194 BEBING ISLAND. [chap. 



Init altliouo'h a few were still alive, the "reater number were 

 dead and rotting on the banks, and none were fit for food. Near 

 here we shot some snipe and teal, and shortly afterwards came 

 to a long yellow plain like an unbroken expanse of September corn, 

 which stretched away in a gentle slope to the rookery some five 

 or six miles distant. Here, for fear of disturbing the seals, the 

 order " cease firing " was given. 



A small settlement of about twenty huts stands at no great 

 distance from the rookery. These are only used in the summer, 

 while the seals remain upon the island, and are inhabited hj a 

 strong force of Aleuts under the command of a Cossack. These 

 men are all armed with American rifles, and guard the rookery 

 day and night against the raids of predatory schooners. Every 

 year a small fleet of these vessels leaves Yokohama, ostensibly for 

 fishing or walrus -hunting, but it is well known that this is not 

 their real business, and that advantage is taken of the fogs so often 

 met with in these northern seas to make descents upon the seal 

 islands. The Alaska Connnercial Company are not by any means 

 shy of using force upon these occasions, and in more than one instance 

 the depredators have been severely handled. In October, 1881, two 

 of the crew of one of these vessels were killed, and seven or eight 

 wounded. Among the latter was an Englishman or American, who 

 was afterwards landed at Petropaulovsky with no less than thirteen 

 bullet wounds. Strange to say, he eventually recovered. After 

 our departure from Bering's Sea we heard that the schooner Nemo 

 which we had left at Ust Kamschatka had been shortly afterwards 

 seized as a suspected craft by a Eussian cruiser, and taken to 

 Vladivostock. Here she was detained throughout the winter, and 

 the crew kept prisoners, but what eventually happened to them 

 we could not learn. That the lessees of the islands should have 

 some means of checkmg the poaching on their shores, and in the 

 surrounding waters within a distance of three miles or so, seems 

 fair enough, but it is more than doubtful whether such high-handed 

 measures as have lately been taken should be permitted. In an 



