1 88 Sport and Life. 



bodies. Four Aleuts will in this manner drive many hundred seals, 

 and they do also the killing, which is done by a blow on the head 

 with a heavy club. For the skinning a far larger force is required, 

 for the pelt, to ensure its prime condition, must be removed as soon 

 as possible after death. A good skinner takes one and a half to four 

 minutes per carcase, which is a truly remarkable feat. The natives 

 dwell in little villages as far as possible removed from the rookeries, 

 but, in view of the confined area of the islands, the distance inter- 

 vening between the residences of man and these marvellous 

 accumulations of animals in a perfectly wild state is nowhere Very 

 great. The carcases of the slain hundred thousand seals are, or 

 rather were, left to rot where they fell, the skinning being done on 

 the slaughtering ground. The stench thus created was so great, 

 that vessels sailing to leeward three or four miles off the shore, 

 when enveloped in the fog so prevalent during the summer months, 

 were said to shape their course by this somewhat novel " dead 

 reckoning." 



In 1889 the first American lease of the Prybiloffs expired, and a 

 fresh lease for a similar term of twenty years was entered into by 

 the United States with the North American Commercial Company, 

 the terms of which were far more advantageous to the Government 

 than those of the last one, for, while the rent was raised from 

 11,000 per annum to 12,000, the tax per skin was put up from 

 i os. 6d. to 2 2s. 6d. (io.62^dols.), and the number of skins was 

 reduced, at any rate for the first year, from 100,000 to 60,000. As 

 a natural consequence of this greatly increased surcharge on the 

 Prybiloff skins the profits of the pelagic sealers were correspondingly 

 enhanced, profits which were yet further augmented by the modus 

 vivendi of 1891 and 1892, in accordance with which the annual take 

 of skins on the Prybiloffs was reduced to 7500. 



To revert for a moment to the pelt itself. It is, of course, in its 

 natural state far less attractive looking than when in its final stage. 

 The fine fur is concealed completely by a coat of coarse over hair 

 of dull grey brown colour, and the skin undergoes some nine or ten 

 different processes before it reaches a marketable dressed stage. 



