46 FUK-SEAi^ FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



weeks that tbey ai'e engaged iu this work. The holhischickie are driven 

 from the large hauhug grounds on the sand flats immediately adjacent 

 to the killing grounds, being obtained without the slightest difficulty. 



Here also was the site of a village, once the largest one on this island 

 ere its transfer to the sole control and charge of the old Russian - 

 American Company, ten years after its discovery in 1787. The ancient 

 cemetery and the turf lines of the decayed barraboras are still i^lainly 

 visible. 



The company's steamer runs up here, watching her opportunity, she 

 drops her anchor, as indicated on the general chart, right south of the 

 salt house in about 4 fathoms of water; then the skins are invariably 

 hustled aboard, no time being lost, because it is an exceedingly uncer- 

 tain place to safely load the vessel. 



The ''podding" of these young pups in the rear of the great rookeries 

 of St. Paul is one of the most striking and interesting phases of this 

 remarkable exhibition of highly organized life. When they first bunch 

 together they are all black, for they have not begun to shed the natal 

 coat; they shine witli an unctuous, greasy reflection, and grouped in 

 small armies or great regiments on the sand-dune tracts at North- 

 east Point, they present a very extraordinary and fascinating sight. 

 Although the appearance of the holhischickie at English Bay fairly 

 overwhelflis the observer with the impression of its countless multi- 

 tudes, yet I am free to declare that at no one point in this evolution of 

 the seal life, during the reproductive season, have 1 been so deeply 

 stricken by the sense of overwhelming enumeration as I have when, 

 standing on the summit of Cross Hill, I looked down to the southward 

 and westward over a reach of miles of alternate grass and sand-dune 

 stretches, mirrored upon which were hundreds of thousands of these 

 little black pups, spread in sleep and sport within this restricted field 

 of vision. They appeared as countless as the grains of sand upon 

 which they rested ! 



There is no impression in my mind really more vivid tlian is the one 

 which was planted there during the afternoon of that July day when I 

 first made my survey of this ground. Indeed, whenever I pause to 

 think of tlie subject, this great rookery of Novastoshnah rises promptly 

 to my view and I am fairly rendered voiceless as I try to speak in 

 definition of the spectacle. In the first place, this slope from Sea Lion 

 Neck to the summit of Hutchmsons Hill is a long mile, smooth and 

 gradual from tlie sea to the hilltop. The parade ground lying between, 

 is also nearly three quarters of a mile in width, sheer and unbroken. 

 Now, upon that area before my eyes, this day and date of which I have 

 spoken, were the forms of not less than three-fourths of a million seals. 

 Pause a moment. Think of the number: three fourths of a million 

 seals moving in one solid mass from sleep to frolicsome gambols, back- 

 ward, forward, over, around, changing and interchanging their heavy 

 squadrons, until the whole mind is so confused and charmed by the 

 vastness of mighty hosts that it refuses to analyze any further ! Then, 

 too, I remember that the day was one of exceeding beauty for that 

 region. It was a swift alternation overhead of those characteristic rain 

 fogs, betv»een the succession of which the sun breaks out with tran- 

 scendent brilliancy through the misty halos about it. This parade 

 field retlected the light like a mirror, and the seals, when they broke 

 apart here and there for a moment, just enougli to show its surface, 

 seemed as though they walked upon the water. What a scene to put 

 upon canvas, that ami»hibian host involved in those alternate rainbow 

 lights and blue-gray shadows of the fog! 



