THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 99 



if it will make sope, the King of Spaiue may burne some of bis Olive trees." (!) This spice of Yankee enterprise in 

 "sope", evidently, did not come to a successful head.* 



The walrus "bidakrah". — The finest bidarrah skin-boats of transportation that I have seen in this country, 

 •were those of the St. Lawrence natives; these were made out of dressed walrus hides, shaved and pared down by 

 them to the requisite thickuess, so that wheu they were sewed with sinews to the wooden whalebone-lashed frames 

 of these boats, they dried into a pale, greenish- white, prior to oiling; aud were even then almost translucent, tough 

 and strong. 



Uses of walrus hides. — Uutil I saw the bidarrahs of the St. Lawrence natives in 1874, I was more 

 or less inclined to believe that the tough, thick, and spongy hide of the walrus would be too refractory in 

 dressing for use in covering such light frames, especially those of the bidarka; but the manifest excellence and 

 seaworthiness of these Eskimo boats satisfied me that I was mistaken. I saw, however, abundant evidence of the 

 much greater labor required in tanning or paring down the thick cuticle to that thin, tough transparency so marked 

 on their bidarrahs ; for the pelt of the hair-seal, or sea-lion, does not require any more attention when applied to 

 this service than simply unhairing it ; this is done by first sweating the " loughtak" in piles, then rudely, but rapidly, 

 scraping, with blunt knives or stone flensers, the hair off in large patches at every stroke; the skin is then air dried, 

 being stretched on a stout frame, where, in the lapse of a few weeks, it becomes as rigid as a board. When required 

 for use thereafter, it is soaked in water until soft or "green" again, then it is sewed with sinews, while in this fresh 

 condition, tightly over the slight wooden skeleton of the bidarka or the heavier frame of the bidarrah. In this 

 manner the skin-boats and lighters at the islands are covered ; then they are air-dried thoroughly before oiling, 

 which is done wheu the skin has become well indurated, so as to bind the ribs and keel as with an iron plating ; 

 the thick, unrefined seal-oil keeps the water out for twelve to twenty hours, according to the character of the hides; 

 when, however, the skin-covering begins to "bag in" between the ribs of the frame, then it is necessary to haul the 

 bidarrah out and air-dry it again, and re-oiling. If attended to thoroughly aud constantly, those skin-covered boats 

 are the best species of lighter which can be used at these islands, for they will stand more thumping and pounding 

 on the rocks and alongside ship than all wooden, or even corrugated iron lighters could endure, aud remain seaworthy. 



Manner of dbessing- walrus and sea-lion hides. — I noticed that the St. Lawrence Eskimo pared the 

 walrus hide down from the outer surfiice or hairy side; while at St. Paul, wheu it became necessary to reduce the 

 thickness of a sea-lion's skin at spots around the neck and shoulders, the paring was done on the fleshy side. 

 Very little thinning, however, was needed in the case of sea-lion " loughtak ".t 



Gastronomic qualities of walrus jMEAT. — The flavor of the raw, rank mollusca, upon which it feeds^ 

 seems to permeate the fiber of the flesh, making it very offensive to the civilized palate; but the Eskimos, whs do 



the greatest whaling fleet that ever floated, those vessels could not, nor can they now, approach nearer than sixty or even eighty miles of 

 the muddy shoals, sands, aud bars upon which the walrns rest there; scattered in herds of a dozen or so in numbers up to bodies of 

 thousands; living in lethargic peace, and almost unmolested, except in several small districts which are carefully hunted over by the 

 natives of Oogashik for oil and ivory. I have been credibly informed that they also breed in Bristol bay, and along the coast as far north 

 as Cape Avinova, during some se.asons of exceptional rigor in the Arctic. 



* I depart from the Paeitic walrus, for a moment, in thus speaking of its Atlantic brother with reference to the testimony of the rocks 

 as to its limit of southern range north of the equator; for the thought of herds of walrus floating down on immense frigid floes over the 

 present low lands of Virginia and North Carolina, and of Auvers aud near Paris, France, is .an interesting one, relative to the features of 

 the great ice age ; down they came, that is certain. Van Beneden aud Leidy have recently figured their aged bones as they are silicified 

 or cast in the marls of those southern coasts and interiors. [See Leidy, Trmis. Am. Phil. Soc, xi, 1860, Philadelphia. Van Beneden: Des 

 dc Oss. Foss. des Em'inis d'Anvers; Annales Mus. d'Hist. Xul. de Belgique, 1877, tome i, pp. 40-41.] No such bones have as yet been founp 

 on the northwest coast, or in Alaska. 



t When I stepped, for the first time, into the baidar of St. Paul island, .and went ashore, from the "Alexander", over a heavy se.ai 

 B.ifely to the lower bight of Lukannon bay, my sensations were of emphatic distrust ; the partially water-softened skin-covering would 

 pulf up between the wooden ribs, and then draw back, as the w.aves rose and- fell, so much like an unstable support .above the cold green 

 water below, that I frankly expressed my surprise at such an outlandish craft. My thoughts quickly turned to a higher appreciation of 

 those hardy navigators who used these vessels in circumpolar seas years ago, and the Russians, who, more recently, employed bidarrahs 

 chiefly to explore Alaskan and Kamtchatkan terra incognita. There is an old poem in Arittis, written by a Roman as early as 445 A. D. ; it 

 describes the ravages of Saxon iiirates along the southern coasts of Britain, who used just such vessels as is this bidarrah of St. Paul. 



Quin et armoricus piratim Saxona tractus 



Spirabat, cui pelle falum fuleare Britannum 



Ludus, et as.suto glaucum mare tiudere lembo. 

 These boats were probably covered with either horse or bull's hides. When used in England they were known as coracles; in Ireland 

 they were styled oirachs; Pliny tells us that Caesar moved his army in Britain over lakes aud rivers in such boats. Even the Greeks used 

 them, terming them karabia; and, the Russian word of korahV, or "ship", is derived from ft. King Alfred, in 870-872, tells us that the 

 Finns made sad havoc among the Swedish settlements on the numerous "meres" (lakes) in the moors of their country, by "carrying their 

 ships (baid.ars) overland in the meres whence they make depredations on the Northmen ; their ships are small and very light". 



All air-dried seal pelts, no matter whether hair- or fur-seal, sea- lion or walrus hides, are called by the Aleutians, and also by the 

 Kamtehadales, "longhtak" or "lotftak". Wheu the natives of Kamtchatka told Steller in 1740-'4'2, that the large hair-seal, Phocabarbata, 

 was known to them as "loughtak", they evidently did not give him their specific name for the seal; but rather expressed their sense of iis 

 large skin, which w.as so highly prized by them as to be "the loughtak" of all other loughtak in those waters of their country. Erignat.hw, 

 barbatiis has never been seen around or on these islands of the Pribylov group, but every air-dried fur-seal, or sea-lion skin, there, is called 

 "loughtak" by the people. 



