368 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



The procession of sea-lions, managed in this strange manner day 

 and night for the natives never let up is finally brought to rest 

 within a stone's throw of the village, which has pleasurably antici- 

 pated for days and for weeks its arrival, and rejoices in its appear- 

 ance. The men get out their old rifles and large sea-lion lances, 

 and sharpen their knives, while the women look well to their oil- 

 pouches, and repair to the field of slaughter with meat-baskets on 

 their heads. 



No attempt is made, even by the boldest Aleut, to destroy an 

 adult bull sea-lion by spearing the enraged, powerful beast, which, 

 now familiar with man and conscious, as it were, of his puny 

 strength, would seize the lance between its jaws and shake it from 

 the hands of the stoutest one in a moment. Recourse is had to 

 a rifle. The herd is started up those sloping flanks of the Black 

 Bluff hillside ; the females speedily take the front, while the old 

 males hang behind. Then the marksmen, walking up to within a 

 few paces of each animal, deliberately draw gun-sight upon their 

 heads and shoot them just between the eye and the ear. The old 

 males thus destroyed, the cows and females are in turn surrounded 

 by the natives, who, dropping their rifles, thrust big heavy iron 

 lances into their trembling bodies at a point behind the fore flip- 



between the village and Northeast Point there are quite a number of small 

 lakes, including this large one of Meesulkmahnee. Into all of these ponds 

 the sea-lion drove is successively driven. This interposition of fresh water at 

 such frequent intervals serves to shorten the time of that journey fully ten 

 days in warmish weather, and at least four or five under the best of climatic 

 conditions. 



This track between Webster's house and the village killing-grounds is 

 strewn with the bones of Eumetopias. They will drop in their tracks now and 

 then, even when carefully driven, from cerebral or spinal congestion princi- 

 pally, and when they are hurried the mortality en route is very great. The 

 natives when driving them keep them going day and night alike, but give 

 them frequent resting-spells after every spurt ahead. The old bulls flounder 

 along for a hundred yards or so, then sullenly halt to regain breath, five or 

 ten minutes being allowed them ; then they are stirred up again, and so on, 

 hour after hour, until the tedious transit is completed. 



The younger sea-lions and the cows which are in the drove carry them- 

 selves easily far ahead of the bulls, and, being thus always in the van, serve 

 unconsciously to stimulate and coax the heavy males to travel. Otherwise I 

 do not believe that a band of old bulls exclusively could be driven down over 

 this long road successfully. 



