116 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



up and over the land. The natives then leisurely walk on the flanks 



and in the rear of the drove thus secured, directing and driving it over 

 to the killing grounds, close by the village.^ 



Progression of a seal drive. — 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 this is seldom done. An old bull 

 seal, fat and unwield}^, can not travel mth the younger ones, though 

 it can lope or gallop as it starts across the ground as fast as an ordi- 

 nary man can run over 100 yards; but then it fails utterlj', falls to 

 the earth supine, entirely exhausted, hot, and gasping for breath. 



The "holluschickie" are urged along over the path leading to the 

 killing grounds with very little trouble, and require only three or four 

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

 mitted frequentlj^ 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. The men 

 dropping back for a few moments, the awkward shambling and scuf- 

 fling 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 task of getting up early in the morning and going out to the several haul- 

 ing grounds, closely adjacent, is really all there is of the labor involved in securing 

 the number of seals required for the 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 1 and 2 o'clock, and hasten 

 over to Lukannon, Tolstoi, or Zoltoi, as the case may be, '• walk out " their "hol- 

 luschickie,"' and have them duly on the slaughtering field before 6 or 7 o'clock, as 

 a rule, in the morning. In favorable weather the '• drive " from Tolstoi consumes 

 two and a half to three hours' time; from Lukannon about two hours, and 'is oiten 

 done in an hour and a half, while Zoltoi is so near by that the time is merely 

 nominal. 



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 that 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 them- 

 selves with whom I was associated that the driving of the seals had no effect what- 

 ever 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 consectitive days, no seals to speak of will haul 

 out on the emptied space. Indeed, if these "hoUuschiclde'" 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 terres- 

 trial loafing places for the cooler embi-aces of the sea. The importance of clearly 

 understanding this fact as to the readiness of the ' ' holluschickie " to haul promptly 

 out on steadily "swept" groiuid, provided the weather is inviting, is very great, 

 because when not understood it was deemed nece'^sary, 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 expenditxire of human time and a causeless infliction of physical 

 misery upon phocine backs and flippers. 



