174 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



point, for it was driven this far from there on the morning of the -3d 

 instant. So, again, this question keeps rising, Hoic many of these driven 

 .s'rvf/.v that are released Jina II y die of internal injuries received during their 

 overland trip to the slaughter! n</ f/rounds f and JIow many of them really 

 live irell after they have been redriven in this manner, many times from 

 these several hanlinej grounds of St. Paul f More and more forcibly arises 

 to my mind the statement of the natives in 1834, who assured Bishop 

 Veniaminov that the young males driven here and spared, never became 

 tit afterwards for breeding purposes, and never, after this driving, went 

 upon the rookeries. 



Certainly, it becomes clearer and clearer to my mind, that those young 

 males, ichieh as yearlings, survive the driving here of that year of their 

 age, and then return to survive the driving of the second year of their 

 age; then, surviving tbis trial, reappear to he driven over again in their 

 third year, to be released and again, if alive, to he redriven up here in 

 their fourth year, and then tinally, if surviving these five consecutive 

 seasons of unwonted violent jihysica I effort, unnatural etforts, to he again 

 driven, as I see them to-day, in their fifth year of growth, what, indeed, 

 can ice reasonahly expect of them in their sixth year! even if they do 

 manage to endure (some of them, not many of them) all of this intense 

 physi<;al suffering, exhaustion, straining of tendons, congestions of 

 lungs and brain, and heart suffusions. The more I think over this 

 matter the more I believe that the natives were right : and Yeniaminov 

 says that they "truly assert" it. 



I had this point in my thoughts during my studies of 1872-1874; but 

 at that time, no holluschichie n-crc driven from Southwest Point, from 

 Zapadnie, from Toulie Mces or Stony Point, or from Polavina; no seals 

 were driven from those places, where everybody admitted that full lialf 

 of the entire number belonging to the island congregated : and, then the 

 percentage of rejected or turned out seals on the killing grounds, was 

 really very small. There was not much wasted energy: most of the 

 seals driven then, were killed, and duly skinned. 



Therefore, it did not then imi)ress me. It seemed immaterial: for, 

 there was an innnense reserve of undriven, umlisturbed young male 

 life. The natives themselves said that all was well, even if those spared 

 seals of 1S72, never went to the roohrries. How different at this writing. 

 In 1879 the distant diiving began here: and that nuirks the date of the 

 decline of the hauling grounds. At the rate of decrease up to the 

 l)resent wretched order of affairs, it will now require seven years of 

 unbroken rest on land and sea to bring back a condition such as I found 

 and recorded here in 1S7--1874. Perfect rest must be given here on the 

 ishinds, and full protection in Bering Sea. 



June ^G, IS'JO. — Not a single holluschak or half bull on Zoltoi sands 

 this morning, and tliere has not been one near it since that sweep of 500 

 half bulls, or yearlings, made theie on the morning of the li4th instant. 

 This time in 1872, it would have be<Mi overrunning with seals from the 

 bay clear over to the summit of Gull Hill, even if driven clean every 

 morning! The sealing weather here, since the 1st of June, has sim])ly 

 been i)erfect ; it is as tine as could be desired; and yet, the astonishing 

 poverty of these empty hauling grouiuls is sought to be ignored in cer- 

 tain quarters. A hundred gifted tongues, speaking in emi)hatic har- 1 

 monious accord, could not tell the story of destruction better than those \ 

 vacant sands of Zoltoi, as they appeal to your eye and understanding | 

 this morning. 



I walked over to the Zapadnie killing grounds this morning, arriving 



