88 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



drove thus secured, directing and driving it over to the killing grounds 

 close by the village, ' 



PROGRESSION OF A SEAL DRIVE. 



A drove of seals on hard or firm, grassy ground, in cool and moist 

 weather, may be driven with safety, at the rate of half a mile an hour. 

 They can be urged along, with the expenditure of a great many lives, 

 however, at the speed of a mile or a mile and a quarter per hour: but, 

 this is seldom done. An old bull seal, fat and unwieldy, can not travel 

 with the younger ones, though it can lope or gallop as it starts across 

 the ground as fast as an ordinary man can run over 100 yards: but, 

 then it fails utterly, falls to the earth supine, entirely exhausted, hot, 

 and gasping for breath. 



The holluschickie are urged along the path leading to the killing 

 grounds with very little trouble, and require only three or four men to 

 guide and secure as many thousands at a time. They are permitted fre- 

 quently to halt and cool off, as heating them injures their fur. These seal 

 halts on the road always impressed me with a species of sentiinentalism 

 and regard for the creatures themselves. The men dropping back for 

 a few moments: the awkward shambling and scufding of the march at 

 once ceases, and the seals stop in their tracks to fan themselves with 

 their hind flippers, while their heaving flanks give rise to subdued, 

 panting sounds. As soon as they apparently cease to gasp for want 

 of breath and are cooled oft" comparatively, the natives step up once 



'The task of getting up early in the morning and going out to the several hauling 

 grounds closely adjacent, is really all there is of the labor involved in securing the 

 number of seals re(Hiired for the day's work on the killing grounds. The two, three, 

 or four natives upon whom, in rotation, this duty is devolved by the order of their 

 chief, rise at first glimpse of dawn, between 1 and 2 o'clock, and hasten over to Luk- 

 annon, Tolstoi, or Zoltoi, as the case may be, "walk out" their holluschickie, and 

 have them duly on the slaughtering field before 6 or 7 o'clock, as a rule, in the morn- 

 ing. In favorable weather the drive from Tolstoi consumes two and a half to three 

 hours' times; from Lukaunon about two hours, and is often done in an hour and a 

 half; while Zoltoi is so near by that the time is merely nominal. 



I heard a great deal of talk among the white residents of St. Paul when I first 

 landed and the sealing season opened, about the necessity of "resting" the hauling 

 grounds; in other words they said that if the seals were driven in repeated daily 

 rotation from any one of the hauling grounds, that this would so disturb these ani- 

 mals as to ]>reveut their coming to any extent again thereon during the rest of the 

 season. This theory seemed rational enough to me at the beginning of my investi- 

 gations, and I was nut disposed to question its accuracy ; but^ subsequent observa- 

 tion directed to this point, particularly Batisfied me, and the sealers themselves with 

 whom I was associated, that the driving of the seals had no efiect whatever upon 

 the hauling which took place soon or immediately after the field, had been swept 

 clean of seals by the drivers, for that hour. If the weather was favorable for landing, 

 i. e., cool, moist, and foggy, the fresh hauling of the holluschickie would cover the 

 bare grounds again in a very short space of time. Sometimes in a few hours after 

 the driving of every seal from Zoltoi sands over to the killing fields adjacent, those 

 dunes and the beach in question, would be swarming anew with fresh arrivals. If, 

 however, the weather is abnormally warm and sunny, during its prevalence, even if 

 for several consecutive days, no seals to speak of, will haul out on the emptied space. 

 Indeed, if these holluschickie had not been taken away by man from Zoltoi or any 

 other hauling ground on the island, when " tayopli " weather prevailed, most of those 

 seals would have vacated their terrestrial loafing places for the cooler embraces of 

 the sea. 



The importance of understanding this fact as to the readiness of the holluschickie 

 to haul promptly out on steadily " swept" ground, provided the weather is inviting, 

 is very great ; because, when not understood, i t was deemed necessary, even as late as 

 the season of 1872, to "rest" the hauling grounds near the village (from which all 

 the driving has been made since), and make trips to far-away Polavina and distant 

 Zapadnie — an unnecessary expenditure of human time, and a causeless infliction of 

 physical misery upon phocine backs and flippers. 



