322 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



— in fact, never as many as there are to-day, insignificant as the ex- 

 hibit is, compared with that of St. Paul. They say that at first the 

 sea-Hons owned this island, and that the Kussians, becoming cogni- 

 zant of the fact, made a regular business of driving off the "see- 

 vitchie," in order that fur-seals might be encouraged to land. 

 Touching this statement, with my experience on St. Paul, where 

 there is no conflict at all between the fifteen or twenty thousand 

 sea-lions which breed around on the outer edge of the seal rookeries 

 there and at Southwest Point, I cannot agree to the St. George 

 legend. I am inclined to believe, however — ^indeed, it is more than 

 probable — that there were a great many more sea-lions on and 

 about St. George before it was occupied by men — a hundred-fold 

 greater, perhaps, than now, because a sea-lion is an exceedingly 

 timid, cowardly creature when it is in the proximity of man, and 

 will always desert any resting-place where it is constantly brought 

 into contact with him.* 



The rookeries on this island, being so much less in volume, are 

 not especially noted — still, one of them, "Starry Ai-teel," is unique 

 indeed, lying as it does in a bold sweep from the sea up a very 

 steep slope to a point where the blufis bordering it seaward are 

 over four hundred feet in vertical declination. The seals crowd 

 just as closely to the edge of this precipice along its entire face as 

 they do at the tide-level. It is a very strange sight for that visitor 

 who may sail under these bluffs with a boat in fair weather for land- 

 ing, and, as you walk the beach, above which the cliff-wall frowns 

 a sheer five hundred feet, there, directly over your head, the cran- 

 ing necks and twisting forms of restless seals, appear as if ready to 

 launch out and fall below, ever and anon, as you glance upward, 

 so closely and boldly do they press to the very edge of the preci- 



* One of the natives, "stareek," Zacliar Oostigov, told me tliat the "Rus- 

 sians, when they first landed, came ashore in a thick fog" at Tolstoi Mees, 

 near the present sea-lion rookery site. As the water is deep and " bold " there, 

 Pribylov's sloop, the St. George, must have jammed her bowsprit against those 

 lofty cliffs ere the jjatient crew had intimation of their position. The old 

 Aleut then showed me that steep gully there, up which the ardent discoverers 

 climbed to a plateau above : and, to demonstrate that he was not chilled or 

 weakened by age, he nimbly scrambled down to the surf below, some three 

 hundred and fifty vertical feet, and I followed, half stepping and half sliding 

 over Pribylov's path of glad discovery and proud possession, trodden one June 

 day by him nearly a hundred years ago. 



