SEAL FISHING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 8034, 6 December 1886, Page 2

SEAL FISHING.

America has captured and impounded four vessels flying English flags and engaged in nothing more nefarious than sealhunting some sixty miles from shore* Of ; course this has not been done without a show of justice. America refers us to a > treaty concluded with Eussia in 1867, whereby exclusive jurisdiction was conceded to her over a vast maritime area three times as large as the Gulf of Mexico ■ and larger than the Mediterranean. This gift seems to have been almost forgotten < till to-day, if indeed it was ever known or understood that the high seas were anywhere patrimony of the Czar. No one can desire that America and Eng- - land shall fall out over these or any other fishery rights} but the truth is, thd' harvests of the sea are so rich, and are worked so keenly at the present time, that there is hardly any matter upon which nations are more jealous than their seaboard and its privileges. The seal-hunting has long been a monopoly, the /exclusive privilege of a select few, whose reserve in the matter is suggestive of profits worth husbanding; while its chief seat lies within a narrow compass.

Just where the Pacific lends northward into the apex of a great triangle formed by America on the one band and Asia on the other is a great ring of islands shutting in the Sea and Straits of Behring. Here, since men first valued pelts, seals have been caught and killed. As the spring comes round, the breeding flats are thronged with a multitude of amphibians who cover the ground, and whose breathing, as the Esquimaux says, is "like a strong breeze playing over the fells.” In themselves the islands are poor enough. Their summer hardly serves to ripen the tall northern wheat that fringes the sand-dunes, and yet while it lasts there is a blush of colour over these lonely rocks. A gaudy gentian makes the most of a watery sun ; there are trailing pea-vines and a small nasturtium on the dunes ; and in the hollows the wild violet and a handful of other tiny blossoms find a scanty living. Early in May the breeding seals begin to come in from the ocean to the southward. At first none but males arrive ; and these pioneers of the main army take up points of vantage—strongholds’ which henceforth they have to retain by the oldest of all tenures. Bitter are the battles that are waged when the females later on come to land. Every seal who is not besieged is besieging; every plateau isa tourney-yard; and the early comer, whohas, perhaps, got together a nice little harem of ten or twelve mild-eyed dames, if he relaxes his vigilance is like to find himself a bachelor again at very short notice. After a time things settle down, however,, and peace reigns once more from the surfto the hilltops. The hunters wisely leavethese families in peace; but on the isolated’ camps of the holluschickie, or bachelors, rolls the full tide of slaughter. The process is barbarous in its simplicity there is no need of pursuit, and capture is the easiest thing in the worlds So mild and docile are these gentle creatures, that they go to the place of slaughter without resistance, and watch unperturbed the killing of their fellows. Half a dozen natives will cut off from theses a drove of several hundred holluschickie ; and by walking at intervals on either side, by waving flags and clashing bones together, the doomed eolumn is> driven awkwardly shambling to the killing yard. Here, while the main body is underguard, detachments are separated, and them clubbed to death. The dead bodies are flayed at once, and the hide thus obtained of an oval shape, with two holes where the side flappers were—is tightly rolled up and stored between layers of salt to await; shipment. So brisk and regular is thework that thousands of seal-skins are tafcem in a few days. Many thousands of thesefurs go to Northern China, and the rest to America and Europe. There are pleasanter scenes on the otherside of the dunes on the long summer days. The bulls have grown fat and uxorious,, while the beach swarms with sleek black: cubs, who romp like kittens under the. brown eyes of their mothers. The summer is one long holiday on this side of the preserve ; at the first touch of winter theislands become as silent and deserted as they have been populous sndnoisy. Our adventurers who have fallen under the displeasure of the western republic must have been after outlying seals 5 and it will be readily understood that Ihe great breeding-haunts of so valuable a fur-bear-ing animal will be jealously guarded, il America thinks she has a rightful monopoly of them. — (St. James’ Gazette.)