BOUND FOR THE ARCTIC
The city of Seattle grows to-day by leaps and bounds. The roar of traffic
sounds unceasingly in her streets, the city limits press outward in
all directions into the unoccupied territory near by, and the present
prosperity and future magnitude of the place seem already assured.
She sits, the queen of the Sound, at the meeting-point between the
great transcontinental railroads and the great trans-Pacific steamship
lines. Great steamers, the largest in the world’s carrying trade, ply
unceasingly between the magnificent waters of Puget Sound and the
mysterious ports of the far East, as we have learned to call it,—though
from Seattle it is the far West,—and fetch and carry the products of
the Orient and those of our own great country. Mighty full-riggers from
the seas of half the world lift their towering masts skyward, as they
swing at the city’s moorings in water that is just offshore, but so deep
that the ordinary ship’s cable hardly reaches bottom, hence special
cables and moorings are provided. To the westward the Olympic Mountains,
clad with the finest timber in the world, lift their snowy cloud-capped
summits to the sky, and glow rosy in the light of the setting sun; while,
between the city and these mountains beautiful, flow land-locked waters
which might hold all the navies of all the world without being crowded,
and which seem destined to be the centre of the commerce of the coming
century, borne over seas that are yet new to the world’s traffic.
Thus to-day! yet a decade and less ago the city was far from being as
energetic. Seattle then slept in the lethargy of a “boom” that had
spent itself, and was but just beginning to feel the stir of new life
and a solid and real prosperity. Splendid business blocks were but half
tenanted, many of the original boomers were financially ruined, yet the
city kept up its courage, and had an unabating faith that position and
pluck would win out. Already this faith was beginning to have its reward
in works, and the faint glimmerings of future great advancement were
in sight. More business began to reach the port, and the often almost
deserted docks had now and then a ship. One of these on the day of which
I write was the Bowhead, and certainly business bustle was not wanting on
and near her. Perhaps the amount of work going on was not so very great,
but the bustle more than made up for that, and Ben Stovers, the Bowhead’s
boatswain, was the guide and director of this bustle, and to blame for
the most of its noise.
Stovers had a voice as big as his frame, and that was six feet two in
longitude, as he would have said, and it seemed almost that in latitude.
Surely, like this terrestrial globe, his greatest circumference was at
the equator. Captain Nickerson was wont to say that Stovers was worth
his weight in ballast, and that made him the most valuable man on the
ship. It was a stock joke on the part of the first mate, when the wind
blew half a gale, the crew were aloft reefing topsails, and the good
ship plunged to windward with her lee-rail awash, and her deck set on
a perilous slant, to politely ask the mighty boatswain to step to the
windward rail so that the ship might be on an even keel once more.
It was the voice of this mighty man that was Harry’s first greeting as
he came down the dock toward the vessel that was to be his home for the
long cruise. It rolled up the dock and reëchoed from the warehouses,
and every time its foghorn tones sounded, a little thrill of energy ran
through the busy crew.
“Hi there! Bear a hand with that cask,” it yelled, and two or three dusky
Kanakas would jump as if stung, and the cask they had been languidly
handling would roll up the gang-way as if it concealed a motor.
“Come on now, Johnson, and you, Phipps; this is no South Sea siesta. Stir
your mud-hooks and flip that bread aboard. Wow, whoop! you’re not on
the beach now, you beach-combers; you’ve got wages coming to you. Step
lively there!” Result, great rise and fall in breadstuffs, and boxes of
hard bread going over the rail and down the hold in a way that made the
Chinese cook below shout strange Oriental gibberish, in alarm lest the
boxes be stove and the contents go adrift.
“Lighter ahoy!”—this to the man driving a cart down the dock; “clap on
sail now and come alongside. We’ve got to get away from this dock before
night or the city’ll own the vessel for dock charges.”
This sally brought a grin from the loungers, not a few, who watched
the loading, dock charges being always a sore point with the vessels’
owners, and brought the pair of bronchos and the load of goods down the
crazy planking at a hand-gallop.
Flour in bags, bolts of cotton cloth and many hued calico, shotguns and
rifles, ammunition, what the whalers know as “trade goods” of all sorts,
for traffic with the Eskimo tribes, were all being hustled aboard the
vessel before the impulse of this great voice, which sounded very fierce,
and certainly spurred on the motley crew to greater exertions. Yet it had
a ring of good humor in it all, and the men obeyed with a grin as if they
liked it.
A tall young fellow with bronzed face and black curly hair stood noting
the goods that came aboard and checking them off on a block of paper. He
looked up as Harry came down the dock, then gave a shout of recognition,
and came down the gangplank with hand extended.
“It’s Harry Desmond, isn’t it?” he said; “awful glad you came. When did
you get here? Father is up in the city doing some business. He’ll be as
glad as I am that you are here. Come right aboard. I’m Joe Nickerson; of
course you remember me, don’t you? You’re a good deal bigger and older,
but you haven’t changed a bit. I’d know you anywhere. My! but I’m glad
you are going up with us.”
He glanced somewhat dubiously at the black hand-satchel that Harry was
carrying, but said nothing about it as they went up the plank. Not so the
boatswain; he took one look at it and rolled heavily forward.
“Ax your pardon, young feller,” he said; “but ye’d better not take the
hard-luck bag aboard, had you? Don’t you want to leave it down here on
the dock? We’ll see that it’s safe till you go ashore again.”
Harry was somewhat surprised, and inclined to resent this seemingly
needless interference, but Joe spoke up before he could say anything.
“Mr. Stovers,” he said, “this is my friend Harry Desmond, of whom you’ve
heard me speak. He’s going up with us this trip as supercargo.”
The big boatswain reached down a hand like a ham, and shook Harry’s
awkwardly with it.
“Glad t’ meet you,” he said. “Didn’t mean nothing sassy about the bag,
you know, but sailors are queer fellows. ’Tain’t me; I don’t believe it,
but the crew think a black bag is full of gales of wind, and lets ’em
out when it’s brought aboard ship. See ’em looking at it, now. ’F you
could leave it ashore, and bring your dunnage on in a canvas bag, they’d
feel better about it. No use getting the men grumbling down for’ard.”
“Certainly,” said Harry politely. “I’ll leave it out on the dock here,
if some one will keep an eye on it for a while till I can get something
else. Glad you told me. I don’t want to be a bad weather man my first
cruise.”
“Thank you,” said the boatswain with equal politeness; “I guess you and
I’ll get along all right.” Then he turned suddenly to the crew, who were
loitering and gazing uneasily at the black bag.
“’Vast gawking there, and bend on to that dunnage. Whoop, now! Get her up
here! Heave her up, boys, lively now; the gale’s gone down. That’s the
new supercargo, and you don’t want to go cutting up any monkeyshines with
him. He’s going to leave the hard-luck poke-sack ashore.”
“I’ve got a trunk over at the station, too,” said Harry, as they went
down the companion-way aft. “Do you suppose they’ll mind if I bring that
aboard?”
“Well,” said Joe, “they’re superstitious about trunks, too, although they
don’t care so much about them as they do about a black bag. That’s a
special hoodoo.”
“I’ll store them both ashore, then,” said Harry resolutely; “I want to
start all fair with the crew. You have things pretty nice down here,
don’t you?” he went on with some surprise as they entered the cabin.
Here he saw a room with a well-furnished dining-table, and doors leading
off, the fittings being in hard wood, and the whole having an air of
refinement and home surroundings pleasant to see.
“Why, yes,” said Joe. “You see a whaling captain lives aboard his vessel
the year round, and we like to have things snug. Father’s cabin is just
aft of this. He keeps his charts there and instruments. The first mate
has the one on the starboard, and you and I are to share this.”
Joe, as he spoke, showed Harry into a little cabin which was lighted
by a port side dead-light, and which had two neat berths with clean
bedding and white sheets. There was abundant locker room, and the whole
looked somewhat as any boy’s room might that was occupied by a young man
studious and interested in outdoor sports. A rifle and shotgun hung on
the wall, and other boyish belongings were scattered about. There was a
shelf or two of books, and it reminded Harry in a certain way of his own
room at home. Joe noted his approval with pleasure, and seeing him glance
at the books said:—
“Father’s got quite a library in his room that you are welcome to use.
We’ll study navigation and some of those things together, if you want to.
Here’s your locker, and these hooks are for you. You may have either bunk
you wish, but I think you’ll find the lower one more convenient. Come on
ashore now, and I’ll help you get your things aboard and get you settled.
We sail to-morrow.”
That night at supper, which was deftly served at two bells by the Chinese
steward, Harry was cordially welcomed by Captain Nickerson, and met
the first mate, a lank, muscular man, bronzed and singularly taciturn,
and learned much of his duties as supercargo, which he readily saw
were nominal indeed. It was strange how easily he became adapted to
life on board, and before bedtime he felt as if he had already lived
a long time on a whaling ship. He stored his trunk and the “hoodoo”
black bag in the city, and brought his belongings aboard in two canvas
sacks, regular sailor’s bags, much to the approval of the two brawny
Kanakas of the crew detailed to bring them down for him. Harry was
much interested in these dusky South Sea islanders, and found them
intelligent, good-natured, and efficient. Joe showed him over the ship,
introduced him to the engineer and his assistant, and taught him much
about the general working of the vessel. He saw the great kettles, set in
brickwork on the forward deck, for the trying out of blubber. He saw the
whaling implements, the bundles of staves for casks, and the great space
between decks above and below for the storing of these when they should
be coopered and filled with oil. He saw the galley where two slant-eyed
Chinese were in charge, and the narrow quarters of the crew forward,
crowded as much as possible to give more space in hold and on deck for
oil casks, and for such members of the crew as he came in contact with he
had a pleasant word.
[Illustration: THE LONG ROLLERS OF THE NORTH PACIFIC]
Until Arctic whaling by way of Bering Sea began, few if any whalers were
fitted with steam as an auxiliary; but it was found that if vessels
were to make a success of the industry among the ice-floes of these
treacherous waters, get into and out of the Arctic by the narrow,
current-ridden, ice-tangled passage of Bering Straits, it was wise and
expedient to add steam to the equipment. Hence many vessels like the
Bowhead, though thorough-going sailing vessels, were equipped with
engines and propeller, to be used when the wind did not serve, or when
the passage of ice-floes made it necessary. It was under a full head of
steam, then, that the Bowhead passed up Admiralty Inlet, as that portion
of the Sound is called, rounded into the Straits of Fuca, and spread
her sails to the westerly wind only when she was well out toward Cape
Flattery, and breasting the long rollers that swung unimpeded from the
vast expanse of the world’s greatest ocean.
How Harry’s heart had swelled within him at the sight of this sea! He had
something of the feelings of Balboa when he first sighted it from that
Central American mountain-top, and fell on his knees in adoration and
thanksgiving. He longed like Captain Cook to furrow it with exploring
keel, and seek out the enchanting mysteries that lie in and beyond the
shores that it touches.
“Great sight, isn’t it, Harry?” said Captain Nickerson, who stood near
him and noticed his emotion.
“Yes, sir,” replied Harry. “It seems like dreams coming true to think
that I am to see the things that I have read about this side of the
world, but never really expected to see with my own eyes.”
The captain smiled. “You’ll see strange sights, my boy, before you get
home,” he said, and there was more of prophecy in this than either of
them dreamed at the time.
“Are we liable to do any whaling right away?” asked Harry.
“Well, that depends,” replied the captain. “There is now and then a
humpback in these waters, but they are pretty shy nowadays, and hard to
come up with. They’re hardly worth while. I doubt if we shall lower a
boat before we get into Bering Sea and get among the bowheads as they
follow the ice up. We are likely to see a whale, though, most any time
now.”
“I wish we could,” said Harry, the ardor of the sportsman beginning to
thrill in his veins; but no whale appeared that day, though he watched
the sea with patience and undiminishing ardor.
A day or two afterward, as he came on deck, he saw a little cloud on the
surface of the water like the puff of smoke that follows the discharge
of a rifle loaded with black powder. A moment after another puff shot
into the air quite near the ship, and he saw beneath it a black body rise
languidly to the surface, loll along it a moment, and then sink again.
His heart gave a great jump. A whale! Why had none of the crew seen it?
To be sure they were not on watch for whales, but still several were
on deck, and the first mate, whose watch it was, was pacing leisurely
back and forth behind him as he stood at the rail. The mate now and then
glanced at the sails to see how they were drawing, and now and then
shot a command, a single word if possible, to the crew for a pull on
the braces, or something of that sort, but he seemed to take no notice
of the puff of smoke and the black body just showing above the surface
almost alongside. Harry looked again. Yes, it was there, so near that he
could see that the little puff of smoke was a cloud or vapor blown with
a whiff into the air from one end of this black body. He could stand it
no longer, but rushed up to the mate, grasped his arm, pointed in the
direction of his discovery, and said excitedly, “See, see! There he is!
Don’t you see the whale?”
“Nope,” calmly replied the taciturn first mate, gazing at the little puff
of vapor and the black body.
“Isn’t—isn’t it a whale?” faltered Harry, a little ashamed of his
enthusiasm in the face of this stolidity.
“Nope,” said the first mate.
“But it looks like a whale,” persisted Harry; “and it acts like a whale,
at least as I have read that they acted. What is it, then?”
“Blackfish,” said the mate, with a sweep of his hand to the other side of
the ship. Harry looked in that direction, and was silent in astonishment
and delight.
“Hundreds!” said the mate, and resumed his walk on the deck.
There were not so many as that, but there were certainly scores of these
creatures sporting lazily in the waves, rolling their black bodies to
glisten in the sun, and sending up the puffs of vapor that floated a
moment in the breeze and then vanished. It reminded Harry of the skirmish
line when the Cadets were encamped at Hingham, and the order “Fire at
will” had been given. The puffs were much like those from the Springfield
rifle.
The blackfish is really a whale, though the whalemen do not like to
consider him as such or give him credit for it. He is small, not
generally reaching a length of twenty feet, but otherwise he has all
the characteristics of a whale. He blows, breathes, feeds, and lives in
whale fashion. But he contains but a barrel or two of oil, of an inferior
quality, and hence is beneath the notice of the average whaleman, though
vessels in hard luck occasionally turn to and slaughter him rather than
return to port empty. His meat, on the other hand, is better than whale
meat, and is often esteemed a delicacy on a long whaling voyage when
fresh meat from other sources has not been obtainable.
Some time afterward, as they were nearing the Aleutian Islands, Harry was
to see his first “real whale,” and witness one of the fierce tragedies of
the sea. He sat by the taffrail conning Bowditch’s Navigator, puzzling
his way through the intricate and bewildering instructions as to the
taking of the sun, the use of sextant and quadrant, the working out
of longitude and latitude, while Joe, standing second mate’s watch as
was his wont, paced the deck, and now and then passed a word with the
boatswain. That worthy was sitting cross-legged near the rail amidships,
busy with sailor’s needle and canvas rigging some chafing-gear for some
of the lines, when he suddenly sprang to his feet and gazed intently
over the bow toward the horizon. A moment he stood thus, and then the
great tones of his voice rang out in the musical call:—
“A-h-h blow! There she blows! Whale—o!”
The ship sprang into bustle immediately. The watch on deck, which had
been languidly busy over such small matters as the boatswain could devise
to keep them at work, jumped into instant action, scurrying hither and
thither to get the gear up and the boats in trim for a possible conflict.
Those below came piling up on deck, and Joe sprang into the rigging,
looking intently toward the spot where the whale was supposed to be.
Harry gazed eagerly, but he could see nothing.
Captain Nickerson and the first mate appeared as suddenly from below, and
the whole ship was activity and attention.
“Where is that whale?” asked the captain.
“Three points off the port bow, sir,” answered Joe; “about four miles, I
think.”
“Good!” cried the captain. “Hold your course”—this to the man at the
wheel.
He climbed into the mizzen rigging with Joe, and gazed through his glass
in the direction indicated. A shade of disappointment came into his face.
“It’s an old bull humpback,” he said, “and I don’t believe we can
get near him, but you may see that the first and second boats are in
readiness, Mr. Jones.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered that man of brevity, using three words in the
excitement of the moment; but there had been no need to give the order,
for he had several of the crew busy doing just that very thing already.
All had been keen in the hope that it would be a sperm whale.
Harry climbed into the rigging too, and as the ship drew toward the spot,
he plainly saw an occasional puff as the monster breathed and sent a
little cloud of vapor into the air. Steadily they approached the lazy
leviathan, and by and by Harry could see his black head and hump, yet
still the vessel kept her course, and the order to lower was not given.
“Hullo!” said the captain. “He’s gallied.”
What that might be Harry was not sure, though he took it to mean excited,
for the animal suddenly surged forward, half out of water, swung a half
circle on the surface with a great sweep of his mighty flukes, and began
to forge through the water in their direction. As he did so, something
flashed into the air behind him, and a black figure twenty feet long,
shaped somewhat like another whale, seemed literally to turn a somersault
from the surface, landing with a thud right on the back of the great
humpback. The noise of the blow was plainly heard, though the whale was
more than a half mile away. The humpback gave a sort of moaning bellow,
and sounded.
“’Vast there with your boats,” cried the captain; “the killer has got
ahead of us.”
The orca, or “whale-killer” as the whalers call him, is one of the most
powerful and rapacious animals in the world. Himself a whale, he is the
only one of the species that lives on other whales, and does not hesitate
to attack the largest of them. He grows to a length of thirty feet, and
his activity and strength are extraordinary. One of them has been known
to take a full-grown dead whale that the whalemen had in tow, grasp it in
his tremendous jaws, and carry it to the bottom, in spite of its captors.
One does not have to believe an old writer who says that a killer has
been seen with a seal under each flipper, one under the dorsal fin, and a
third in his mouth. Eschrit, however, is reckoned reliable, and we have
his authority that a killer has been captured, from the stomach of which
were taken thirteen porpoises and fourteen seals. The killer is shaped
much like a whale, has great jaws filled with sharp teeth, and a pointed
dorsal fin, with which he is fabled to dive beneath a whale and rip up
his belly. He is found in all seas, but is particularly numerous in the
North Pacific. In the far north he pursues the beluga or white whale and
the walrus. He captures the young walrus in a novel manner. The latter
climbs on the back of the mother and the great ivory tusks keep the orca
at bay, but he dives beneath the old one and comes up against her with
such a blow that the young one falls from the rounded back of its mother,
when it is immediately seized and crushed in the great jaws of the
rapacious animal.
For a few moments nothing more was seen of either animal, and then, not
his own length from the ship, the whale appeared, shooting up as if from
a great depth, and flinging almost the whole of his great bulk straight
into the air. The orca rose with him, his jaws set in the body of the
whale just behind the left flipper. As the monster shook himself in
agony, even when reared almost his whole length in the air, and with his
great flukes beating the water beneath to foam, the hold of the orca was
broken, and he fell back into the water beside the whale, leaving a great
three-cornered tear in the whale’s side that dyed the water crimson as
with another tremendous leap the wild wolf of the sea was again on his
victim.
Again Harry heard that strange half moan, half bellow, as the frenzied
humpback ploughed along the surface to windward, beaten by the blows of
the orca as he flung himself into the air, and again and again came down
like an enormous club on his victim’s back. And thus the unequal contest
went on, and Harry watched them till they disappeared in the distance to
windward. He was much impressed by the spectacle.
“How do you suppose it will come out?” he asked, as they clambered down
from the rigging.
“The killer will get him, sure,” replied Captain Nickerson. “He will
hammer him and worry him for miles, till he is completely exhausted. Then
he will get a bite in his lip, and it will be all up with Mr. Humpback.
By this time to-morrow as much of him as the orca does not want to eat
right away will be floating belly up, and the sea birds and sharks will
be busy with it.”
Two days afterward great banks of fog, with now and then a white peak
gleaming through, showed that they were nearing the Aleutian Islands.
The course was changed more to the northward, and the ship sailed into
the windy, cloud-tormented reaches of Unalga Pass. Just as they reached
the edge of the mists, the clouds lifted for a moment, and showed a
scene of surpassing grandeur. The scarred and weather-beaten abrupt
cliffs of the mountain sides rose from dark waters, that flashed green
and white as they broke against the island sides, varying from dull red
to deep crimson, streaked with vivid green of grasses and golden brown
with lichens. Above these again swept the bare uplands, golden and olive
with the tundra moss that clothes all to the farthest Arctic limits of
the north, while over all, majestic and wonderful, lifting its crystal
pinnacle eight thousand feet to the heavens, stood the mighty crest
of Shishaldin, clothed white with unmelting snows, and tipped with a
fluttering banner of smoke from the undying fires within. Shishaldin and
Pogromnia, the one white as snow, the other dark with furrowed cliff
and frozen lava, are chimneys to the banked fires of Unimak Island, in
which slumber still, as they have slumbered since the white men first
discovered them nearly two centuries ago, the mighty forces of eruption.
In the baffling currents and gusts of the pass sails were furled, and
the ship proceeded under a full head of steam, skirting the lofty cliffs
of Akutan. On this island once dwelt many thousand happy, contented
Aleuts. They were great whalemen, and when the summer brought the
humpback whales in schools to their turbulent waters, they captured many
of them by bold but primitive hunting. Wisely, they did not attack the
old whales, for the humpback is a famous fighter, and the white whalers
rarely attack them in these dangerous waters to-day. Instead they picked
out the agashitnak (yearlings) or akhoak (calves), and boldly attacked
them in their two-holed bidarkas, made of walrus and seal skin stretched
over driftwood framework. In the after-hole sat the paddler, and in the
forward one the harpooner with his six-foot driftwood harpoon, tipped
with an ivory socket bearing a notched blade of slate. This was thrust
deep into the young whale and then withdrawn, leaving the socket and
blade in his carcass. The mark of the hunter was scratched deep in this
slate blade, that he might know it again. On being thus wounded the whale
fled to sea, and there, as the Aleuts used to say, “went to sleep for
three days.” Meanwhile watchers lined the cliffs, and watched through the
scurrying fog for the currents to drift the carcass back to the island.
Once perhaps in twenty times this happened, and then there was a feast
and great rejoicing in the villages. The mark of the mighty hunter,
inscribed on the blade, was found when the weapon was cut out, and he was
honored for his feat during life, and even afterward. After his death, if
he had been one of the very great men, his body was preserved, cut up,
and rubbed on the blades of the young harpooners, that his valor and good
fortune might be thus transmitted.
The villagers were bold sea hunters, but gentle and peaceable in their
intercourse with one another, and so large were their villages that
to-day the ruins of one of them front for nearly a mile on the beach.
Over on Akun—another veritable volcanic mountain rising abruptly from the
sea—were other prosperous villages, also of primitive whalemen. Here were
boiling springs in which the villagers might cook their meat without
fire, and the winter’s cold was in no wise to be feared because of the
underground heat.
The humpbacks still school in summer about the islands of Akun and
Akutan, and millions of whale birds swoop in black clouds above them.
The little auks and parrot-bill ducks, as the sailors call the puffin,
swarm upon the cliffs, and breed there as of old; but the Aleuts are
gone from their ancient villages, and only a diseased remnant remains in
favored spots in the once populous archipelago. On Akutan and Akun there
are none. At Unalaska, or Illiluk as they called it, a remnant survives,
their blood mingled with that of their exterminators, the Russians,
and their sod huts cluster about the beautiful Greek church which they
support. While the Bowhead lay at anchor in their harbor, Harry and Joe
saw much of them, and found them so shy and gentle that it did not seem
possible that they ever had risen in revolt against their fierce Cossack
oppressors and swept them from the island; but such they did more than a
century ago, only to be conquered and almost exterminated by fresh hordes
of the invaders.
[Illustration: HARBOR OF UNALASKA]
Like a necklace about the throat of Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands
swing in a cloud-capped circle of peaks to within about five hundred
miles of the Siberian coast. The story of their discovery and
exploitation by the Russians is one of romantic interest, thrilled
through with horror at the needless oppression and slaughter of their
gentle inhabitants. It was in the year 1740 that the Russians first
sighted them, on the ill-fated expedition of Bering and his fellow
commander Chirakoff. During the preceding centuries the little white
sable known as the Russian ermine had led the wild Cossack huntsmen
across the Siberian steppes to the shores of Kamchatka. The value of east
Siberian furs in Russian markets was great, and when the wild huntsmen
and traders reached the sea limit, they learned from the natives legends
of land yet beyond, over-sea, where furs were still more plentiful.
Accordingly, with a commission from the Russian court, Bering and
Chirakoff fitted out two little vessels and set out upon these unknown
seas on a voyage of discovery. Bering touched the mainland of Alaska, but
soon started for home. Chirakoff visited several of the Aleutian Islands
and finally reached Kamchatka again, after losing many of his crew from
starvation and disease. Bering, however, was wrecked on the Commander
Islands, just off the Gulf of Kamchatka, and died there, but after
incredible hardships a remnant of his crew reached the mainland. They had
been obliged to subsist on the flesh of the sea otter during their stay
on the islands, and they brought back with them some of the pelts of the
animals. These were received with great favor in Russia, and the high
price offered for the skins gave a great impetus to further exploration
of the islands, on which they abounded. Expedition after expedition was
fitted out in crazy vessels, and the Promishlyniks, as the Russians
called these savage huntsmen and voyagers, began to overrun the Aleutian
chain.
Often their unseaworthy ships were wrecked in the gales which surge
about the islands. Hunger and disease decimated their crews, and many an
expedition started out boldly into the untried tempestuous waters, only
to disappear and be no more heard from. Yet now and then an unseaworthy
craft would escape the gales, and with half an emaciated crew return,
the ship loaded down with many thousands of sea otter, fox, and seal
skins, meaning great wealth to the survivors. Nothing could exceed the
boldness and hardihood of these men. The half-starved, disease-smitten
remnants of the unsuccessful crews would immediately dare the myriad
dangers again in a new expedition, so great was their courage and so
tempting the prize. We have scant records of the expeditions, yet in
those of which we know the misery and death, even when success resulted,
is appalling. Yet they kept on, and the boldness and hardihood of the
Cossack hunter-mariners were equaled only by their rapacity and cruelty.
Invariably met with goodwill and hospitality on the part of the natives
of the mountainous islets, their return was invariably oppression and
cruelty in the extreme. A busy, contented, hospitable people swarmed in
the sheltered coves of the rocky isles when the invasion began. Within
thirty years but scattered remnants were left, enslaved, diseased,
discouraged. Once only, on Unalaska, they took advantage of the winter
and slaughtered their oppressors who remained on the island, but with
the spring came new hordes, and they were obliged to sue for peace, with
slavery.
This uprising took place in the winter of 1763, and the story of the
escape of two of the Promishlyniks, driven to the mountains, at bay on
a rocky headland, concealed in a cave, fleeing alongshore in a captured
canoe, always with tremendous odds against them, yet always winning in
the unequal fight, is an extraordinary one.
Most of the Aleutian Islands to-day are barren, and desolate of
inhabitants. Few if any Russians remain, and but a handful of Aleuts.
Moreover, the greed of a century and a half has practically exterminated
the sea otter. Once so common that it might be killed with a club, the
animal is to-day one of the most wary known, and the price of a single
skin is a fortune to the Aleut hunter, of whom a few still seek for the
prized fur. The Russian domination passed with the sale of Alaska to the
United States. The American domination is kindly, but the Aleut does not
thrive, and it seems but a few more years before he will have passed into
the category of races that have faded before the advance of the white man.
The Bowhead made only a brief stay at Unalaska. Here some coal was added
to their supply, and store of fresh water was taken from the reservoir,
established by one of the big trading companies that have stations there,
at the seal islands, and at St. Michaels, at the mouth of the Yukon
River. Then the anchor was hoisted, they steamed out of Captain’s Bay, by
the strange headland, Priest Rock, which marks its entrance, and with a
southerly wind in the sails left the clouds and snowy peaks behind. Their
prow was set toward the mysterious north, and already the man on the
lookout was on the watch for the blink of Bering Sea ice not yet melted
by the spring sun.