96 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



From Zapadnie we pass to the north shore, where all the other 

 rookeries are located, with the villa.^e at a central point between them 

 on the immediate border of the sea. And, in connection with this 

 point, it is interesting to record the fact that every year, nntil recently, 

 it has been the regular habit of the natives to drive the " holluschickie " 

 over the 2^ or 3 miles of rough basaltic uplands which separate the 

 hauling ground of Zapadnie from the village; driving them to the kill- 

 ing grounds there, in order to save the delay and trouble generally 

 experienced in loading these skins in the open bay. The prevailing 

 westerly and northwesterly winds during July and August make it, 

 for weeks at a time, a marine impossibility to effect a landing at 

 Zapadnie suitable for the safe transit of cargo to the steamer. 



This 3 miles of the roughest of all rough walks that can be imagined 

 is made by the fur seals in about seven or eight hours, when driven by 

 the Aleuts and the weather is cool and foggy. I have known one 

 Treasury agent, who, after making the trip from the village to 

 Zapadnie, seated himself down in the barrabkie there, and declared 

 that no money would induce him to w^alk back the same way that same 

 day — so severe is the exercise to one not accustomed to it; but it 

 exhibits the power of land locomotion possessed by the "hollu- 

 schickie."^ 



Starry Ateel.- This rookery is the next in order, and it is the 

 most remarkable one on St. George, lying as it does in a bold sweep 

 from the sea, up a steeply inclined slope to a point where the bluffs 

 bordering it seaward are over 400 feet high, the seals being just as 

 closely crowded at the summit of this lofty breeding plat as they are 

 at the water's edge. The whole oblong oval on the side hill, as desig- 

 nated by the accompanying survey, is covered by their thickly clus- 

 tered forms. It is a strange sight also to sail under these bluffs with 

 the boat in fair weather for a landing; and as you walk the beach, 

 over which the cliff wall frowns a sheer 500 feet, there, directly over 

 your head, the craning necks and twisting forms of the restless seals 

 ever and anon, as you glance uj^ward, appear as if ready to launch out 

 and fall below, so closely and boldly do they press the very edge of 

 the precipice.^ There is a low, rocky beach to the eastward of this 



'The peculiarly rough character to this trail is given by the large, loose, sharp- 

 edged basaltic bowlders, which are strewn thickly over all those lower plateaus 

 that bridge the island between the high bluffs at Starry Ateel and the slopes of 

 Ahluckeyak Hill. The summits of the two broader, high plateaus, east and west 

 respectively, are comparatively smooth and easy to travel over; and so is the sea 

 level flat at Zapadnie itself. On the map of St. George a number of very small 

 ponds will be noticed; they are the fresh-water reservoirs of the island. The two 

 largest of these are near the summit of this rough divide. The seal trail from 

 Zapadnie to the village runs just west of them, and comes out on the north shore, 

 a little to the eastward of the hauling grounds of Starrv Ateel. where it forks and 

 unites with that path. The direct line between the village and Zapadnie, though 

 nearly a mile shorter on the chart, is equal to 5 miles more of distance by reason 

 of its superlative rocky inequalities. 



"Starry Ateel, or Old Settlement, a few hundred yards to the eastward of the 

 rookery, is the earthen ruins of one of the pioneer settlements in Pribilofs time, 

 and which, the natives say. marks the first spot selected by the Russians for their 

 village after the discovery of St. Ge.orge. in 1786. 



■'I have been repeatedly astonished at the amazing power possessed by the fur 

 seal of resistance to shocks which would certainly kill any other animal. To 

 explaiii clearly, the reader will observe by reference to the maps that there are a 

 great many cliffy places between the rookeries on the shore lines of the islands. 

 Some of these cliffs are more than 100 feet in abrupt elevation above the surf and 

 rocks awash below. Frequently "holluschickie," in ones, or twos, or threes, will 

 stray far away back from the great masses of their kind and fall asleep in the 



