372 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



Around the natives' houses, on St. Paul and St. George, con- 

 stantly appear curious objects which, to an unaccustomed eye, re- 

 semble overgrown gourds or enormous calabashes with attenuated 

 necks ; examination proves them to be the diied, distended stom- 

 ach-walls of a sea-lion, filled with its oil which (unlike the offen- 

 sive blubber of the fur-seal) boils out clear and inodorous from its 

 fat. The flesh of an old sea-lion, while not very palatable, is taste- 

 less and dry ; but the meat of a yearling is very much like veal, and 

 when properly cooked I think it is just as good ; but the superior- 

 ity of sea-lion meat over that of the fur-seal is decidedly marked. 

 It requires some skill in the cuisine ere sausage and steaks of the 

 Callorhinus are accepted on the table ; while it does not, however, 

 require much art, experience, or patience for good cooks to serve 

 up the juicy ribs of a young sea-lion so that the most fastidious 

 palate will not fail to relish it. 



The carcass of a sea-lion, after it is stripped of its hide, and 

 disembowelled, is hung up in cool weather by its hind flippers, over 

 a rude wooden frame or "labaas," as the natives call such a struc- 

 ture, where, together with many more bodies of fur-seals treated in 

 the same manner, it serves from November until the following sea- 

 son of May, as the meat-house for an Aleut on St. Paul and St. 

 George. Exposed in this manner to open weather, the natives keep 

 their seal-meat almost any length of time, in winter, for use ; and, 

 like our old duck and bird-hunters, they say they prefer to have 

 this flesh tainted rather than fresh, declaring that it is most ten- 

 der and toothsome when decidedly "loud." 



The tough, elastic mustache-bristles of a sea-lion are objects of 

 great commercial activity by the Chinese, who prize them highly as 

 pickers for their opium pipes, and several ceremonies peculiar to 

 their joss-houses. Such lip-bristles of the fur-seal are usually too 

 small and too elastic for this service. The natives, however, always 

 carefully pluck them out of the Eumetopias, and get their full value 

 in exchange. 



The sea-lion also, as in the case of the fur-seal, is a fish-eater, 

 pure and simple, though he, like the latter, occasionally varies his 

 diet by consuming a limited amount of juicy sea-weed fronds, and 

 tender marine crustaceans ; but he hunts no animal whatever for 

 food, nor does he ever molest, up here, the sea-fowl that incessantly 

 hover over his head, or sit in flocks without any fear on the surface 

 of the waters around him. He, like Callorhinus, is, without ques- 



