ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 147 



By reference to my sketch map of Northeast Point rookery, tlie 

 observer will notice a peculiar neck or boot -shaped point, which I 

 have designated as Sea Lion Neck. This area is a spot upon which 

 a large number of sea lions are always to be found during the season. 

 As they are so shy, and sure to take to water upon the appearance or 

 presence of man near by, the natives adopt this iilan : 



Preparations for the drive. — Along by the middle or end of 

 September, as late sometimes as November, and after the fur-seal 

 rookeries have broken up for the season, 15 or 20 of the very best 

 men in the village are selected by one of their chiefs for a sea-lion 

 rendezvous at Northeast Point. They go up there with their provi- 

 sions, tea and sugar, and blankets, and make themselves at home in 

 the barrabara and liouses, which I have located on the sketch map 

 of Novastoshnah, prepared to stay, if necessary, a month, or until 

 they shall get the whole drove together of two or three hundred sea 

 lions. 



Methods op driving sea lions. — The "seevitchie," as the natives 

 call these animals, can not be approached successfully by dajdight, so 

 these hunters lie by, in this house of Webster's, until a favorable night 

 comes along — one in which the moon is partially obscured by drifting 

 clouds and the wind blows over them from the rookery where the sea 

 lions lie. Such an op])ortunity being afforded, they step down to the 

 beach at low water and i)roceed to creep on all fours over the surf- 

 beaten sand and bowlders up to the dozing herd and between it and 

 the high-water mark, where it rests. In this way a small body of 

 natives, crawling along in Indian file, may pass unnoticed by the sea- 

 lion sentries, which, doubtless in the uncertain ligiit, see but confound 

 the forms of their human enemies with those of seals. When the 

 creeping Aleuts have all reached the strijiof beach that is left bare by 

 ebb tide, which is between the water and the unsuspecting animals, 

 at a given signal from their crawling leader they all at once leap to 

 their feet, shout, yell, l>randishing their arms, and firing off pistols, 

 while the astonished and terrified lions roar and flounder in all 

 directions. 



Behavior of the sea lions when surprised. — If at the moment 

 of surprise the brutes are sleeping Avith their heads pointed toward 

 the water, tlie}^ rise up in fright and charge straight on in that way 

 directly over the men themselves; but if their heads have been rest- 

 ing at this instant pointed landward, up they rise and follow that 

 course just as desperately, and nothing will turn them either oneway 

 or the other. Those sea lions which charged for the water are lost, of 

 course;^ but the natives promptly follow up the land-turned animal 



back directly under tlie liuge brute's head; instantly the powerful jaws of the 

 '•seevitchie" closed upon tho waistband, apparently, of the native, and lifting the 

 yelling man aloft, as a cat would a kitten, the sea lion shook and threw him high 

 into the air, away over the heads of his associates, who rushed up to the rescue 

 and quickly destroyed the animal by a dozen furious spear thrusts, yet death did 

 not loosen its clenched jaws in which were the tattered fragments of Ivan's 

 clothing. 



'The natives appreciate this peculiarity of the sea lion very keenly, for good and 

 sufficient cause, though none of them have ever been badly injured in driving or 

 "springing the alarm." I camped with them for six successive nights in Septem- 

 ber, 1872. in order to witness the whole procedure. Daring the several drives 

 made while I was with them I saw but one exciting incident. Everything went off 

 in the orthodox manner, as described in the text above. The exceptional incident 

 occiirred during the first drive of the first night, and rendered the natives so cau- 

 tious that it was not repeated. When the alarm was sprung, old Luka Mandrigan 



