Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/36

 like a cow on weeds. The creature was 40 feet in length and weighed about three tons. Bering's men soon found that the seacow made good seasteaks. They fed freely on her meat, and the sailors who came after them in years to come devoured and destroyed them all. The last one was killed in 1768, and its bones are now among the treasures of the great museums.

Next came the seat otter, a creature as large as a good-sized dog, with long gray fur, the finest of all fur for cloaks and overcoats. The sea otter lived in the sea about the islands, the female swim- ming about in the kelp, with her young in her arms, and making long trips from place to place in search of food. The sea otter is not extinct, but it is growing rare, and a good skin is worth now from $500 to $1500.

The great sealion was a ponderous beast, like the fur seal in figure and habits, but much larger, the male weighing upwards of 1500 pounds. His huge head is like that of a St. Bernard dog, and his roar is one of the grandest sounds on earth. It is a rich, mellow, double bass, like the voice of a mighty organ, and it can be heard for miles. The female is much smaller, also yellowish gray in color, and has also a rich bass voice an octave higher. When a herd of sealions are driven into the sea, they will rise out of the surf at once and all together, roaring in chorus. Such a wonderful chorus can be heard nowhere else on earth, and it is no wonder that the lion of the sea made a great impression on Steller. The sealions live in families on the rocks, where the males fight for supremacy, often overturning huge boulders in their struggles. The young are cinnamon-colored, and when they are born they look much like female fur seals, and are almost as large. And when the old males are fighting they toddle away, else

they will be crushed under the rocks, or trampled on by huge, flappy feet.

But most interesting of all the great beasts of the sea was the one Steller called the sea bear, "Ursus Marinus," or, as men now call it, the "fur seal." These creatures came on shore by the thousands on the west coast of Bering island, when the ice left the island in the spring. They made their homes on the rocks of Poludionnoye, as it were a great city rising from the sea.

But the story of how "the great man seal haul out of the sea" on Bering and Medni and St. Paul and St. George and Robben has been many times told, and in many ways, so I need not give it here.

But we can imagine how Steller looked down on the slopes of Poludionnoye and saw the old beach-masters roar and groan and weep and blow out their musky breath as they fought for supremacy. We can see with him the trim ranks of sleek and dainty matkas, tripping up ihe beach as they come back from the long swim. We can imagine the great groups of snug kotiks that clustered about the warring beach-masters, while along the shores wandered and played the hosts of young bachelors eager to keep near the homes, but afraid to enter them till their wigs and tusks had grown. We can see them in countless hosts, trooping, playing, sleeping on the sands, reckless of drive and unharmed by clubs, and we can understand the splendid enthusiasm with which the discoverer of all these things wrote of the "beasts of the sea." And as a recompense for all the pain and disappointment in Bering's life, we can place the fact that he was the first. His for all time are the twin Storm islands, where the St. Peter was wrecked and tht commander met his death, and his for- ever shall be the great icy sea.