AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS. 347 



The method of air-drying which the old settlers employed is 

 well portrayed by the practice of the natives now, who treat a few 

 hundred sea-lion skins to that process every fall, preparing them 

 thus for shipment to Oonalashka, where they are used by brother 

 Aleutes in covering their bidarkies or kayaks. 



The natives, in speaking to me of this matter, said that when- 

 ever the weather was rough and the wind blowing hard, these air- 

 dried seal-skins, as they were tossed from the bidarrah to the ship's 

 deck, numbers of them, would frequently turn in the wind and fly 

 clean over the vessel into the water beyond, where they were lost. 



Under the old order of affairs, prior to the present manage- 

 ment, the skins were packed up and carried on the backs of the 

 boys and girls, women and old men, to the salt-houses, or drying- 

 frames. When I first arrived, season of 1872, a slight variation 

 was made in this respect by breaking a small Siberian bull into 

 harness and hitching it to a cart, in which the pelts were hauled. 

 Before the cart was adjusted, however, and the " buik " taught to 

 pull, it was led out to the killing-grounds by a ring in its nose, and 

 literally covered with the green seal-hides, which where thus packed 

 to the kenches. The natives were delighted with even this partial 

 assistance ; but now they have no further concern about it at all, for 

 several mules and carts render prompt and ample service. 



The common or popular notion in regard to seal-skins is, that 

 they are worn by those animals just as they appear when offered 

 for sale ; that the fur-seal swims about, exposing the same soft coat 

 with which our ladies of fashion so delight to cover their tender 



Speel, and go and come between the rollers as he signals. They are not grace- 

 ful oarsmen under any circumstances, but can pull heartily and coolly together 

 when in a pinch. The apparent ease and unconcern with which they handled 

 their bidarrah here in the "baroon" during the fall of 1869 so emboldened 

 three or four sailors of the United States Revenue Marine cutter Lincoln that 

 they lost their lives in such surf through sheer carelessness. The "gig" 

 in which they were coming ashore " broached to" in the breakers just out- 

 side the cove, and their lifeless forms were soon after thrown up by merciless 

 waves on the Lagoon rookery. Three graves of these men are plainly marked 

 on a western slope of the Black Bluffs. 



There is a false air of listlessness and gentleness about an open sea, or road- 

 stead roller, that is very apt to deceive even watermen of good understanding. 

 The crushing, overwhelming power with which an ordinary breaker will hurl 

 a large ship's boat on rocks awash, must be personally experienced ere it is 

 half appreciated. 



