THE SEA LION. 137 



ing sam-o-var. At length, the whole troop of animals being assembled, a flash 

 of umbrellas here and there, with the call of the herdsmen, brings all into moving 

 phalanx. But the time for driving must be either at night, after the dew is fallen, 

 or upon a dark, misty, or rainy day ; as the thick mat of grass that covers the 

 land must be wet, in order that the animals may easily slip along in their vaulting 

 gait over the green road to their place of execution. Under the most favorable 

 circumstances, the march does not exceed six miles in twenty- four hours; and it 

 being a distance of four leagues or more to the village, three days and nights, or 

 more, are spent before they arrive at the slaughtering place. There they are allowed 

 to remain quiet for a day, to cool their blood, which becomes much heated by 

 the tedious journey ; after which, they are killed by shooting. The dead animals 

 are then skinned, and their hides packed in tiers until fermented sufficiently to 

 start the hair, when they are stretched on frames to dry, and eventually become 

 the covering or planking for the Aleutian laldarkas and baldarras. The fat is taken 

 off and used for fuel, or the oil is rendered to burn in their lamps. The flesh is 

 cut in thin pieces from the carcass, laid in the open air to dry, and becomes a 

 choice article of food. The sinews are extracted, and afterward twisted into thread. 

 The lining of the animal's throat is put through a course of tanning, and then made 

 into boots, the soles of which are the under covering of the Sea Lion's fin -like 

 feet. The intestines are carefully taken out, cleaned, blown up, stretched to dry, 

 then tanned, and worked into water -proof clothing. The stomach is emptied of its 

 contents, turned inside out, then inflated and dried for oil -bottles, or it is used as 

 a receptacle for the preserved meat ; and what remains of the once formidable and 

 curious animal is only a mutilated skeleton. 



Crossing Behring and the Okhotsk seas, to the coasts of Siberia, including the 

 peninsula of Kamschatka and the island of Saghalien, the mode of capture by the 

 natives changes from that of the eastern continental shores. The inlets and rivers 

 of these Asiatic regions swarm with salmon from June to September, and at this 

 season the seals follow, and prey upon them as they ascend the streams. The 

 natives then select such places as will be left nearly bare at low tide, and there 

 set their nets — -which are made of seal- thongs — to strong stakes, so placed as to 

 form a curve open to the confluence of the stream. These nets are simikxr to gill- 

 nets, the meshes being of a size to admit the seal's head — which gives free passage 

 to the shoals of fish — and the pursuing animal, as soon as entangled in the net, 

 struggles forward in its efforts to escape, but is held firmly in the meshes, where 

 it remains till low water, when the natives, in their flat -bottomed skin -boats, 

 approach and dispatch the victim with their rude bone implements. As the season 



MajSINE MAMMAI.&. — 18. 



