THE RUSSIAN FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 
73 
tuuity to sort out auy uiidesiraLle seals. Thus a uumher of uudersizecl youngsters were allowed to 
escape early iii the drive. Before ascending the 700-foot slope mentioned ahovo, a halt was made. 
Soon, however, the climhing hegan. As may well he imagiiual, the ascent was very la-horious. The 
angle of the slope was at least 35 to fO degrees, and the smooth grass and slippery clay made it almost 
inij)ossible to get a hold with the I'eet. The iioor animals slid hackward over and over again, and 
when they finally succeeded the ground was made smoother and more diflicnlt for those to follow. 
Jloaning, and lilowing, and steaming, they ju'ess their smooth fore-llippers hard on the elusive clay, 
and drag the hind part of the body after, while the men heat the ground with their long staves in 
order to stimulate the animals to further effort. It happens rather freipiently that a seal loses his 
balance, and after a series of hounding somersaults lands at the foot of the hill, accompanied hy the 
laughter and merriment of the Aleuts. I expected every time to see it lie dead with broken hack or 
neck, hut every time the involuutarj' acrobat arose unlHirt, looked around in a dazed manner, as if 
surprised at finding himself so suddenly alone, away from his comrades and tormentors, and scampered 
away as fast as possible toward the sea. 
About halfway up the hill even the larger seals commenced to give out and refused to move farther, 
from sheer exhaustion. As it would not do to leave these behind, a knock with a club on the head 
finished their uiihap 2 iy existence. In a minute, or a minute and a half, the skin had been ripped off 
from the (piivering body and thrown into the knapsack which each man carried on his hack. Having 
arrived at the toji, the survivors were given a long rest. The remaining 2 miles of the march were 
easier, though the last ascent was hard enough on account of the tired condition of the animals. An 
hour of rest vras given before the final killing, to allow the animals to cool off. 
Tlii.s drive can easily be traced on tlie map (pi. 13), as it followed the dotted line 
between tbe Pestsliani bauling-ground and Glinka village. 
Witb slight modilications the above description applies to most of the drives on 
Copper Island during the days of plenty, though the ])resent one tvas one of the 
haidest, as it was the longest. A shorter route was afterwards devised, as detailed 
under the descritd.ion of the Glinka rookeries (p. 51). Of late years there has not 
always been enough animals to make it worth while to drive them from Palata over 
the 1,000-foot pass, and many of the small drives are killed not far from the beach, 
and the skins carried in knapsacks across the mountains to the salt-houses on the 
other side of the island. At Karabelni the carcasses were even skinned right on the 
beach, not 1,300 yards from the breeding-grounds, S(j that the waves carried them out 
to sea and (tccasionally threw them up again on the rookery amongst the living seals. 
However, even nowadays the seals are driven across the island every time their 
meat is wanted for food, or whenever the drive consists of so many seals that it is 
])ractically impossible for the people to carry all tlie skins on their backs, as testified 
by the 700 decaying corpses on the killing-ground at Pestsliani salt-house, which I 
photographed on August 6, 1805 (pi. 58e). 
To complete the picture of the driving on Copper Island, I may describe one of 
these small drives, the princi]ial object of which was to obtain fresh meat for the 
natives. It is thus recorded in my diary for August 8, 1805 (id. 58u) : 
The weather was just right for ducks aud fur-seals, and conse<iuently we started out this mortiiug 
at 6 a. III. ill a drizzling rain. There was no help for it. The drive could not ho postponed, and as I 
was going to photograph, rain or no rain, the ca.meras were taken along. The weather might possibly 
he better on the other side of the mountains, hut it wasn’t. 
As indicated yesterday, all the rookeries had to he scraped in order to make even a small drive, 
and since I could only lie in one place at a time, I selected to go with the party taking the drive at 
Zapadni. Here altogether about 250 animals were finally gathered together, and the driving started 
in three divisions. This could easily he done, for there were certainly enough people to attend to each 
division, there being no less than 30 full-grown men and about half a dozen hoys. What a difference 
from former days, when 2 men or hoys were all that could ho spared for divisions of about 200 seals 
each! Most of the animals were killahle bachelors, a few females and undersized bachelors having 
