The seals are still brutally clubbed to death. The killers are spattered with blood and bloody tufts of hair; and by-standers are said to have been horribly pelted by eyeballs bursting like bullets from the sockets, at the force of the blows. The killers aim to stun at the first blow; but the poor things are often literally beaten to death. In either event a sharp stabbing-knife is instantly run to its heart, to bleed it. The crimson life-stream gushes forth, there is a violent quivering of the great, jelly-like bulk; then, all is still. It is no longer a living, beautiful, pleading-eyed animal, but only a portion of some dainty gentlewoman's cloak. I have not seen it with my own eyes, but I have heard, in ways which make me refuse to discredit it, that sometimes the skinning is begun before the seal is dead; that sometimes the razor-like knife is run down the belly before it is run to the heart—not in useless cruelty, but because of the great need of haste. The tender, beseeching eyes, touching cries, and unavailing attempts to escape, of the seal that is being clubbed to death, are things to remember for the rest of one's life. Strong men, unused to the horrible sight, flee from it, sick and tortured with the pity of it; and surely no woman who has ever beheld it could be tempted to buy sealskin.
No effort is made to dispose of the dead bodies of the seals. They are left where they are killed, and the stench arising therefrom is not surpassed even in Belkoffski. It nauseates the white inhabitants of the islands, and drifts out to sea for miles to meet and salute the visitor. It is, however, caviar to the native nostril.
CHAPTER XL
Authorities differ as to the proper boundaries of Bristol Bay, but it may be said to be the vast indentation of Behring Sea lying east of a line drawn from Unimak Island to the mouth of the Kuskokwim River; or, possibly, from Scotch Cap to Cape Newenham would be better. The commercial salmon fisheries of this district are on the Ugashik, Egegak, Naknek, Kvichak, Nushagak, and Wood rivers and the sea-waters leading to them.
Nushagak Bay is about fifteen miles long and ten wide. It is exceedingly shallow, and is obstructed by sand-bars and shoals. The Redoubt-Alexandra was established at the mouth of the river in 1834 by Kolmakoff.
The rivers are all large and, with one exception,—Wood River,—drain the western slope of the Aleutian Chain which, beginning on the western shore of Cook Inlet, extends down the Aliaska Peninsula, crowning it with fire and snow.
There are several breaks in the range which afford easy portages from Bristol Bay to the North Pacific. The rivers flowing into Bristol Bay have lake sources and have been remarkably rich spawning-streams for salmon.
The present chain of islands known as the Aleutians is supposed to have once belonged to the peninsula and to have been separated by volcanic disturbances which are so common in the region.