334 OUR AECTIC PROVINCE. 



a morning, and going out to the several hauling-grounds, closely 

 adjacent, is really all there is of that labor expended in securing the 

 number of seals required for a day's work on the killing-grounds. 

 The two, three, or four natives upon whom, in rotation, this duty is 

 devolved by the order of their chief, rise at first glimpse of dawn, 

 between one and two o'clock, and hasten over to Lukannon, Tol- 

 stoi, or Zoltoi, as the case may be, " walk out " their " holluschic- 

 kie," and have them duly on the slaughtering field before six or seven 

 o'clock, as a rule, in the morning. In favorable weather the " drive" 

 from Tolstoi consumes from two and a half to three hours' time ; 

 from Lukannon, 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. 



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 that is seldom done. An old bull-seal, fat and un- 

 wieldy, 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 one hundred yards then it fails utterly, falls to the earth 

 supine, entirely exhausted, hot, and gasping for breath. 



The " holluschickie " are urged along over paths leading to 

 the killing-ground with very little trouble, 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 in- 

 jures their fur. These seal-halts on the road always impressed me 

 with a species of sentimentalism and regard for the creatures them- 

 selves. When the men drop back for a few moments, that awk- 

 ward 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 this seal-shamble begins 

 again their march to death and the markets of the world is taken 

 up anew.* 



* I heard a great deal of 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 if the seals were driven in re- 

 peated daily rotation from any one of the hauling-grounds, that this would so 



