THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 71 







npon. It is in this way: at the beginning of every sealing-season, that is, daring May and June, large bodies of the 

 young "bachelor" seals do not haul up on land very far from the water a few rods at the most and, when these 

 first arrivals are sought after, the natives, in capturing them, are obliged to approach slyly and run quickly between 

 the dozing seals and the surf, before they can take alarm and bolt into the sea; in this manner a dozen Aleuts, 

 running down the sand beach of English bay, in the early morning of some June day, will turn back from the water 

 thousands of seals, just as the mold-board of a plow lays over and back a farrow of earth. When the sleeping seals 

 are first startled, they arise, and, seeing men between them and the water, immediately turn, lope, and scramble 

 rapidly back up and over the land ; the natives then leisurely walk on the flanks and in the rear of the drove thus 

 secured, directing and driving it over to the killing-grounds, close by the village.* 



PROGRESSION OF A SEAL-DRIVE. A drove of seals on hard or firm grassy ground, in cool and moist weather, 

 may be driven with safety at the rate of half a mile an hour ; they can be urged along, with the expenditure of a 

 great many lives, however, at the speed of a mile or a mile and a quarter per hour; but this is seldom done. An 

 old bull seal, fat and unwieldy, cannot travel with the younger ones, though it can lope or gallop as it starts across 

 the ground as fast as an ordinary man can run, over 100 yards ; but then it fails utterly, falls to the earth supine, 

 entirely exhausted, hot, and gasping for breath. 



The "hollaschickie" are urged along over the path leading to the killing-grounds with very little tronble, and 

 require only three or four men to guide and secure as many thousand at a time. They are permitted frequently to 

 halt and cool off, as heating them injures their fur. These seal-halts on the road always impressed me with a species 

 of sentimentalism and regard for the creatures themselves. The men dropping back for a few moments, the awkward 

 shambling and scuffling of the march at once ceases, and the seals stop in their tracks to fan themselves with their 

 hind-flippers, while their heaving flanks give rise to subdued panting sounds. As soon as they apparently cease to 

 gasp for want of breath, and are cooled off comparatively, the natives step up once more, clatter a few bones with a 

 shout along the line, and the seal-shamble begins again their march to death and the markets of the world is taken 

 up anew. 



DOCILITY or FUR-SEALS WHEN DRIVEN. I was also impressed by the singular docility -and amiabitity of these 

 animals when driven along the road; they never show fight any more than a flock of sheep would do; if, however, a 

 few old seals get mixed in, they usually get so weary that they prefer to come to a stand-still and fight rather than 

 move; otherwise no sign whatever of resistance is made by the drove from the moment it is intercepted, and turned 

 up from the hauling-grounds, to the time of its destruction at the hands of the sealing-gang. 



This disposition of the old seals to fight rather than endure the panting torture of travel, is of great advantage 

 to all parties concerned ; for they are worthless commercially, and the natives are only too glad to let them drop 

 behind, where they remain unmolested, eventually returning to the sea. The fur on them is of little or no value; 

 their under wool being very much shorter, coarser, and more scant than in the younger; especially so on the 

 posterior parts along the median line of the back. 



CHANGE IN PELAGE. This change for the worse or deterioration of the pelage of the fur-seal takes place, as 

 a rule, in the fifth year of their age; it is thickest and finest in texture during the third and fourth year of life; 

 hence, in driving the seals on St. Paul and St. George up from the hauling-grounds the natives make, as far as 

 practicable, a selection from males of that age. 



"The task of getting up early in the morning, and going out to the several hanling-gronnds, closely adjacent, is really all there is 

 of the labor involved in securing the number of seals required for the day's -work on the killing-grounds. The two, three, or four natives 

 npon whom, in rotation, this duty is devolved by the order of their chief, rise at first glimpse of dawn, between 1 and 2 o'clock, and hasten 

 over to Lukannou, Tolstoi, or Zoltoi, as the case may be, "walk out" their "holluschickie", and have them duly on the slaughtering-field 

 before 6 or 7 o'clock, as a rule, in the morning. In favorable weather the "drive" from Tolstoi consumes two and a half to three hours' 

 time; from Lukaunon, about two hours, and is often done in an hour and a half; while Zoltoi is so near by that the time is merely 

 nominal. 



I heard a great deafcof talk among the white residents of St. Paul, when I first landed and the sealing-season opened, about the 

 necessity of "resting" the hauling-grounds ; in other words, they said that if the seals were driven in repeated daily rotation from any 

 one of the hauling-grouuds, that this would so disturb these animals as to prevent their coming to any extent agaiu thereon, during the 

 rest of the season. This theory seemed rational enough to me at the beginning of my investigations, and I was not disposed to question 

 its accuracy: but, subsequent observation directed to this point particularly, satisfied me, and the sealers themselves with whom I was 

 associated, that the driving of the seals had no effect whatever npon the hauling which took place soon or immediately after the field, for 

 the hour, had been swept clean of seals by the drivers. If the weather was favorable for landing, i. e., cool, moist, and foggy, the fresh 

 hauling of the "holluschickie" would cover the bare grounds again in a very short space of time sometimes in a few hours after the 

 driving of every seal from Zoltoi sands over to the killing-fields adjacent, those dunes and the beach in question would be swarming 

 anew with fresh arrivals. If, however, the weather is abnormally warm and sunny, during its prevalence, even if for several consecutive 

 days, no seals to speak of will haul out on the emptied space; indeed, if these "holluschickie" had not been taken away by man from 

 Zoltoi or any other hauling-ground on the islands when "tayopli" weather prevailed, most of those seals would have vacated their 

 terrestrial loafing places for the cooler embraces of the sea. 



The importance of clearly understanding this fact as to the readiness of the "holluschickie" to haul promptly out on steadily 

 "swept" ground, provided the weather is inviting, is very great: because, when not understood, it was deemed necessary, even as late as 

 the season of 1872, to "rest" the hauliug-grounds near the village (from which all the driving has been made since), and make trips to 

 far away PolavLna and distant Zapaduie an unnecessary expenditure of human time, and a causeless infliction of physical misery upon 

 phociue backs and flippers. , 



