THE FUE SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 365 



fog to keep the path moist ana cool, quite a large number of the weakest seals in the drove will 

 be thus laid out and left on the track. If one of these prostrate seals is not too much heated at 

 the time, the native driver usually taps the beast over the head and removes its skin.* 



PBOSTRATION OF FUE-SEALS BY HEAT. This prostration from exertion will always happen, 

 no matter how carefully they are driven ; and in the longer drives, such as 2 and 5 miles from 

 Zapaduie on the west, or Polavina on the north, to the village of Saint Paul, as much as 3 or 4 per 

 cent, of the whole drive will be thus dropped on the road; hence I feel satisfied, from my observa- 

 tion and close attention to this feature, that a considerable number of those that are thus rejected 

 from the drove, and are able to rally and return to the_water, die subsequently from internal 

 injuries sustained on the trip, superinduced by this over-exertion. I, therefore, think it highly 

 improper and impolitic to extend drives of the "holluscbickie" over any distance on Saint Paul 

 Island exceeding a mile or a mile and a half; it is better for all parties concerned, and the business 

 too, that salt-houses be erected, and killing-grounds established adjacent and contiguous to all of 

 the great hauling-grounds, 2 miles distant from the village on Saint Paul Island, should the busi- 

 ness ever be developed above the present limit : or should the exigencies of the future require a 

 quota from all these places, in order to make up the 100,000 which may be lawfully taken. 



ABUNDANT SUPPLY OF " HOLLUSCHICKIE. " As matters are to-day, 100,000 seals alone 

 on Saint Paul can be taken and okiuued in less than forty working days, within a radius of 1 

 miles from the village, and from the salt-house at Northeast Poiut; hence the driving, with the 

 exception of two experimental droves which I witnessed in 1872, has never been made from longer 

 distances than Tolstoi to the eastward, Lukannon to the northward, and Zoltoi to the south- 

 ward of the killing-grounds at Saint Paul village. Should, however, an abnormal season recur in 

 which the larger proportion of days during the right period for taking the skins be warmish and 

 dry, it might be necessary, in order to get even 75,000 seals within the twenty-eight or thirty 

 days of their prime condition, for drives to be made from the other great hauling-grounds to the 

 westward and northward, which are now, and have been for the last ten years, entirely 

 unnoticed by the sealers. 



KILLING THE SEALS. The seals, when finally driven up on to those flats between the east 

 landing and the village, and almost under the windows of the dwellings, are herded there until 

 cool and rested. The drives are usually made very early in the morning, at the first breaking of 

 day, which is 1.30 to 2 o'clock of June and July in these latitudes. They arrive and cool off on 

 the slaughtering-grounds, so that by 6 or 7 o'clock a. m., after breakfast, the able-bodied male 

 population turn out from the village and go down to engage in the work of slaughter. The men 

 are dressed in their ordinary working-garb of thick flannel shirts, stout cassimere or canvas pants, 

 over which the" tarbossa" boots are drawn; if it rains they wear their "kamlaikas," made of the 

 intestines and throats of the sea-lion and fur-seal. Thus dressed, they are armed with a club 

 piece, a stout oaken or hickory bludgeon, which have been made particularly for the purpose at 

 New London, Connecticut, and imported here for this especial service. These sealing clubs are 

 about 5 or 6 feet in length, 3 inches in diameter at their heads, and the thickness of a man's fore- 



* The fur-seal, like all of the pinnipeds, has no sweat-glands ; hence, when it is heated, it cools off by the same 

 process of panting which is so characteristic of the dog, accompanied by the fanning that I have hitherto fully 

 described ; the panting and low grunting of a tired drove of seals, on a warmer day than usual, can be heard several 

 hundred yards away. It is surprising how quickly the hair and fur will come out of the skin of a blood-heated seal 

 literally rubs bodily off at a touch of the finger. A fine specimen of a three-year-old " holluschak " fell iu its tracks 

 at the head of a lagoon while being driven to the village killing-grounds. I asked that it be skinned with special 

 reference to mounting ; accordingly a native was sent for, who was on the spot, knife iu hand, within less than thirty 

 minutes from the moment that this seal fell in the road ; yet, soon after he had got fairly to work, patches of the fur 

 and hair came off here and there wherever he chanced to clutch the skin. 



