82 ALASKA. 



younger, especially so on the parts posteriorly. This cliauge in 

 the condition of the fur seems to set in at the time of their 

 shedding, in the fifth year as a rule. 



As the drove progresses the seals all move in about the same 

 way, a kind of a walliiug-step and a sliding, shambling gallop, 

 and the progression of the whole body is a succession of starts, 

 made every few minutes, spasmodic and irregular. Ev'ery now 

 and then a seal will get weak in the lumbar region, and drag 

 his posterior after it for a short distance, but finally drops 

 breathless and exhausted, not to revive for hours, days per- 

 haps, and often never. Quite a laige number of the weaker 

 ones, on the driest driving-days, are thus laid out and left ou 

 the road; if one is not too much heated at the time, the native 

 driver usually taps the beast over the head and removes its 

 skin. This will hapi)en, no matter how carefnlly they are 

 driven, and the death-loss is quite large, as much as 3 or 4 

 per cent, on the longer drives, such as three and four miles, 

 from Zapadnie or Polavina to the village on Saint Paul's, and 

 I feel satisfied that a considerable number of those reji'cted 

 from the drove and permitted to return to the water die sub- 

 sequently from internal injuries sustained on the drive from 

 overexertion. I therefore think it improper to extend drives 

 of seals over any distance exceeding a mile or a mile and a 

 half. It is better for all parties concerned to erect salt-houses 

 and establish killing-grounds adjacent to all of the great haul- 

 ing-grounds on Saint Paul's Island should the business ever be 

 developed above the present limit. As matters now are, the 

 ninety thousand seals belonging to the quota of Saint Paul 

 last summer were taken and skinned in less than forty days 

 within one mile from either the village, or salt-house on .North- 

 east Point. 



Killing the seals. — The seals when brought up to the kill- 

 ing grounds are herded there until cool and rested; then 

 squads or "pods" of fifty to two hundred are driven out from 

 the body of the drove, surrounded and huddled up one against 

 and over the other, by the natives, who curry each a long, 

 heavy club of hard wood, with which they strike the seals down 

 by blows upon the head; a single stroke of a heavy oak 

 bludgeon, well and fairly delivered, will crush in at once the 

 slight, thin bones of a seal's skull, laying the creature out life- 

 less; these strokes are usually repeated several times with 

 each animal, but are very quickly done. 



