more

scant than in the younger; especially so on the posterior parts along

the median line of the back.

This change for the worse or deterioration of the pelage of the

fur-seal takes place, as a rule, in the fifth year of their age—it

is thickest and finest in texture during the third and fourth year

of life; hence, in driving the seals on St. Paul and St. George up

from the hauling-grounds the natives make, as far as practicable,

a selection only from males of that age. It is quite impossible,

however, to get them all of one age without an extraordinary amount

of stir and bustle, which the Aleutes do not like to precipitate;

hence the drive will be found to consist usually of a bare

majority of three and four-year-olds, the rest being two-year-olds

principally, and a very few, at wide intervals, five-year-olds, the

yearlings seldom ever getting mixed up in it.

As this drove progresses along that path to those

slaughtering-grounds, the seals all move in about the same way;

they go ahead with a kind of walking step and a sliding, shambling

gallop. The progression of the whole caravan is a succession of

starts, spasmodic and irregular, made every few minutes, the seals

pausing to catch their breath, making, as it were, a plaintive survey

and mute protest. Every now and then a seal will get weak in the

lumbar region, then drag its posteriors along for a short distance,

finally drop breathless and exhausted, quivering and panting, not to

revive for hours—days, perhaps—and often never. During the driest

driving-days, or those days when the temperature does not combine

with wet fog to keep the earth moist and cool, quite a large number

of the weakest animals in the drove will be thus laid out and left on

the track. If one of these prostrate seals is not too much heated at

the time, the native driver usually taps the beast over the head and

removes its skin.

[Illustration: NATIVES DRIVING “HOLLUSCHICKIE”

The Drove passing over the Lagoon Flats to the Killing Grounds under

the Village of St. Paul. Looking S. W. over the Village Cove and the

Lagoon Rookery]

This prostration from exertion will always happen, no matter how

carefully they are driven; and in the longer drives, such as two

and a half and five miles from Zapadnie on the west, or Polavina on

the north, to the village at St. Paul, as much as three or four per

cent. of the whole drive will be thus dropped on the road; hence

I feel satisfied, from my observation and close attention to this

feature, that a considerable number of those that are thus rejected

from the drove, and are able to rally and return to the water,

die subsequently from internal injuries sustained on the trip,

superinduced by this over-exertion. I therefore think it highly

improper and impolitic to extend drives of the “holluschickie” over

any distance on St. Paul Island exceeding a mile, or a mile and

a half—it is better for all parties concerned, and the business

too, that salt-houses be erected, and killing-grounds established

contiguous to all of the great hauling-grounds, two miles distant

from the village on St Paul Island, should the business ever be

developed above the present limit, or should the exigencies of the

future require a quota from all these places in order to make up the

hundred thousand which may be lawfully taken.

As matters are to-day, one hundred thousand seals alone on St. Paul

can be taken and skinned in less than forty working days, within

a radius of one mile and a half from the village, and from the

salt-house at Northeast Point; hence the driving, with the exception

of two experimental droves which I witnessed in 1872, has never been

made from longer distances than Tolstoi to the eastward, Lukannon to

the northward, and Zoltoi to the southward of the killing-grounds

at St Paul village. Should, however, an abnormal season recur, in

which the larger portion of days during the right period for taking

the skins be warmish and dry, it might be necessary, in order to get

even seventy-five thousand seals within the twenty-eight or thirty

days of their prime condition, for drives to be made from the other

great hauling-grounds to the westward and northward, which are now,

and have been for the last ten years, entirely unnoticed by our

sealers.[134]

[Illustration: Peter Peeshenkov: Pribylov Sealer.

[_Attired in the costume of the killing gang, when at work in wet

weather._]]

The seals, when finally driven up on those flats between the east

landing and the village, and almost under the windows of the

dwellings, are herded there until cool and rested. Such drives are

usually made very early in the morning, at the first breaking of

day, which is half-past one to two o’clock of June and July in these

latitudes. They arrive, and cool off on the slaughtering-grounds,

so that by six or seven o’clock, after breakfast, the able-bodied

male population turn out from the village and go down to engage in

the work of killing them. These men are dressed in their ordinary

laboring-garb of thick flannel shirts, stout cassimere or canvas

pants, over which the “tarbosar” boots are drawn. If it rains they

wear their “kamlaykas,” made of the intestines and throats of the

sea-lion and fur-seal. Thus dressed, they are each armed with a club,

a stout oaken or hickory bludgeon, which has been made particularly

for the purpose at New London, Conn., and imported here for this

especial service. Those sealing-clubs are about five or six feet in

length, three inches in diameter at their heads, and the thickness of

a man’s forearm where they are grasped by the hands. Each native

also has his stabbing-knife, his skinning-knife and his whetstone:

these are laid upon the grass convenient, when the work of braining

or knocking the seals down is in progress: this is all the apparatus

which they employ for killing and skinning.

[Illustration: THE KILLING GANG AT WORK

Method of slaughtering Fur Seals on the Grounds near the Village of

St. Paul Sealers Knocking Down a “Pod”

The Drove in Waiting Natives Skinning

When the men gather for work they are under the control of their

chosen foremen or chiefs; usually, on St. Paul, divided into two

working parties at the village, and a sub-party at Northeast Point,

where another salt-house and slaughtering-field is established.

At the signal of the chief the labor of the day begins by the men

stepping into that drove corralled on the flats and driving out from

it one hundred or one hundred and fifty seals at a time, making what

they call a “pod,” which they surround in a circle, huddling the

seals one on another as they narrow it down, until they are directly

within reach and under their clubs. Then the chief, after he has

cast his experienced eye over the struggling, writhing “kautickie”

in the centre, passes the word that such and such a seal is bitten,

that such and such a seal is too young, that such and such a seal

is too old; the attention of his men being called to these points,

he gives the word “Strike!” and instantly the heavy clubs come down

all around, and every animal eligible is stretched out stunned and

motionless, in less time, really, than I take to tell it. Those seals

spared by order of the chief now struggle from under and over the

bodies of their insensible companions and pass, hustled off by the

natives, back to the sea.

The clubs are dropped, the men seize the prostrate seals by the hind

flippers and drag them out so they are spread on the ground without

touching each other, then every sealer takes his knife and drives

it into the heart at a point between the fore flippers of each

stunned form; its blood gushes forth, and the quivering of the animal

presently ceases. A single stroke of a heavy oak bludgeon, well

and fairly delivered, will crush in at once the slight, thin bones

of a fur-seal’s skull, and lay the creature out almost lifeless.

These blows are, however, usually repeated two or three times with

each animal, but they are very quickly done. The bleeding, which is

immediately effected, is so speedily undertaken in order that the

strange reaction, which the sealers call “heating,” shall be delayed

for half an hour or so, or until the seals can all be drawn out and

laid in some disposition for skinning.

I have noticed that within less than thirty minutes from the time a

perfectly sound seal was knocked down, it had so “heated,” owing

to the day being warmer and drier than usual, that, when touching

it with my foot, great patches of hair and fur scaled off. This is

rather exceptionally rapid metamorphosis—it will, however, take place

in every instance, within an hour, or an hour and a half on these

warm days, after the first blow is struck, and the seal is quiet

in death; hence no time is lost by a prudent toyone in directing

the removal of the skins as rapidly as the seals are knocked down

and dragged out. If it is a cool day, after bleeding the first

“pod” which has been prostrated in the manner described, and after

carefully drawing the slain from the heap in which they have fallen,

so that the bodies will spread over the ground just free from

touching one another, they turn to and strike down another “pod;” and

so on, until a whole thousand or two are laid out, or the drove, as

corralled, is finished. The day, however, must be raw and cold for

this wholesale method. Then, after killing, they turn to work and

skin; but if it is a warm day every pod is skinned as soon as it is

knocked down.

The labor of skinning is exceedingly severe, and is trying even to

an expert, demanding long practice ere the muscles of the back and

thighs are so developed as to permit a man to bend down to, and

finish well, a fair day’s work. The knives used by the natives for

skinning are ordinary kitchen or case-handle butcher-knives. They are

sharpened to cutting edges as keen as razors, but something about the

skins of the seal, perhaps fine comminuted sand along the abdomen,

so dulls these knives, as the natives work, that they are obliged to

whet them constantly.

The body of the seal, preparatory to skinning, is rolled over and

balanced squarely on its back; then the native makes a single swift

cut through the skin down along the neck, chest, and belly, from the

lower jaw to the root of the tail: he uses for this purpose his long

stabbing-knife.[135] The fore and hind flippers are then successively

lifted, as the man straddles a seal and stoops down to his work

over it, and a sweeping circular incision is made through the skin

on them just at the point where the body-fur ends; then, seizing a

flap of the hide on either one side or the other of the abdomen, the

man proceeds with his smaller, shorter butcher-knife, rapidly to cut

the skin, clean and free from the body and blubber, which he rolls

over and out from the hide by hauling up on it as he advances with

his work, standing all this time stooped over the carcass so that

his hands are but slightly above it, or the ground. This operation

of skinning a fair-sized “holluschak” takes the best men only one

minute and a half, but the average time made by the gang on the

ground is about four minutes to the seal. Nothing is left of the

skin upon the carcass, save a small patch of each upper lip on which

the coarse mustache grows, the skin on the tip of the lower jaw, and

its insignificant tail. After removal of the skin from the body of a

fur-seal, the entire surface of the carcass is covered with a more

or less dense layer, or envelope, of soft, oily blubber, which in

turn completely conceals the muscles or flesh of the trunk and neck.

This fatty substance, which we now see, resembles that met with in

such seals everywhere, only possessing that strange peculiarity not

shared by any other of its kind, of being positively overbearing and

offensive in odor to an unaccustomed human nostril. The rotting,

sloughing carcasses around about did not, when stirred up, affect

me more unpleasantly than did this strong, sickening smell of the

fur-seal blubber. It has a character and appearance intermediate

between those belonging to the adipose tissue found on the flesh of

cetacea and some carnivora.

[Illustration: The Carcass after Skinning—The Skin as taken therefrom.]

This continuous envelope of blubber to the bodies of the

“holluschickie” is thickest in deposit at those points upon the

breast between the fore flippers, reaching entirely around and over

the shoulders, where it is from one inch to a little over in depth.

Upon the outer side of the chest it is not half an inch in thickness,

frequently not more than a quarter, and it thins out considerably

as it reaches the median line of the back. The neck and head are

clad by an unbroken continuation of the same material, which varies

from one-half to one-quarter of an inch in depth. Toward the middle

line of the abdominal region there is a layer of relative greater

thickness. This is coextensive with the sterno-pectoral mass; but it

does not begin to retain its volume as it extends backward, where

this fatty investment of the carcass upon the loins, buttocks, and

hinder limbs fades out finer than on the pectoro-abdominal parts, and

assumes a thickness corresponding to its depth on the cervical and

dorsal regions. As it descends on the limbs this blubber thins out

very perceptibly; and, when reaching the flippers, it almost entirely

disappears, giving way to a glistening aureolar tissue, while the

flipper skin finally descends in turn to adhere closely and firmly to

the tendinous ligamentary structures beneath, which constitute the

tips of the swimming-palms.

The flesh and the muscles are not lined between or within by fat

of any kind: this blubber envelope contains it all, with one

exception—that which is found in the folds of the small intestine and

about the kidneys, where there is an abundant secretion of a harder,

whiter, though still offensive-smelling fat.

It is quite natural for our people when they first eat a meal on the

Pribylov Islands to ask questions in regard to what seal-meat looks

and tastes like. Some of the white residents will answer, saying

that they are very fond of it cooked so and so; others will reply

that in no shape or manner can they stomach the dish. An inquirer

must himself try the effect on his own palate. I frankly confess

that I had a slight prejudice against seal-meat at first, having

preconceived ideas that it would be fishy in flavor; but I soon

satisfied myself to the contrary, and found that the flesh of young

seals not over three years old was as appetizing and toothsome as

some of the beef, mutton, and pork I was accustomed to at home. The

following precautions must be rigidly observed, however, by the cook

who prepares fur-seal steaks and sausage-balls for our delectation

and subsistence. He will fail if he does not:

1. The meat must be perfectly cleaned of every vestige of blubber or

fat, no matter how slight.

2. Cut the flesh then into very thin steaks or slices and soak them

from six to twelve hours in salt and water, a tablespoon of fine salt

to a quart of fresh water. This whitens the meat and removes the

residuum of dark venous blood that will otherwise give a slightly

disagreeable taste, hardly definable, though existing.

3. Fry these steaks, or stew them _à la mode_, with a few thin slices

of sweet “breakfast” bacon, seasoning with pepper and salt. A rich

brown gravy follows the cooking of the meat. Serve hot, and it is,

strictly judged, a very excellent meat for the daintiest feeder, and

I hereby recommend it confidently as a safe venture for any newcomer

to make.

The flesh of young sea-lions is still better than that of the

fur-seal, while the natives say that the meat of the hair-seal

(_Phoca vitulina_) is superior to both, being more juicy. Fur-seal

meat is exceedingly dry; hence the necessity of putting bacon into

the frying-pan or stew-pot with it. Sea-lion flesh is an improvement

in this respect, and also that its fat, strange to say, is wholly

clear, white, and inodorous, while the blubber of the “holluschickie”

is sickening to the smell, and will, nine times out of ten, cause any

civilized stomach to throw it up as quickly as it is swallowed. The

natives, however, eat a great deal of it, simply because they are too

lazy to clean their fur-seal cuts and not because they really relish

it.

In this connection it may be well to add that the liver of both

_Callorhinus_ and _Eumetopias_ is sweet and wholesome; or, in other

words, it is as good as liver usually is in Fulton Market. The

tongues are small, white, and fat. They are regularly cut out to

some extent and salted in ordinary water-buckets for exportation to

curious friends. They have but slight claim to gastronomic favor.

The natives are, however, very partial to the liver; but though they

like the tongues, yet they are too lazy to prepare them. A few of

them, in obedience to pressing and prayerful appeals from relatives

at Oonalashka, do exert themselves enough every season to undergo the

extra labor of putting up several barrels of fresh salted seal-meat,

which, being carried down to Illoolook by the company’s vessels,

affords a delightful variation to the steady and monotonous codfish

diet of those Aleutian Islanders.

[Illustration: Interior of Salt House, Village of St. Paul.

[_Showing the method of receiving, selecting, kenching and salting

“green” fur-seal skins._]]

The final acts of curing and shipping pelts of fur-seals from

the warehouses of the villages, rapidly follow work upon the

killing-grounds. The skins are taken from the field to the

salt-house, where they are laid out, after being again carefully

examined, one upon another, “hair to fat,” like so many sheets

of paper, with salt profusely spread upon the fleshy sides as

they are piled up in the “kenches,” or bins. The salt-house is a

large barn-like frame structure, so built as to afford one-third

of its width in the centre, from end to end, clear and open as a

passage-way: while on each side are rows of stanchions, with sliding

planks, which are taken down and put up in the form of deep bins or

boxes—“kenches,” the sealers call them. As the pile of skins is laid

up from the bottom of an empty “kench” and salt thrown in on the

outer edges, these planks are also put in place, so that the salt may

be kept intact until that bin is filled as high up as a man can toss

the skins. After lying two or three weeks in this style they become

“pickled,” and they are suited then at any time to be taken up and

rolled into bundles of two skins to the package, with the hairy side

out, tightly corded, ready for shipment from the islands.

The average weight of a two-year-old skin is five and one-half

pounds; of a three-year-old skin, seven pounds, and of a

four-year-old skin, twelve pounds, so that, as the major portion

of the catch is two or three year olds, these bundles of two skins

each have a general weight of from twelve to fifteen pounds. In this

form they go into the hold of the company’s steamer at St. Paul, and

are counted out from it in San Francisco. Then they are either at

once shipped to London by the Isthmus of Panama in the same shape,

only packed up in large hogsheads of from twenty to forty bundles to

the package, or expressed by railroad, via New York, to a similar

destination.

The work of bundling the skins is not usually commenced by the

natives until the close of the last week’s sealing; or, in other

words, those skins which they first took, three weeks ago, are now

so pickled by the salt in which they have been lying ever since, as

to render them eligible for this operation and immediate shipment.

The moisture of the air dissolves and destroys a very large quantity

of that saline preservative which the company brings up annually in

the form of rock-salt, principally obtained at Carmen Island, Lower

California.

The Alaska Commercial Company, by the provisions of law under which

they enjoy their franchise, are permitted to take one hundred

thousand male seals annually, and no more, from the Pribylov Islands.

This they do in June and July of every year. After that season the

skins rapidly grow worthless, as the animals enter into shedding,

and, if taken, would not pay for transportation and the tax.

The bundled skins are carried from the salt-houses to the beach, when

an order for shipment is given, pitched into a bidarrah, one by one,

and rapidly stowed; seven hundred to twelve hundred bundles make an

average single load; then, when alongside the steamer, they are again

tossed up from the lighter and onto her deck, whence they are stowed

in the hold.[136]

The method of air-drying which the old settlers employed is well

portrayed by the practice of the natives now, who treat a few hundred

sea-lion skins to that process every fall, preparing them thus for

shipment to Oonalashka, where they are used by brother Aleutes in

covering their bidarkies or kayaks.

The natives, in speaking to me of this matter, said that whenever

the weather was rough and the wind blowing hard, these air-dried

seal-skins, as they were tossed from the bidarrah to the ship’s deck,

numbers of them, would frequently turn in the wind and fly clean over

the vessel into the water beyond, where they were lost.

Under the old order of affairs, prior to the present management,

the skins were packed up and carried on the backs of the boys and

girls, women and old men, to the salt-houses, or drying-frames. When

I first arrived, season of 1872, a slight variation was made in this

respect by breaking a small Siberian bull into harness and hitching

it to a cart, in which the pelts were hauled. Before the cart was

adjusted, however, and the “buik” taught to pull, it was led out to

the killing-grounds by a ring in its nose, and literally covered with

the green seal-hides, which where thus packed to the kenches. The

natives were delighted with even this partial assistance; but now

they have no further concern about it at all, for several mules and

carts render prompt and ample service.

The common or popular notion in regard to seal-skins is, that they

are worn by those animals just as they appear when offered for sale;

that the fur-seal swims about, exposing the same soft coat with

which our ladies of fashion so delight to cover their tender forms

during inclement winter. This is a very great mistake; few skins

are less attractive than a seal-skin is when it is taken from the

creature. The fur is not visible; it is concealed entirely by a coat

of stiff over-hair, dull, gray-brown, and grizzled. It takes three

of them to make a lady’s sack and boa; and in order that a reason

for their costliness may be apparent, I take great pleasure in

submitting a description of the tedious and skilful labor necessary

to their dressing by the furriers ere they are fit for use: a leading

manufacturer, writing to me, says:—

“When the skins are received by us in the salt, we wash off the salt,

placing them upon a beam somewhat like a tanner’s beam, removing the

fat from the flesh side with a beaming-knife, care being required

that no cuts or uneven places are made in the pelt. The skins are

next washed in water and placed upon the beam with the fur up, and

the grease and water removed by the knife. The skins are then dried

by moderate heat, being tacked out on frames to keep them smooth.

After being fully dried, they are soaked in water and thoroughly

cleansed with soap and water. In some cases they can be unhaired

without this drying process, and cleansed before drying. After the

cleansing process they pass to the picker, who dries the fur by

stove-heat, the pelt being kept moist. When the fur is dry he places

the skin on a beam, and while it is warm he removes the main coat

of hair with a dull shoeknife, grasping the hair with his thumb and

knife, the thumb being protected by a rubber cob. The hair must be

pulled out, not broken. After a portion is removed the skin must be

again warmed at the stove, the pelt being kept moist. When the outer

hairs have been mostly removed, he uses a beaming-knife to work

out the fine hairs (which are shorter), and the remaining coarser

hairs. It will be seen that great care must be used, as the skin

is in that soft state that too much pressure of the knife would

take the fur also; indeed, bare spots are made. Carelessly cured

skins are sometimes worthless on this account. The skins are next

dried, afterward dampened on the pelt side, and shaved to a fine,

even surface. They are then stretched, worked, and dried, afterward

softened in a fulling-mill, or by treading them with the bare feet

in a hogshead, one head being removed and the cask placed nearly

upright, into which the workman gets with a few skins and some fine,

hardwood sawdust, to absorb the grease while he dances upon them to

break them into leather. If the skins have been shaved thin, as

required when finished, any defective spots or holes must now be

mended, the skin smoothed and pasted with paper on the pelt side, or

two pasted together to protect the pelt in dyeing. The usual process

in the United States is to leave the pelt sufficiently thick to

protect them without pasting.

“In dyeing, the liquid dye is put on with a brush, carefully covering

the points of the standing fur. After lying folded, with the points

touching each other, for some time, the skins are hung up and dried.

The dry dye is then removed, another coat applied, dried, and

removed, and so on, until the required shade is obtained. One or two

of these coats of dye are put on much heavier and pressed down to the

roots of the fur, making what is called the ground. From eight to

twelve coats are required to produce a good color. The skins are then

washed clean, the fur dried, the pelt moist. They are shaved down to

the required thickness, dried, working them some while drying, then

softened in a hogshead, and sometimes run in a revolving cylinder

with fine sawdust to clean them. The English process does not have

the washing after dyeing.”

On account of the fact that all labor in this country, especially

skilled labor, commands so much more per diem in the return of wages

than it does in London or Belgium, it is not practicable for the

Alaska Commercial Company, or any other company here, to attempt to

dress and put upon the market its catch of Bering Sea, which is in

fact the entire catch of the whole world. Our people understand the

theory of dressing these skins perfectly; but they cannot compete

with the cheaper labor of the Old World. Therefore, nine-tenths,

nearly, of the fur-seal skins taken every year are annually purchased

and dressed in London, and from thence distributed all over the

civilized world where furs are worn and prized.

The great variation in the value of seal-skin sacks, ranging from

seventy-five dollars up to three hundred and fifty dollars, and even

five hundred dollars, is not often due to a variance in the quality

of the fur originally; but it is due to that quality of the work

whereby the fur was treated and prepared for wear. For instance,

cheap sacks are so defectively dyed that a little moisture causes

them to soil the collars and cuffs of their owners, and a little

exposure makes them speedily fade and look ragged. A properly dyed

skin, one that has been conscientiously and laboriously finished (for

it is a labor requiring great patience and great skill), will not

rub off or “crock” the whitest linen when moistened; and it will wear

the weather, as I have myself seen it on the form of a sea-captain’s

wife, for six and seven successive seasons, without showing the least

bit of dimness or raggedness. I speak of dyeing alone; I might say

the earlier steps of unhairing, in which the over-hair is deftly

combed out and off from the skin, heated to such a point that the

roots of the fur are not loosened, while those to the coarser hirsute

growth are. If this is not done with perfect uniformity, the fur will

never lie smooth, no matter how skilfully dyed; it will always have

a rumpled, ruffled look. Therefore the hastily-dyed sacks are cheap;

and are enhanced in order of value just as the labor of dyeing is

expended upon them.

Another singular and striking characteristic of the Island of St.

Paul, is the fact that this immense slaughtering-field, upon which

seventy-five thousand to ninety thousand fresh carcasses lie every

season, sloughing away into the sand beneath, does not cause any

sickness among the people who live right over them, so to speak. A

cool, raw temperature, and strong winds, peculiar to the place, seem

to prevent any unhealthy effect from that fermentation of decay.

An _Elymus_ and other grasses once more take heart and grow with

magical vigor over the unsightly spot, to which the sealing-gang

again return, repeating their work upon this place which we have

marked before, three years ago. In that way this strip of ground,

seen on my map between the village, the east landing, and the lagoon,

contains the bones and the oil-drippings and other fragments thereof,

of more than three million seals slain since 1786 thereon, while the

slaughter-fields at Novastoshnah record the end of a million more!

I remember well those unmitigated sensations of disgust which

possessed me when I first landed, April 28, 1872, on the Pribylov

Islands, and passed up from the beach, at Lukannon, to the village

over the killing-grounds; though there was a heavy coat of snow on

the fields, yet each and every one of seventy-five thousand decaying

carcasses was there, and bare, having burned, as it were, their

way out to the open air, polluting the same to a sad degree. I was

laughed at by the residents who noticed my facial contortions, and

assured that this state of smell was nothing to what I should soon

experience when the frost and snow had fairly melted. They were

correct; the odor along by the end of May was terrific punishment to

my olfactories, and continued so for several weeks until my sense of

smell became blunted and callous to such stench by long familiarity.

Like the other old residents I then became quite unconscious of the

prevalence of this rich “funk,” and ceased to notice it.

Those who land here, as I did, for the first time, nervously and

invariably declare that such an atmosphere must breed a plague or a

fever of some kind in the village, and hardly credit the assurance

of those who have resided in it for the whole period of their lives,

that such a thing was never known to St. Paul, and that the island

is remarkably healthy. It is entirely true, however, and, after

a few weeks’ contact, or a couple of months’ experience, at the

longest, the most sensitive nose becomes used to that aroma, wafted

as it is hourly, day in and out, from decaying seal-flesh, viscera,

and blubber; and, also, it ceases to be an object of attention. The

cool, sunless climate during the warmer months has undoubtedly much

to do with checking too rapid decomposition and consequent trouble

therefrom, which would otherwise arise from those killing-grounds.

The freshly-skinned seal bodies of this season do not seem to rot

substantially until the following year; then they rapidly slough away

into the sand upon which they rest; the envelope of blubber left

upon each body seems to act as an air-tight receiver, holding most

of the putrid gases that evolved from the decaying viscera until

their volatile tension causes it to give way; fortunately the line of

least resistance to that merciful retort is usually right where it

is adjacent to the soil, so both putrescent fluids and much of the

stench within is deodorized and absorbed before it can contaminate

the atmosphere to any great extent. The truth of my observation will

be promptly verified, if the sceptic chooses to tear open any one

of the thousands of gas-distended carcasses in the fall, that were

skinned in the killing-season; if he does so, he will be smitten by

the worst smell that human sense can measure; and should he chance to

be accompanied by a native, that callous individual, even, will pinch

his grimy nose and exclaim, it is a “keeshla pahknoot!”

At the close of the third season after skinning, a seal’s body will

have so rotted and sloughed down, as to be marked only by the bones

and a few of the tendinous ligaments; in other words, it requires

from thirty to thirty-six months’ time for such a carcass to rot

entirely away, so that nothing but whitened bones remain above

ground. The natives govern their driving of the seals and laying

out of the fresh bodies according to this fact—they can, and do,

spread this year a whole season’s killing out over the same spot of

the field previously covered with such fresh carcasses three summers

ago; by alternating with the seasons thus, the natives are enabled to

annually slaughter all of the “holluschickie” on a relatively small

area, close by the salt-houses and the village, as I have indicated

on my map of St. Paul.

The St. Paul village site is located wholly on the northern slope of

the village hill, where it drops from its greatest elevation, at the

flagstaff of one hundred and twenty-five feet, gently down to those

sandy killing-flats below and between it and the main body of the

island. The houses are all placed facing north at regular intervals

along the terraced streets, which run southeast and northwest. There

are seventy-four or eighty native houses, ten large and smaller

buildings of the company, a Treasury agent’s residence, a church,

cemetery crosses, and a school building which are all standing here

in coats of pure white paint. No offal or decaying refuse of any kind

is allowed to rest around the dwellings or lie in the streets. It

required much determined effort on the part of the whites to effect

this sanitary reform; but now most of the natives take equal pride in

keeping their surroundings clean and unpolluted. The killing-ground

of St. Paul is a bottomless sand-flat only a few feet above high

water, and which unites the village hill and the reef with the island

itself. It is not a stone’s throw from the heart of the settlement;

in fact, it is right in town, not even suburban.

The site of the St. George settlement is more exposed and bleak

than is the one we have just referred to on St. Paul. It is planted

directly on a rounded summit of one of the first low hills that rise

from the sea on the north shore. Indeed, it is the only hill that

does slope directly and gently to the salt water on the island. Here

are twenty-four to thirty native cottages, laid with their doors

facing the opposite sides of a short street between, running also

east and west, as at St. Paul. There, however, each house looks down

upon the rear of its neighbor in front and below—here the houses face

each other on the top of the hill. The Treasury agent’s quarters, the

company’s six or seven buildings, the school-house, and the church,

are all neatly painted: therefore this settlement, by its prominent

position, shows from the sea to a much better advantage than the

larger one of St. Paul does. The same municipal sanitary regulations

are enforced here. Those who may visit the St. George and St. Paul

of to-day will find their streets dry and hard as floors for they

have been covered with a thick layer of volcanic cinders on both

islands.

On St. George the “holluschickie” are regularly driven to that

northeast slope of the village hill which drops down gently to the

sea, where they are slaughtered, close by and under the houses, as at

St Paul. Those droves which are brought in from the North rookery to

the west, and also Starry Arteel, are frequently driven right through

the village itself. This killing-field of St. George is hard tufa

and rocky, but it slopes away to the ocean rapidly enough to drain

itself well; hence the constant rain and humid fogs of summer carry

off that which would soon clog and deprive the natives from using the

ground year after year in rotation, as they do. Several seasons have

occurred, however, when this natural cleansing of the place, above

mentioned, has not been as thorough as must be, so as to be used

again immediately: then the seals were skinned back of the village

hill and in that ravine to the westward on the same slope from its

summit.

This village site of St. George to-day, and the killing-grounds

adjoining, used to be, during early Russian occupation, in Pribylov’s

time, a large sea-lion rookery, the finest one known to either

island, St. Paul or St. George. Natives are living now, who told me

that their fathers had been employed in shooting and driving these

sea-lions, so as to deliberately break up a breeding-ground, and thus

rid the island of what they considered a superabundant supply of the

_Eumetopias_, and thereby to aid and encourage a fresh and increased

accession of fur-seals from the vast majority peculiar to St. Paul,

which could not ensue while big sea-lions held the land.

FOOTNOTES:

[107] The seal-life on the Pribylov Islands may be classified under

the following heads, namely: (1) The fur-seal, _Cattorhinus ursinus_,

the “kautickie” of the Russians; (2) the sea-lion, _Eumetopias

stelleri_, the “seevitchie” of the Russians; (3) the hair-seal,

_Phoca vitulina_, the “nearhpahsky” of the Russians; (4) the walrus,

_Odobænus obesus_, the “morsjee” of the Russians.

[108] The inconsequential numbers of the hair-seal around and on the

Pribylov Islands seem to be characteristic of all Alaskan waters

and the northwest coast; also, the phocidæ are equally scant on the

Asiatic littoral margins. Only the following four species are known

to exist throughout the entire extent of that vast marine area, viz.:

_Phoca vitulina_—Everywhere between Bering Straits and California.

_Phoca fœtida_—Plover Bay, Norton’s Sound, Kuskokvim mouth, and

Bristol Bay, of Bering Sea; Cape Seartze Kammin, Arctic Ocean, to

Point Barrow.

_Erignathus barbatus_—Kamchatkan coast, Norton’s Sound, Kuskokvim

mouth and Bristol Bay, of Bering Sea.

_Histriophoca equestris_—Yukon mouth and coast south to Bristol Bay,

of Bering Sea.

[109] Those extremely heavy adult males which arrive first in the

season and take their stations on the rookeries, are so fat that they

do not exhibit a wrinkle or a fold of the skins enveloping their

blubber-lined bodies. Most of this fatty deposit is found around the

shoulders and the neck, though a warm coat of blubber covers all the

other portions of the body save the flippers. This blubber-thickening

of the neck and chest is characteristic of the adult males only,

which are, by its provisions, enabled to sustain the extraordinary

protracted fasting periods incident to their habit of life and

reproduction.

When those superlatively fleshy bulls first arrive, a curious

body-tremor seems to attend every movement which the animals make on

land; their fat appears to ripple backward and forward under their

hides, like waves. As they alternate with their flippers in walking,

the whole form of the “see-catchie” fairly shakes as a bowl full of

jelly does when agitated on the table before us.

[110] The distances at sea, away from the Pribylov Islands, in

which fur-seals are found during the breeding season, are very

considerable. Scattered records have been made of seeing large

bands of them during August as far down the northwest coast as they

probably range at any season of the year, viz., well out at sea in

the latitude of Cape Flattery, 47° to 49° south latitude. In the

winter and spring, up to middle of June, all classes are found here

spread out over wide areas of ocean. Then by June 15th they will have

all departed, the first and the latest, _en route_ for the Pribylov

Islands. Then, when seen again in this extreme southern range, I

presume the unusually early examples of return toward the end of

August are squads of the yearlings of both sexes, for this division

is always the last to land on and the first to leave the Seal Islands

annually.

[111] “See-catch,” is the native name for a bull on the rookeries,

especially one which is able to maintain its position.

[112] “Hauling up,” is a technical term applied to the action of

seals when they land from the surf and haul up or drag themselves

over the beach. It is expressive and appropriate, as are most of the

sealing phrases.

[113] There is also perfect uniformity in the coloration of the

breeding coats of fur-seals, which is strikingly manifest while

inspecting the rookeries late in July, when they are solidly massed

thereon. At a quarter-mile distance the whole immense aggregate of

animal life seems to be fused into a huge homogeneous body that

is alternately roused up in sections and then composed, just as a

quantity of iron-filings covering the bottom of a saucer will rise

and fall when a magnet is passed over and around the dish.

[114] Without explanation I may be considered as making use of

paradoxical language by using these terms of description, since the

inconsistency of talking of “pups,” with “cows,” and “bulls,” and

“rookeries,” on the breeding grounds of the same, cannot fail to

be noticed; but this nomenclature has been given and used by the

American and English whaling and sealing parties for many years,

and the characteristic features of the seals themselves so suit the

naming that I have felt satisfied to retain the style throughout as

rendering my description more intelligible, especially so to those

who are engaged in the business or may be hereafter. The Russians are

more consistent, but not so “pat.” They call the bull “see-catch,” a

term implying strength, vigor, etc.; the cow, “matkah,” or mother;

the pups, “kotickie,” or little seals; the non-breeding males under

six and seven years, “holluschickie,” or bachelors. The name applied

collectively to the fur-seal by them is “morskie-kot,” or sea-cat.

[115] Dr. Otto Cramer: The suddenness with which fog and wind shut

down and sweep over the sea here, even when the day opens most

auspiciously for a short boat-voyage, has so alarmed the natives in

times past that a visit is now never made by them from island to

island, unless on one of the company’s vessels Several bidarrahs have

never been heard from, which, in earlier times, attempted to sail,

with picked crews of the natives, from one island to the other.

[116] “Do these seals drink?” is a question doubtless often uppermost

and suggested to the observer’s eye, as he watches those animals

going to the water from the hauling-grounds and the rookeries; at

least it was in mine. I never could detect a _callorhinus_ or a

_eumetopias_ lapping, either in the fresh-water pools and lakes,

or in the brackish lagoon, or the sea; but it plunges at times

into the rollers with its jaws wide open as it dives, reappearing

quickly in the same manner to dip and rise again, many times in rapid

succession, as it swims along, the water running in little streams

from the corners of the open mouth whenever its head pops above the

surface. Whether this action was simply to cool itself, or that of

drinking, I am not prepared to assert positively. I think it was to

meet both purposes.

[117] The old males, when grouped together by themselves, indulge

in no humor or frolicsome festivities whatsoever. On the contrary,

they treat each other with surly indifference. The mature females,

however, do not appear to lose their good nature to anything like so

marked a degree as do their lords and masters, for they will at all

seasons of their presence on the islands be observed, now and then,

to suddenly unbend from severe matronly gravity by coyly and amiably

tickling and gently teasing one another, as they rest in the harems,

or later, when strolling in September. There is no sign given,

however, by these seal-mothers of a desire or attempt to fondle or

caress their pups; nor do the young appear to sport with any others

than the pups themselves, when together. Sometimes a yearling and a

five or six months old pup will have a long-continued game between

themselves. They are decidedly clannish in this respect—creatures of

caste, like Hindoos.

[118] When the females first come ashore there is no sign whatever

of affection manifested between the sexes. The males are surly and

morose, and the females entirely indifferent to such reception. They

are, however, subjected to very harsh treatment sometimes in progress

of battles between the males for their possession, and a few of them

are badly bitten and lacerated every season.

One of the cows that arrived at Nahspeel, St. Paul’s Island, early

in June, 1872, was treated to a mutilation in this manner, under my

eyes. When she had finally landed on the barren rocks of one of the

numerous “see-catchie” at the water-front of this small rookery, and

while I was carefully making a sketch of her graceful outlines, a

rival bull, adjacent, reached out from his station and seized her

with his mouth at the nape of the neck, just as a cat lifts a kitten.

At the same instant, almost simultaneously, the old male that was

rightfully entitled to her charms, turned, and caught her in his

teeth by the skin of her posterior dorsal region. There she was,

lifted and suspended in mid-air, between the jaws of the furious

rivals, until, in obedience to their powerful struggles, the hide

of her back gave way, and, as a ragged flap of the raw skin more

than six inches broad and a foot in length was torn up and from her

spine, she passed, with a rush, into the possession of the bull which

had covetously seized her. She uttered no cry during this barbarous

treatment, nor did she, when settled again, turn to her torn and

bleeding wound to notice it in any way whatsoever that I could

observe.

I may add here that I never saw the seals under such, or any

circumstances, lick or nurse their wounds as dogs or cats do;

but, when severe inflammation takes place, they seek the water,

disappearing promptly from scrutiny.

[119] This old Aleut, Philip Vollkov, passed to his final rest—“un

konchielsah”—in the winter of 1878-79. He was one of the real

characters of St. Paul. He was esteemed by the whites on account of

his relative intelligence, and beloved by the natives, who called

him their “wise man,” and who exulted in his piety. Philip, like

the other people there of his kind, was not much comfort to me when

I asked questions as to the seals. He usually answered important

inquiries by crossing himself and replying, “God knows.” There was no

appeal from this.

[120] The only danger which these little fellows are subject to up

here is being caught by an October gale down at the surf-margin,

when they have not fairly learned to swim. Large numbers have been

destroyed by sudden “nips” of this character.

[121] The fur-seal spends a great deal of time, both at sea and on

land, in scratching its hide; for it is annoyed by a species of

louse, a _pediculus_, to just about the same degree and in the same

manner that our dogs are by fleas. To scratch, it sits upon its

haunches, and scrapes away with the toe-nails of first one and then

the other of its hind flippers, by which action it reaches readily

all portions of its head, neck, chest and shoulders, and with either

one or the other of its fore flippers it rubs down its spinal region

back of the shoulders to the tail. By that division of labor with

its feet it can promptly reduce, with every sign of comfort, any

lousy irritation wheresoever on its body. This _pediculus_ peculiar

to the fur-seal attaches itself almost exclusively to the pectoral

regions; a few also are generally found at the bases of the auricular

pavilions.

When the fur-seal is engaged in this exercise it cocks its head and

wears exactly the same expression that our common house-dog does

while subjugating and eradicating fleas; the eyes are partly or

wholly closed; the tongue lolls out; and the whole demeanor is one of

quiet but intense satisfaction.

The fur-seal appears also to scratch itself in the water with the

same facility and unction so marked on land, only it varies the

action by using its fore-hands principally in its pelagic exercise,

while its hind-feet do most of the terrestrial scraping.

[122] It has been suggested to me that the exquisite power of scent

possessed by these animals enables them to reach the breeding grounds

at about the place where they left them the season previously: surely

the nose of the fur-seal is endowed to a superlative degree with

those organs of smell, and its range of appreciation in this respect

must be very great.

I noticed in all sleeping and waking seals that the nasal apertures

were never widely expanded; and that they were at intervals rapidly

opened and closed with inhalation and exhalation of each breath; the

nostrils of the fur-seal are, as a rule, well opened when the animal

is out of water, and remain so while it is on land.

[123] The Russian term “holluschickie” or “bachelors” is very

appropriate, and is usually employed.

[124] If there is any one faculty better developed than the others

in the brain of the intelligent _Callorhinus_, it must be its “bump”

of locality. The unerring directness with which it pilots its annual

course back through thousands of miles of watery waste to these

spots of its birth—small fly-dots of land in the map of Bering Sea

and the North Pacific—is a very remarkable exhibition of its skill

in navigation. While the Russians were established at Bodega and

Ross, Cal., seventy years ago, they frequently shot fur-seals at

sea when hunting the sea-otter off the coast between Fuca Straits

and the Farallones. Many of these animals, late in May and early in

June, were so far advanced in pregnancy that it was deemed certain by

their captors that some shore must be close at hand upon which the

near-impending birth of the pup took place. Thereupon the Russians

searched over every rod of the coast-line of the mainland and the

archipelago between California and the peninsula of Alaska, vainly

seeking everywhere there for a fur-seal rookery. They were slow

to understand how animals so close to the throes of parturition

could strike out into the broad ocean to swim fifteen hundred or

two thousand miles within a week or ten days ere they landed on the

Pribylov group, and, almost immediately after, give birth to their

offspring.

[125] I did not permit myself to fall into error by estimating this

matter of weight, because I early found that the apparent huge bulk

of a sea-lion bull or fur-seal male, when placed upon the scales,

shrank far below my notions: I took a great deal of pains, on several

occasions, during the killing-season, to have a platform scale carted

out into the field, and as the seals were knocked down, and before

they were bled, I had them carefully weighed, constructing the

following table from my observations:

————————————+————————+—————————+—————————+———————+————————————————————

————————————+————————+—————————+—————————+———————+————————————————————

| | | | |

One week |12 to 14|10 to 10½| 6 to 7½| 1¼|A male and female,

| | | | | 1873.

| | | | |

Six months | 24| 25 | 39 | 3 |A mean of ten

| | | | | 28, 1872.

| | | | |

One year | 38| 25 | 39 | 4½|A mean of six

| | | | | 1873.

| | | | |

Two years | 45| 30 | 58 | 5½|A mean of thirty

| | | | | 1873.

| | | | |

Three years | 52| 36 | 87 | 7 |A mean of thirty-two

| | | | | 1873.

| | | | |

Four years | 58| 42 | 135 | 12 |A mean of ten

| | | | | 1873.

| | | | |

Five years | 65| 52 | 200 | 16 |A mean of five

| | | | | 1873.

| | | | |

Six years | 72| 64 | 280 | 25 |A mean of three

| | | | | 1873.

| | | | |

Eight to |75 to 80|70 to 75 |400 |45 |An estimate only,

twenty | | | to 500 | to 50 | calculating on the

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[126] Veniaminov: Zapieskie ob Oonalashkenskaho Otdayla, 2 vols., St.

Petersburg, 1842. This work of Bishop Innocent Veniaminov is the only

one which the Russians can lay claim to as exhibiting anything like a

history of Western Alaska, or of giving a sketch of its inhabitants

and resources, that has the least merit of truth or the faintest

stamp of reliability. Without it we should be simply in the dark as

to much of what the Russians were about during the whole period of

their occupation and possession of that country. He served, chiefly

as a priest and missionary, for nineteen years, from 1823 to 1842,

mainly at Oonalashka, having the Seal Islands in his parish, and was

made Bishop of all Alaska. He was soon after recalled to Russia,

where he became the primate of the national church, ranking second to

no man in the Empire save the Czar. He was advanced in life, being

more than ninety years of age when he died at Moscow, April 22, 1879.

He must have been a man of fine personal presence, judging from the

following description of him, noted by Sir George Simpson, who met

him at Sitka in 1842, just as he was about to embark for Russia: “His

appearance, to which I have already alluded, impresses a stranger

with something of awe, while in further intercourse the gentleness

which characterizes his every word and deed insensibly moulds

reverence into love, and at the same time his talents and attainments

are such as to be worthy of his exalted station. With all this, the

bishop is sufficiently a man of the world to disdain anything like

cant. His conversation, on the contrary, teems with amusement and

instruction, and his company is much prized by all who have the honor

of his acquaintance.” Sir Edward Belcher, who saw him at Kadiak in

1837, said: “He is a formidable-looking man, over six feet three

inches in his boots, and athletic. He impresses one profoundly.”

[127] DEFINITIONS FOR RUSSIAN NAMES OF THE ROOKERIES, ETC.—The

several titles on my map that indicate the several breeding-grounds,

owe their origin and have their meaning as follows:

ZAPADNIE signifies “_westward_,” and is so used by the people who

live in the village.

ZOLTOI signifies “_golden_,” so used to express a metallic shimmering

of the sand there.

KETAVIE signifies “_of a whale_” so used to designate that point

where a large right whale was stranded in 1849 (?); from Russian

“_keet_,” or “_whale_.”

LUKANNON—so named after one Lukannon, a pioneer Russian, that

distinguished himself, with one Kaiecov, a countryman, who captured

a large number of sea-otters at that point, and on Otter Island, in

1787-88.

TONKIE MEES signifies “_small_ (or “_slender_”) _cape_” [tonkie,

“thin”; mees, “cape”].

POLAVINA literally signifies “_half way_” so used by the natives

because it is practically half way between the salt-houses at

Northeast Point and the village. POLAVINA SOPKA, or “_half-way

mountain_,” gets its name in the same manner.

NOVASTOSHNAH, from the Russian “_novaite_,” or “_of recent growth_,”

so used because this locality in pioneer days was an island to

itself; and it has been annexed recently to the mainland of St. Paul.

VESOLIA MISTA, or “_jolly place_,” the site of one of the first

settlements, and where much carousing was indulged in.

MAROONITCH, the site of a pioneer village, established by one Maroon.

NAHSAYVERNIA, or “_on the north shore_” from Russian, “_sayvernie_.”

BOGASLOV, or “_word of God_,” indefinite in its application to the

place, but is, perhaps, due to the fact that the pious Russians,

immediately after landing at Zapadnie, in 1787, ascended the hill

and erected a huge cross thereon. EINAHNUHTO, an Aleutian word,

signifying the “_three mammæ_.”

TOLSTOI, a Russian name, signifying “_thick_”; it is given to at

least a hundred different capes and headlands throughout Alaska,

being applied as indiscriminately as we do the term “Bear Creek” to

little streams in our Western States and Territories.

[128] One of the natives, “stareek,” Zachar Oostigov, told me that

the “Russians, when they first landed, came ashore in a thick fog” at

Tolstoi Mees, near the present sea-lion rookery site. As the water

is deep and “bold” there, Pribylov’s sloop, the _St. George_, must

have jammed her bowsprit against those lofty cliffs ere the patient

crew had intimation of their position. The old Aleut then showed

me that steep gully there, up which the ardent discoverers climbed

to a plateau above: and, to demonstrate that he was not chilled or

weakened by age, he nimbly scrambled down to the surf below, some

three hundred and fifty vertical feet, and I followed, half stepping

and half sliding over Pribylov’s path of glad discovery and proud

possession, trodden one June day by him nearly a hundred years ago.

[129] The thought of what a deadly epidemic would effect among these

vast congregations of _Pinnipedia_ was one that was constant in my

mind when on the ground and among them. I have found in the “British

Annals” (Fleming’s), on page 17, an extract from the notes of Dr.

Trail: “In 1833 I inquired for my old acquaintances, the seals of the

Hole of Papa Westray, and was informed that about four years before

they had totally deserted the island, and had only within the last

few months begun to reappear.... About fifty years ago multitudes

of their carcasses were cast ashore in every bay in the north of

Scotland, Orkney, and Shetland, and numbers were found at sea in a

sickly state.” This note of Trail is the only record which I can find

of a fatal epidemic among seals. It is not reasonable to suppose that

the Pribylov rookeries have never suffered from distempers in the

past, or are not to in the future, simply because no occasion seems

to have arisen during the comparatively brief period of their human

domination.

[130] _Somniosus microcephalus._ Some of these sharks are of very

large size, and when caught by the Indians of the northwest coast,

basking or asleep on the surface of the sea, they will, if transfixed

by the natives’ harpoons, take a whole fleet of canoes in tow and run

swiftly with them several hours before exhaustion enables the savages

to finally despatch them. A Hudson Bay trader, William Manson (at

Fort Alexander in 1865), told me that his father had killed one in

the smooth waters of Millbank Sound which measured twenty-four feet

in length, and its liver alone yielded thirty-six gallons of oil. The

_Somniosus_ lies motionless for long intervals in calm waters of the

North Pacific, just under and at the surface, with its dorsal fin

clearly exposed above. What havoc such a carnivorous fish would be

likely to effect in a “pod” of young fur-seals can be better imagined

than described.

[131] _Orca gladiator._ While revolving this particular line of

inquiry in my mind when on the ground and among the seals, I

involuntarily looked constantly for some sign of disturbance in the

sea which would indicate the presence of an enemy, and, save seeing

a few examples of the _Orca_, I never detected anything. If the

killer-whale was common here, it would be patent to the most casual

eye, because it is the habit of this ferocious cetacean to swim so

closely at the surface as to show its peculiar sharp dorsal fin high

above the water. Possibly a very superficial observer could and would

confound that long trenchant fluke of the _Orca_ with the stubby node

upon the spine of a humpback whale, which that animal exhibits only

when it is about to dive. Humpbacks feed around the islands, but not

commonly; they are the exception. They do not, however, molest the

seals in any manner whatever, and little squads of these pinnipeds

seem to delight themselves by swimming in endless circles around and

under the huge bodies of those whales, frequently leaping out and

entirely over the cetacean’s back, as witnessed on one occasion by

myself and the crew of the _Reliance_ off the coast of Kadiak, June,

1874.

[132] I feel confident that I have placed this average of fish eaten

per diem by each seal at a starvation allowance, or, in other words,

it is a certain minimum of the whole consumption. If the seals can

get double the quantity which I credit them with above, startling

as it seems, still I firmly believe that they eat it every year.

An adequate realization by icthyologists and fishermen as to what

havoc the fur-seal hosts are annually making among the cod, herring,

and salmon of the northwest coast and Alaska, would disconcert and

astonish them. Happily for the peace of political economists who may

turn their attention to the settlement and growth of the Pacific

coast of America, it bids fair to never be known with anything like

precision. The fishing of man, both aboriginal and civilized, in the

past, present, and prospective, has never been, is not, nor will it

be, more than a drop in the bucket contrasted with those piscatorial

labors of these icthyophagi in the waters adjacent to their birth.

What catholic knowledge of fish and fishing-banks any one of those

old “seecatchie” must possess, which we observe hauled out on the

Pribylov rookeries each summer! It has, undoubtedly, during the

eighteen or twenty years of its life, explored every fish-eddy, bank,

or shoal throughout the whole of that vast immensity of the North

Pacific and Bering Sea. It has had more piscine sport in a single

twelvemonth than Izaak Walton had in his whole life.

An old sea-captain, Dampier, cruising around the world just about two

hundred years ago, wrote diligently thereof (or, rather, one Funnel

is said to have written for him), and wrote well. He had frequent

reference to meeting hair-seals and sea-lions, fur-seals, etc., and

fell into repeating this maxim, evidently of his own making: “For

wherever there be plenty of fysh, there be seals.” I am sure that,

unless a vast abundance of good fishing-ground was near by, no

such congregation of seal-life as is that under discussion on the

Seal Islands could exist. The whole eastern half of Bering Sea, in

its entirety, is a single fish-spawning bank, nowhere deeper than

fifty to seventy-five fathoms, averaging, perhaps, forty; also,

there are great reaches of fishing-shoals up and down the northwest

coast, from and above the Straits of Fuca, bordering the entire

southern, or Pacific coast, of the Aleutian Islands. The aggregate

of cod, herring, and salmon which the seals find upon these vast

icthyological areas of reproduction, must be simply enormous, and

fully equal to a most extravagant demand of the voracious appetites

of _Callorhini_.

When, however, the fish retire from spawning here, there, and

everywhere over these shallows of Alaska and the northwest coast,

along by the end of September to the 1st of November, every year,

I believe that the young fur-seal, in following them into the

depths of the great Pacific, must have a really arduous struggle

for existence—unless it knows of fishing-banks unknown to us.

The yearlings, however, and all above that age, are endowed with

sufficient muscular energy to dive rapidly in deep soundings, and to

fish with undoubted success. The pup, however, when it goes to sea,

five or six months old, is not lithe and sinewy like the yearling;

it is podgy and fat, a comparatively clumsy swimmer, and does not

develop, I believe, into a good fisherman until it has become pretty

well starved after leaving the Pribylovs.

[133] I heard a great deal of talk among the white residents of St.

Paul, when I first landed and the sealing-season opened, about the

necessity of “resting” the hauling-grounds; in other words, they

said if the seals were driven in repeated daily rotation from any

one of the hauling-grounds, that this would so disturb these animals

as to prevent their coming to any extent again thereon, during the

rest of the season. This theory seemed rational enough to me at the

beginning of my investigations, and I was not disposed to question

its accuracy; but subsequent observation directed to this point

particularly satisfied me, and the sealers themselves with whom I

was associated, that the driving of the seals had no effect whatever

upon the hauling which took place soon or immediately after the

field, for the hour, had been swept clean of seals by the drivers.

If the weather was favorable for landing, _i. e._, cool, moist, and

foggy, the fresh hauling of the “holluschickie” would cover the bare

grounds again in a very short space of time: sometimes in a few

hours after the driving of every seal from Zoltoi sands over to the

killing-fields adjacent, those dunes and the beach in question would

be swarming anew with fresh arrivals. If, however, the weather is

abnormally warm and sunny, during its prevalence, even if for several

consecutive days, no seals to speak of will haul out on the emptied

space; indeed, if these “holluschickie” had not been taken away by

man from Zoltoi or any other hauling-ground on the islands when

“tayopli” weather prevailed, most of those seals would have vacated

their terrestrial loafing-places for the cooler embraces of the sea.

The importance of clearly understanding this fact as to the readiness

of the “holluschickie” to haul promptly out on steadily “swept”

ground, provided the weather is inviting, is very great; because,

when not understood, it was deemed necessary, even as late as the

season of 1872, to “rest” the hauling-grounds near the village

(from which all the driving has been made since), and make trips to

far-away Polavina and distant Zapadnie—an unnecessary expenditure

of human time, and a causeless infliction of physical misery upon

phocine backs and flippers.

[134] The fur-seal, like all of the pinnipeds, has no sweat-glands;

hence, when it is heated, it cools off by the same process of

panting which is so characteristic of the dog, accompanied by the

fanning that I have hitherto fully described; the heavy breathing

and low grunting of a tired drove of seals, on a warmer day than

usual, can be heard several hundred yards away. It is surprising how

quickly the hair and fur will come out of the skin of a blood-heated

seal—literally rubs bodily off at a touch of the finger. A fine

specimen of a three-year-old “holluschak” fell in its tracks at the

head of the lagoon while being driven to the village killing-grounds.

I asked that it be skinned with special reference to mounting;

accordingly a native was sent for, who was on the spot, knife in

hand, within less than thirty minutes from the moment that this seal

fell in the road, yet soon after he had got fairly to work patches

of the fur and hair came off here and there wherever he chanced to

clutch the skin.

[135] When turning the stunned and senseless carcasses, the only

physical danger of which the sealers run the slightest risk, during

the whole circuit of their work, occurs thus: at this moment the

prone and quivering body of the “holluschak” is not wholly inert,

perhaps, though it is nine times out of ten; and as the native takes

hold of a fore flipper to jerk the carcass over on to its back,

the half-brained seal rouses, snaps suddenly and viciously, often

biting the hands or legs of unwary skinners: they then come leisurely

and unconcernedly up into the surgeon’s office at the village, for

bandages, etc. A few men are bitten every day or two daring the

season on the islands, in this manner, but I have never learned of

any serious result following any case.

The sealers, as might be expected, become exceedingly expert in

keeping their knives sharp, putting edges on them as keen as razors,

and in an instant detect any dulness by passing the balls of their

thumbs over the suspected edges to such blades.

The white sealers of the Antarctic always used an orthodox butcher’s

“steel” in sharpening their knives, but these natives never have, and

probably never will abandon those little whetstones above referred to.

During the Russian management, and throughout the strife in killing

by our own people in 1868, a very large number of the skins were cut

through, here and there, by the slipping of the natives’ knives, when

they were taking them from the carcasses, and “flensing” them from

the superabundance, in spots, of blubber. These knife-cuts through

the skin, no matter how slight, give great annoyance to the dresser,

hence they are always marked down in price. The prompt scrutiny

of each skin on the islands by an agent of the Alaska Commercial

Company, who rejects every one of them thus injured, has caused the

natives to exercise greater care, and the number now so damaged,

every season, is absolutely trifling.

Another source of small loss is due to a habit which the

“holluschickie” have of occasionally biting each other when they are

being urged along in the drives, and thus crowded once in a while one

upon the other. Usually these examples of “zoobäden” are detected by

the natives prior to the “knocking down,” and spared; yet those which

have been nipped on the chest or abdomen cannot be thus noticed, and,

until the skin is lifted, the damage is not apprehended.

The aim and force with which the native directs his blow determines

the death of a fur-seal. If struck direct and violently, a single

stroke is enough. The seals’ heads are stricken so hard sometimes

that those crystalline lenses to their eyes fly out from the orbital

sockets like hail-stones, or little pebbles, and frequently struck me

sharply in the face, or elsewhere, while I stood near by watching a

killing-gang at work.

[Illustration: The Carcass after Skinning—The Skin as taken

therefrom.]

A singular lurid green light suddenly suffuses the eye of a fur-seal

at intervals when it is very much excited; as the “podding” for the

clubbers is in progress and at the moment when last raising its

head it sees the uplifted bludgeons on every hand above, fear seems

then for the first time to possess it and to instantly gild its

eye in this strange manner. When the seal is brained in this state

of optical coloration I have noticed that the opalescent tinting

remained well defined for many hours or a whole day after death.

These remarkable flashes are very characteristic to the eyes of the

old males during their hurly-burly on the rookeries, but never appear

in the younger classes unless as just described, as far as I could

observe.

[136] The shallow depths of Bering Sea give rise to a very bad surf,

and though none of the natives can swim, as far as I could learn,

yet they are quite creditable surfmen, and work the heavy “baidar”

in and out from the landing adroitly and circumspectly. They put a

sentinel upon the bluffs over Nah Speel, and go and come between

the rollers as he signals. They are not graceful oarsmen under any

circumstances, but can pull heartily and coolly together when in a

pinch. The apparent ease and unconcern with which they handled their

bidarrah here in the “baroon” during the fall of 1869 so emboldened

three or four sailors of the United States Revenue Marine cutter

_Lincoln_ that they lost their lives in such surf through sheer

carelessness. The “gig” in which they were coming ashore “broached

to” in the breakers just outside the cove, and their lifeless forms

were soon after thrown up by merciless waves on the Lagoon rookery.

Three graves of these men are plainly marked on a western slope of

the Black Bluffs.

There is a false air of listlessness and gentleness about an open

sea, or roadstead roller, that is very apt to deceive even watermen

of good understanding. The crushing, overwhelming power with which an

ordinary breaker will hurl a large ship’s boat on rocks awash, must

be personally experienced ere it is half appreciated.

But the companionship and the exceeding number of the seals, when