WONDERFUL SEAL ISLANDS. 



219 



it is only "svlien three or four days have passed, free from northerly, 

 westerly, or easterly -winds that she can make the first attempt to 

 safely unload. The landing here is a very bad one, surf breaking- 

 most violently upon the rocks from one end of the year to the 

 other. 



The observer -will notice that six miles southward and -westward 

 of the reef of St. Paul Island is a bluffy islet, called by the Rus- 

 sians Bobrovia, because in olden time the promishlyniks are said 

 to have captured many thousands of sea-otters on its rocky coast. 

 It rises from the ocean, sheer and bold, an unbroken mural precipice 

 extending nearly all around, of sea-front, but dropping on its 

 northern margin, at the water, low, and slightly elevated above the 

 surf-wash, with a broken, rocky beach and no sand. The height of 



"Bobrovia," or Otter Island six miles south of St. PanI Island. 

 [T/ie Noi'th Shore and landing, vieived from St. Paul.] 



the bluffs at their greatest elevation over the west end is three hun- 

 dred feet, while the eastei'u extremity is quite low, and terminated 

 by a queei", funnel-shaped crater-hill, which is as distinctly defined, 

 and as plainly scorched and devoid of the slightest sign of vegeta- 

 tion within as though it had burned up and out yesterday. That 

 crater-point on Otter Island is the only unique feature of the place, 

 for with the exception of this low north shore, before mentioned, 

 where a few thousand of " bachelor seals " haul out during the 

 season every year, there is nothing else worthy of notice concern- 

 ing it. A bad reef makes out to the westward, which I have indi- 

 cated from my observation of the rocks awash, looking down upon 

 them from the bluffs. Great numbers of water-fowl roost upon 

 the cliffs, and there are here about as many blue foxes to the acre 

 as the law of life allows. A small, shallow pool of impure water 



