72 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



It is quite impossible, liowever, to get tliem all of one age without an extraordinary amount of stir and bustle 

 which the Aleuts do not like to precipitate; hence the drive will be found to consist usually of a bare maioritv of 

 three and four-year-olds, the rest being two-year-olds principally, and a very few, at wide intervals flve-vear-olds, 

 the yearlings seldom ever getting mixed up. 



Method of lakd travel. — As the drove progresses along the path to the slaughtering grounds the seals all 

 move in about the same way; they go ahead with a kind of walking step and a sliding, shambling gallon. The 

 progression of the whole caravan is a succession of starts, spasmodic and irregular, made evcrv few minutes the 

 seals pausing to catch their breath, and make, as it were, a plaintive survey and mute protest. Every now and 

 then a seal will get weak in the lumbar region, then drag its posteriors along for a short distance finally drop 

 breathless and exhausted, quivering and panting, not to revive for hours — days, perhaps — and often never. During 

 the driest driving-days, or those days when the temperature does not combine with wet fog to keep the path moist 

 and cool, quite a large number of the weakest animals in the drove will be thus laid out and left on the track. If 

 one of these prostrate seals is not too much heated at the time, the native driver usually taps the beast over the 

 head and removes its skin.* 



Prosteation of fur-seals by heat.— This prostration from exertion will always happen, no matter how 

 carefully they are driven; and in the longer drives, such as two and a half, and five miles from Zapadnie on the 

 west, or Polavina on the north, to the village at St. Paul, as miich as three or four per cent, of the whole drive will 

 be thus dropped on the road ; hence I feel satisfied, from my observation and close attention to this feature, that a 

 considerable number of those that are thus rejected from the drove, and are able to rally and return to the water 

 die subsequently from internal injuries sustained on the trip, superinduced by this over-exertion. I, therefore' 

 thiuk it highly improper and impolitic to extend drives of the "holluschickie" over any distance on St. Paul island 

 exceeding a mile, or a mile and a half; it is better for all parties concerned, and the business too, that salt-houses 

 be erected, and killinggrouuds established contiguous and to all of the great hauling-grounds, two miles distant 

 from the village on St. Paul island, should the busiuess ever be developed above the present limit; or should the 

 exigencies of the future require a quota from all these places, in order to make up the 100,000 which may be 

 lawfully taken. 



Abundant supply of "holluschickie".— As matters are to-day, 100,000 seals alone on St. Paul can be taken 

 and skinned in less than forty working days, within a radius of one mile and a half from the village, and from the 

 salt-house at Northeast point; hence the driving, with the exception of two experimental droves which I witnessed 

 in 1872, has never been made from longer distances than Tolstoi to the eastward, Lukannon to the northward, and 

 Zoltoi to the southward of the killing-grounds at St. Paul village. Should, however, an abnormal season recur, in 

 which the larger proportion of days during the right period for taking the skins be warmish and dry, it might be 

 necessary, in order to get ever. 75,000 seals within the twenty-eight or thirty days of their prime condition, for drives 

 to be made from the other great hauling-grounds to the westward and northward, which are now, and have been for 

 the last ten years, entirely unnoticed by the sealers. 



Killing the seals.— The seals, when finally driven up on those flats between the east landing and the 

 vdlage, and almost under the windows of the dwellings, are herded there until cool and rested. The drives are 

 usually made very early in ' .e morning, at the first breaking of day, which is half-past one to two o'clock of .June 

 and July in these latitudes. They arrive, and cool ofl' on the slaughtering-grounds, so that by six or seven o'clock, 

 alter breakfast, the able-bodied male population turn out from the village and go doM^n to engage in the work 

 ot slaughter. The men are dressed in their ordinary working-garb of thick flannel shirts, stout cassimere or 

 canvas pants over which the "tarbossa" boots are drawn; if it rains they wear their "kamlaikas", made of the 

 intestines and throats of the sea-lion and fur-seal. Thus dressed, they are each armed with a club, a stout oaken 

 or hickory bludgeon, which have been made particularly for the purpose at New London, Connecticut, and imported 

 here for this especial service. These sealing clubs are about five or six feet in length, three inches in diameter at their 

 heads, and he thickness of a man's forearm where they are grasped by the hands. Each native also has his stabbing- 

 Jvnite, his skinning-knife, and his whetstone; these are laid upon the grass convenient, when the work of braining 

 or knocking the seals down is in progress. This is all the apparatus which they have for killing and skinning. 



IHE killing gang at WORK.- When the men gather for work they are under the control of their chosen 

 foremen or chiefs; usually on St. Paul, divided into two working parties at the village, and a sub-partv at 



wor Inf V'T ' i"" ■' r'', '"■ ''"■^'"'•^ ^"*^ slanghtering-fleld is established. At the signal of the chief" the 

 ^^ork ot the day begins by the men stepping into the drove, corraled on the fl ats; and, driving out from it 100 or 



iB solara?« of!hf ,w'''^'"°''''^''.^'^r T'''-^''''''''' l^'^"-' ^^^-i* i« 'seated, itcoolsoffby thesame process of panting which 

 ItTrod r/^e of eals on J^S' --7-;-l ^^^ the fanning that I have hitherto fnlly descrihed; the heavy breathing and low granting of 



fur w I come out of Le ski, 70 n^^' ! ? T"\' "'" ^^ '''''"' '''''''' ^"""^"^ ^''^'^^ ^"^y- « '« -'^'"-"8 how nnickly the hair fand 

 "III chak "T 1 in it! t r ^^^l^l-^l-l;^-;^''^ seul-literally rnbs bodily off at a tonch of the iinger. A fine specimen of a three-vear-old 



spe S re'eren ri't • r , ' '■'"'"' """' '""« """'-"' '" **" ^""'«'^ Mlling-gronnd.s. I asLd that it be skinn'ed with 



1 rmomlt Z hi^ n n • ""T i^ ^ •"^♦'^'« -- ''^'' *■«■-. -l^o -''« on the spot, knife in hand, within less than 30 minutes from 



