136 REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



5i;;. Probably di scon raged by tlie cost and difficulty of protecting 

 the island, and in order to prevent competition in the sale of skins, the 

 Company in 1883 made a barbarous attempt to extirpate the seals ouit. 

 A full accouut of this attempt is given in the deposition of C A. Lund- 

 berg,* who arrived at Eobbeu Island in the schoouer " North Star" from 

 Yokohama, and found the mate of the schoouer " Leou," a vessel in the 

 employ of the Alaska Commercial Company, living on the island with 

 about fifteen Aleuts. Lundberg found a great mass of dead and decay- 

 ing seals upon the shore, which had been killed by these men, as they 

 said, in order to "keej) any of those Yokohama fellows from getting 

 anything this year." The crews of the ''North Star" and another 

 schooner, the " Helene," then set to work to remove the carcasses, 

 which included those of many fenmles and young, and i)roved to num- 

 ber between 9,000 and 10,000. In the process, they ujanaged to pick 

 out some 300 skins in good condition. " There were thousands of seals 

 in the water, but they would not pull out on the beach on account of 

 the stench and filth. We washed the beach as clean as we could, and 

 turned the gravel over as far as we w^ere able. Shoitly a heavy gale 

 came on, which washed the beach quite clean again, and the seals then 

 began to j)ull out." 



514. We were also informed that Captain Hansen, afterwards master 

 of the German schooner " Adele," was present on this occasion. Cap- 

 tain Miner, an experienced sealing-master of Seattle, also visited the 

 island in the same year, and described to us the great heap of carcasses 

 which he found on the island, and the manner in which the skins had 

 been slashed m order to render them useless. 



515. In 1884, according to Mr. Kluge, the Kussian Government sta- 

 tioned a steam launch at the island for its protection, and in the same 

 year four schooners, including the German schooner " Helene," were 

 ca])tnied there by the Eussian man-of-war " Easbonik." 



510. In 1885, the launch was replaced by a force of twenty Cossacks, 

 but these were withdrawn in September, after which raiding schooners 

 again appeared. In that year, there were not more than 7,000 or 8,000 

 seals in all upon the island. From 1885 to 1890, no skins were taken 

 by the Company from the island, but in the last-mentioned year 1,452 

 skins were taken. The guard was, however, removed from the island 

 between tlie 12th and the 15th October, and after that date the island 

 w^as raided by schooners, one of these, reported as hailing from Japan, 

 and said to fiy the United States flag, being the chief offender. These 

 schooners must have obtained at least 4,700 skins, for when the island 

 was revisited early in 1891, that number of carcasses was found upon 

 it, and these were buried in order to avoid the effect which their pres- 

 ence might have in preventing seals from again landing. 



517. In consequence of this heavy slaughter, but 520 skins were 

 obtained by the Company from the island in 1891, and Captain Brandt, 

 of the Eussian gun-boat " Aleut," estimates the whole number of seals 

 present on the island at this date at about 10,000. In October 1891, 

 Captain Brandt returned to the island in the " Aleut" when not 

 90 expected there, and captured two raiding vessels from Yoko- 

 liama, sailing under the British flag, and at the time in posses- 

 sion of 1,500 fur-seal skins. 



Captain Blair, of the Company's schooner "Leon," further informed 

 us that there were at present about twenty five females to each adult 

 male on the islands, a proportion of males which he, from long experi- 

 ence of the sealing industry, considers to be far too small. 



* Pailianieutary Paper [C— 6131], p. 363. 



