The Russians tried the experiment of bringing up from Sitka and Oonalashka a flock of ravens, as scavengers, a number of years ago, and when they were very uncleanly in the village, in contrast with the practice of the present hour. They reasoned that they would—these ill-omened birds—be invaluable as health officers; but the Corvidæ invariably, sooner or later, and within a very short time, took the first wind-train or lightning-express back to the mainland or the Aleutian islands. Yet the natives say that if the birds had been young ones instead of old fellows they would have remained. I saw a great many, however, at St. Matthew Island in August, 1874.
A glance at the map of St. Paul shows that nearly half of its superficial area is low and quite flat, not much elevated above the sea. Wherever the sand-dune tracts are located, and that is right along the coast, will be found an irregular succession of hummocks and hillocks, drifted by the wind, which are very characteristic. On the summits of these hillocks an Elymus has taken root in times past, and, as the sand drifts up, it keeps growing on and up too, so that a quaint spectacle is presented of large stretches to the view wherein sand-dunes, entirely bare of all vegetation at their base and on their sides, are crowned with a living cap of the brightest green—a tuft of long, waving grass blades which will not down. None of this peculiar landscaping, however, is seen on St. George, not even in the faintest degree. Travel about St. Paul, with the exception of that trail to Northeast Point, where the natives take advantage of low water to run on the hard, wet sand, is exceedingly difficult, and there are examples of only a few white men who have ever taken the trouble and expended the physical energy necessary to accomplish a comparatively short walk from the village to Nahsayvernia, or the north shore. Walking upon the moss-hidden and slippery rocks, or tumbling over slightly uncertain tussocks, is a task and not a pleasure. On St. George, with the exception of a half-mile path to the village cemetery and back, nobody pretends to walk, except the natives who go to and from the rookeries in their regular seal-drives. Indeed, I am told that I am the only white man who has ever traversed the entire coast-line of both islands.[99]
Turning to St. George and its profile, presented by the accompanying map, the observer will be struck at once by the solidity of that little island and its great boldness, rising, as it does, sheer and precipitous from the sea all around, except at the three short reaches of the coast indicated on my chart, and where the only chance to come ashore exists.
The seals naturally have no such opportunity to gain a footing here as they have on St. Paul, hence their comparative insignificance as to number. The island itself is a trifle over ten miles in extreme length, east and west, and about four and a quarter miles in greatest width, north and south. It looks, when plotted, somewhat like an old stone axe; and, indeed, when I had finished my initial contours from my field-notes, the ancient stone-axe outline so disturbed me that I felt obliged to resurvey the southern shore, in order that I might satisfy my own mind as to the accuracy of my first work. It consists of two great plateaus, with a high upland valley between, the western table-land dropping abruptly to the sea at Dalnoi Mees, while the eastern falls as precipitately at Waterfall Head and Tolstoi Mees. There are several little reservoirs of fresh water—I can scarcely call them lakes—on this island; pools, rather, that the wet sphagnum seems to always keep full, and from which drinking-water in abundance is everywhere found. At Garden Cove is a small, living stream: it is the only one on the Pribylov group.
NATIVES DRIVING "HOLLUSCHICKIE"
The Drove passing over the Lagoon Flats to the Killing Grounds under the Village of St. Paul. Looking S. W. over the Village Cove and the Lagoon Rookery
MAP OF ST. GEORGE ISLAND—PRIBYLOV GROUP.
Showing the Area and Position of the Fur Seal Rookeries and Hauling Grounds. Surveyed and drawn (1873-74) by Henry W. Elliott.
