212 DESCRIPTION OF BERING ISLAND 



the island for having killed over two hundred. The third day after 

 my arrival I killed with an axe within three hours over seventy, 

 from whose skins the roof over our hut was made. — They were 

 so voracious that one could hold a piece of meat before them in 

 one hand and hold an axe or stick in the other to knock them 

 down. We would lay down a seal, stand only two paces away 

 with a stick, and close our eyes as if we did not see them; soon 

 they crawled up on it, began to eat, and were killed without 

 causing the others to take it as a warning and run away. We 

 would then dig a hole or ditch and throw meat or their dead 

 comrades into it; before one was aware of it the whole ditch was 

 full, whereupon we killed everything with clubs. Although we 

 did not care for their fine pelts, of which more than a third here 

 were of the blue variety, nor even skinned them, w^e were en- 

 gaged in constant warfare against them as our sworn enemies. 

 Every morning we dragged by their tails for execution before the 

 Barracks our prisoners who had been captured alive, where some 

 were beheaded, others had their legs broken or one [leg] and the 

 tail hacked off. Of some we gouged out the eyes; others were 

 strung up alive in pairs by their feet so that they would bite 

 each other to death. Some were singed, others flogged to death 

 with the cat-o'-nine-tails. It is most ludicrous when, being held by 

 the tail, they pull with all their might and some one then cuts 

 off the tail; they start forward a few steps and, when they miss 

 their tail, turn around in a circle over twenty times. Nevertheless 

 they would not be warned and keep away from our huts; and 

 finally countless numbers could be seen running about the 

 island without a tail or on two or three legs. 



When these bus>body animals could not do any damage to an 

 article, as for instance clothes which we had taken off, they would 

 befoul them; and then hardly one [of them] w^ould pass by that 

 did not do the same. From all this it could be inferred that they 

 must never have seen a human being here and that fear of man is 

 not inherent in animals but is based on long experience. 



In October and November, like the [common] foxes,"^ they 

 '6 i.e. the common red fox {Vulpes vulpes or vulgaris). (S) 



