THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 



59 



on the shores of that ishiiid. At Maiooiiitch, which had, according to their account, been abandoned for over sixty 

 Years by the seals, still, at their prompting-, when I searched the shore, I found the old boundaries tolerably well 

 defined; I could find nothing like them at Zapadnie. 



Zapadnie rookerj' in July, 1873, had 600 feet of sea-margin, with GO feet of average depth; making ground for 

 18,000 breeding-seals and their young. In 18 r4, I resurveyed the field and it seemed very clear to me that there had 

 been a slight increase, pei'haps to the number of 5,000, according to the expansion of the superficial area over that 

 of 1873. 



From Zapadnie we pass to the north shore, where all the other rookeries are located, with the village at a 

 central point between them on the immediate border of the sea. And, in connection with this point, it is interesting 

 to record the fact that every year, until recently, it has been the regular habit of the natives to drive the 

 "holluschickie" over the two and a half or three uiiles of rough basaltic uplands which separate the hauling-ground 

 of Zapadnie from the village; driving them to the killing-grounds there, ui order to save the delay and trouble 

 generally experienced iu loading these skins in the open bay. The prevailing westerly and northwesterly winds 

 during July and August, make it, for weeks at a time, a marine impossibility to eliect a landing at Zapadnie, suitable 

 for the safe transit of cargo to the steamer. 



This three miles of the roughest of all 

 rough walks that can be imagined, is made 

 by the fur-seals in about seven or eight 

 hours, when driven by the Aleuts; and, the 

 weather is cool and foggy. I have known 

 one treasury agent, who, after making the 

 trip from the village to Zapadnie, seated 

 himself down in the barrabkie there, and 

 declared that no monej' would induce him to 

 walk bacli the same way that same day — so 

 severe is the exercise to one not accustomed 

 to it ; but it exhibits the power of landloco- 

 motion possessed by the " holluschickie".* 



Starry AteelI. — This rookery is the 

 next in order, and it is the most remark- 

 able one on St. George, lying as it does in 

 a bold sweep from the sea, up a steeply 

 inclined slope to a point where the blutls 

 bordering it seaward are over 400 feet high; 

 the seals being just as closely crowded at 

 the summit of this lofty breeding iilat as 

 they are at the water's edge ; the whole ob- 

 long oval on the side hill, as designated by the accompanying survey, is covered by their thickly clustered forms. 

 It is a strange sight also, to sail under these bluffs with the boat, iu fair weather, for a landing; and, as you walk 

 the beach, over which the cliff" wall frowns a sheer 500 feet, there, directly over your head the craning necks and 

 twisting forms of the restless seals, ever and anon, as you glance upward, appear as if ready to launch out and 

 fall below, so closely and boldly do they press the verj- edge of the precipice. | There is a low, rocky beach to the 



* The peculiarly rougt character to this trail is given by the large, loose, sharp-edged basaltic bowlders, which are strewn thickly over 

 all those lower plateau that bridge the island between the high blufl's at Starry Atool and the slopes of Ahluckcyak hill. The snmniits 

 of the two broader, higher plateaus, east and west respectively, .are comparatively smooth and easy to travel over; and so is the sea-level 

 flat at Zapadnie itself. On the map of St. George, a number of very small ponds will be noticed ; they are the fresh-water reservoirs of 

 the island. The two largest of tliese are near the summit of this rough divide ; the seal-trail from Zapaduie to the village runs just west 

 of them, and comes out on the north shore, a little to the eastward of the haiiling-grounds of Starry Ateel, where it forks and unites with 

 that path. The direct line between the village and Zapadnie, though nearly a mile shorter on the chart, is equal to 5 miles more of 

 distance by reason of its superlative rocky inequalities. 



f'Starry Ateel" or "Old Settlement"; afew hundred yards to the eastward of the rookery, is the earthen ruins of one of the pioneer 

 settlements in Pribylov's time, and which, the natives say, marks the first spot selected by the Russians for their village after the discovery 

 of St. George, in 17S6. 



1 1 have been repeatedly astonished at the amazing power possessed by the fur-soal, of resistance to shocks which would certainly 

 kill any other animal. To explain clearly, the reader will observe, by reference to the maps, that there are a great many clirt'y i]laces 

 between the rookeries on the shore-hues of the islands. Some of these cliH's are more llian 100 feet in abrupt elevation aliove the 

 surf and rocks awash below. Frequently "holluschickie", in ones, in- twos, or thn^'S will stray far away back from the great masses 

 of their kind, and fall asleep iu the thick grass and herbage which covers these mural reaches. Sometimes they will lie down and rest 

 very close to the edge, and then as you come tramping along you discover and stai'tle them and yourself alike. They, blinded by their first 

 transports of alarm, leap promptly over the brink, snorting, coughing, and spitting as they go. Curiously peering after them and 

 looking down upon the rocks, 50 to 100 feet below, instead of seeing their stunned and motionless bodies, you will invariably cateh sight of 

 them rapidly scrambling into the Water; and, when in it, swimming ofi' like arrows from the bow. Three "holluschickie" were thus 



