At sunset on the day of our landing at Belkoffski we passed the active
volcanoes of Pogromni and Shishaldin, on the island of Unimak. For years
I had longed to see Shishaldin; and one of my nightly prayers during the
voyage had been for a clear and beautiful light in which to see it. Not
to pass it in the night, nor in the rain, nor in the fog; not to be too
ill to get on deck in some fashion--this had been my prayer.
For days I had trembled at the thought of missing Shishaldin. To long
for a thing for years; to think of it by day and to dream of it by
night, as though it were a sweetheart; to draw near to it once, and once
only in a lifetime--and then, to pass it without one glimpse of its
coveted loveliness!--that would be too bitter a fate to be endured.
In a few earnest words, soon after leaving Valdez, I had acquainted the
captain with my desire.
It was his watch when I told him. He was pacing in front of the
pilot-house. A cigar was set immovably between his lips. He heard me to
the end and then, without looking at me, smiled out into the golden
distance ahead of us.
"You fix the weather," said he, "and I'll fix the mountain."
I, or some other, had surely "fixed" the weather.
No such trip had ever been known by the oldest member of the crew. Only
one rainy night and one sweet half-cloudy afternoon. For the rest, blue
and golden days and nights of amethyst.
But would the captain forget? The thought always made my heart pause;
yet there was something in the firm lines of his strong, brown face that
made it impossible for me to mention it to him again.
But on that evening I was sitting in the dining room which, when the
tables were cleared, was a kind of general family living room, when
Charlie came to me with his angelic smile.
"The captain, he say you please come on deck right away."
I went up the companionway and stepped out upon the deck; and there in
the north, across the blue, mist-softened sea, in the rich splendor of
an Aleutian sunset, trembled and glowed the exquisite thing of my
desire.
In the absolute perfection of its conical form, its chaste and delicate
beauty of outline, and the slender column of smoke pushing up from its
finely pointed crest, Shishaldin stands alone. Its height is not great,
only nine thousand feet; but in any company of loftier mountains it
would shine out with a peerlessness that would set it apart.
The sunset trembled upon the North Pacific Ocean, changing hourly as the
evening wore on. Through scarlet and purple and gold, the mountain
shone; through lavender, pearl, and rose; growing ever more distant and
more dim, but not less beautiful. At last, it could barely be seen, in a
flood of rich violet mist, just touched with rose.
So steadily I looked, and with such a longing passion of greeting,
rapture, possession, and farewell in my gaze and in my heart, that lo!
when its last outline had blurred lingeringly and sweetly into the
rose-violet mist, I found that it was painted in all its delicacy of
outline and soft splendor of coloring upon my memory. There it burns
to-day in all its loveliness as vividly as it burned that night, ere it
faded, line by line, across the widening sea. It is mine. I own it as
surely as I own the green hill upon which I live, the blue sea that
sparkles daily beneath my windows, the gold-brilliant constellations
that move nightly above my home, or the song that the meadow-lark sings
to his mate in the April dawn.
The sea breaks into surf upon Shishaldin's base, and snow covers the
slender cone from summit to sea level, save for a month or two in summer
when it melts around the base. Owing to the mists, it is almost
impossible to obtain a sharp negative of Shishaldin from the water.
They played with it constantly. They wrapped soft rose-colored scarfs
about its crest; they wound girdles of purple and gold and pearl about
its middle; they set rayed gold upon it, like a crown. Now and then, for
a few seconds at a time, they drew away completely, as if to contemplate
its loveliness; and then, as if overcome and compelled by its dazzling
brilliance, they flung themselves back upon it impetuously and crushed
it for several moments completely from our view.
* * * * *
Large and small, the islands of the Aleutian Archipelago number about
one hundred. They drift for nearly fifteen hundred miles from the point
of the Aliaska Peninsula toward the Kamchatkan shore; and Attu, the last
one, lies within the eastern hemisphere. This chain of islands, reaching
as far west as the Komandorski, or Commander, Islands--upon one of which
Commander Behring died and was buried--was named, in 1786, the Catherina
Archipelago, by Forster, in honor of the liberal and enlightened Empress
Catherine the Second, of Russia.
The Aleutian Islands are divided into four groups. The most westerly are
Nearer, or Blizni, Islands, of which the famed Attu is the largest; the
next group to eastward is known as Rat, or Kreesi, Islands; then,
Andreanoffski Islands, named for Andreanoff, who discovered them, and
whose largest island is Atka, where it is said the baskets known as the
Attu baskets are now woven.
East of this group are the Fox, or Leesi, Islands. This is the largest
of the four Aleutian groups, and contains thirty-one islands, including
Unimak, which is the largest in the archipelago. Others of importance in
this group are Unalaska, formerly spelled Unalashka; Umnak; Akutan;
Akhun; Ukamak; and the famed volcano islands of St. John the Theologian,
or Joanna Bogoslova, and the Four Craters. Unimak Pass, the best known
and most used passage into Behring Sea, is between Unimak and Akhun
islands. Akutan Pass is between Akutan and Unalaska islands; Umnak Pass,
between Unalaska and Umnak islands. (These _u_'s are pronounced as
though spelled _oo_.)
Unalaska and Dutch Harbor are situated on the Island of Unalaska. By the
little flower-bordered path leading up and down the green, velvety
hills, these two settlements are fully two miles apart; by water, they
seem scarcely two hundred yards from one another. The steamer, after
landing at Dutch Harbor, draws her prow from the wharf, turns it gently
around a green point, and lays it beside the wharf at Unalaska.
The bay is so surrounded by hills that slope softly to the water, that
one can scarcely remember which blue water-way leads to the sea. There
is a curving white beach, from which the town of Unalaska received its
ancient name of Iliuliuk, meaning "the beach that curves." The
white-painted, red-roofed buildings follow this beach, and loiter
picturesquely back over the green level to the stream that flows around
the base of the hills and finds the sea at the Unalaska wharf.
This is one of the safest harbors in the world. It is one great,
sparkling sapphire, set deep in solid emerald and pearl. It is entered
more beautifully than even the Bay of Sitka. It is completely surrounded
by high mountains, peak rising behind peak, and all covered with a
thick, green, velvety nap and crowned with eternal pearl.
The entrance way is so winding that these peaks have the appearance of
leaning aside to let us slide through, and then drawing together behind
us, to keep out the storms; for ships of the heaviest draught find
refuge here and lie safely at anchor while tempests rage outside.
Now and then, between two enchantingly green near peaks, a third shines
out white, far, glistening mistily--covered with snow from summit to
base, but with a dark scarf of its own internal passion twisted about
its outwardly serene brow.
The _Kuro Siwo_, or Japan Current, breaks on the western end of the
Aleutian Chain; half flows eastward south of the islands, and carries
with it the warm, moist atmosphere which is condensed on the snow-peaks
and sinks downward in the fine and delicious mist that gives the grass
and mosses their vivid, brilliant, perpetual green. The other half
passes northward into Behring Sea and drives the ice back into the
"Frozen Ocean." Dall was told that the whalers in early spring have seen
large icebergs steadily sailing northward through the strait at a knot
and a half an hour, against a very stiff breeze from the north. In May
the first whalers follow the Kamchatkan Coast northward, as the ice
melts on that shore earlier than on ours. The first whaler to pass East
Cape secures the spring trade and the best catch of whales.
The color of the _Kuro Siwo_ is darker than the waters through which it
flows, and its Japanese name signifies "Black Stream." Passing on down
the coast, it carries a warm and vivifying moisture as far southwest as
Oregon. It gives the Aleutians their balmy climate. The average winter
temperature is about thirty degrees above zero; and the summer
temperature, from fifty to sixty degrees.
The volcano Makushin is the noted "smoker" of this island, and there is
a hot spring, containing sulphur, in the vicinity, from which loud,
cannon-like reports are frequently heard. The natives believe that the
mountains fought together and that Makushin remained the victor. These
reports were probably supposed to be fired at his command, as warnings
of his fortified position to any inquisitive peak that might chance to
fire a lava interrogation-point at him.
In June, and again in October, of 1778, Cook visited the vicinity,
anchoring in Samghanooda Harbor. There he was visited by the commander
of the Russian expedition in this region, Gregorovich Ismailoff. The
usual civilities and gifts were exchanged. Cook sent the Russian some
liquid gifts which were keenly appreciated, and was in return offered a
sea-otter skin of such value that Cook courteously declined it,
accepting, instead, some dried fish and several baskets of lily root.
The Russian settlement was at Iliuliuk, which was distant several miles
from Samghanooda. Several of the members of Cook's party visited the
settlement, notably Corporal Ledyard, who reported that it consisted of
a dwelling-house and two storehouses, about thirty Russians, and a
number of Kamchatkans and natives who were used as servants by the
Russians. They all lived in the same houses, but ate at three different
tables.
Cook considered the natives themselves the most gentle and inoffensive
people he had ever "met with" in his travels; while as to honesty, "they
might serve as a pattern to the most civilized nation upon earth." He
was convinced, however, that this disposition had been produced by the
severities at first practised upon them by the Russians in an effort to
subdue them.
Cook described them as low of stature, but plump and well-formed,
dark-eyed, and dark-haired. The women wore a single garment,
loose-fitting, of sealskin, reaching below the knee--the parka; the men,
the same kind of garment, made of the skin of birds, with the feathers
worn against the flesh. Over this garment, the men wore another made of
gut, which I have elsewhere described under the name of kamelinka, or
kamelayka. All wore "oval-snouted" caps made of wood, dyed in colors and
decorated with glass beads.
The women punctured their lips and wore bone labrets. "It is as
uncommon, at Oonalashka, to see a man with this ornament as to see a
woman without it," he adds.
The chief was seen making his dinner of the raw head of a large halibut.
Two of his servants ate the gills, which were cleaned simply "by
squeezing out the slime." The chief devoured large pieces of the raw
meat with as great satisfaction as though they had been raw oysters.
These natives lived in barabaras. (This word is pronounced with the
accent on the second syllable; the correct spelling cannot be vouched
for here, because no two authorities spell it in the same way.)
They were usually made by forming shallow circular excavations and
erecting over them a framework of driftwood, or whale-ribs, with double
walls filled with earth and stones and covered over with sod.
The roofs contained square openings in the centre for the escape of
smoke; and these low earth roofs were used by the natives as family
gathering places in pleasant weather. Here they would sit for hours,
doing nothing and gazing blankly at nothing.
The entrance was through a square hole in, or near, the roof. It was
reached by a ladder, and descent into the interior was made in the same
way, or by means of steps cut in a post. A narrow dark tunnel led to the
inner room, which was from ten to twenty feet in diameter.
These barabaras were sometimes warmed only by lamps; but usually a fire
was built in the centre, directly under the opening in the roof. Mats
and skins were placed on shelves, slightly elevated above the floor,
around the walls. Many persons of both sexes and all ages lived in these
places; frequently several dwellings were connected by tunnels and had
one common hole-entrance. The filth of these airless habitations was
nauseating.
Their household furniture consisted of bowls, spoons, buckets, cans,
baskets, and one or two Russian pots; a knife and a hatchet were the
only tools they possessed.
The huts were lighted by lamps made of flat stones which were hollowed
on one side to hold oil, in which dry grass was burned. Both men and
women warmed their bodies by sitting over these lamps and spreading
their garments around them.
The natives used the bidarka here, as elsewhere.
They buried their dead on the summits of hills, raising little hillocks
over the graves. Cook saw one grave covered with stones, to which every
one passing added a stone, after the manner fancied by Helen Hunt
Jackson a hundred years later; and he saw several stone hillocks that
had an appearance of great antiquity.
In Unalaska to-day may still be seen several barabaras. They must be
very old, because the native habitations of the coast are constructed
along the lines of the white man's dwellings at the present time. They
add to the general quaint and picturesque appearance of the town,
however. Their sod roofs are overgrown with tall grasses, among which
wild flowers flame out brightly.
(Unalaska is pronounced Ooe-na-las'-ka, the _a_'s having the sound of
_a_ in arm. Aleutian is pronounced in five syllables: Ae-le-oo'-shi-an,
with the same sound of _a_.)
The island of Unalaska was sighted by Chirikoff on his return to
Kamchatka, on the 4th of September, 1741.
The chronicles of the first expeditions of the Russian traders--or
promyshleniki, as they were called--are wrapped in mystery. But it is
believed that as early as 1744 Emilian Bassof and Andrei Serebrennikof
voyaged into the islands and were rewarded by a catch of sixteen hundred
sea-otters, two thousand fur-seals, and as many blue foxes.
Stephan Glottoff was the first to trade with the natives of Unalaska,
whom he found peaceable and friendly. The next, however, Korovin,
attempted to make a settlement upon the island, but met with repulse
from the natives, and several of his party were killed.
Glottoff returned to his rescue, and the latter's expedition was the
most important of the earlier ones to the islands. On his previous visit
he had found the highly prized black foxes on the island of Unalaska,
and had carried a number to Kamchatka.
I have related elsewhere the story of the atrocities perpetrated upon
the natives of these islands by the early promyshleniki. During the
years between 1760 and 1770 the natives were in active revolt against
their oppressors; and it was not until the advent of Solovioff the
Butcher that they were tortured into the mild state of submission in
which they were found by Cook in 1778, and in which they have since
dwelt.
* * * * *
Father Veniaminoff made the most careful study of the Aleutians,
beginning about 1824. It has been claimed that this noble and devout
priest was so good that he perceived good where it did not exist; and
his statements concerning his beloved Aleutians are not borne out by
the promyshleniki. Considering the character of the latter, I prefer to
believe Veniaminoff.
The most influential Aleuts were those who were most successful in
hunting, which seemed to be their highest ambition. The best hunters
possessed the greatest number of wives; and they were never stinted in
this luxury. Even Veniaminoff, with his rose-colored glasses on, failed
to discover virtue or the faintest moral sense among them.
"They incline to sensuality," he put it, politely. "Before the teachings
of the Christian religion had enlightened them, this inclination had
full sway. The nearest consanguinity, only, puts limits to their
passions. Although polygamy was general, nevertheless there were
frequently secret orgies, in which all joined.... The bad example and
worse teachings of the early Russian settlers increased their tendency
to licentiousness."
Child-murder was rare, owing to the belief that it brought misfortune
upon the whole village.
Among the half-breeds, the character of the dark mother invariably came
out more strongly than that of the Russian father. They learned readily
and intelligently, and fulfilled all church duties imposed upon them
cheerfully, punctually, and with apparent pleasure.
Under the teaching of Veniaminoff, the Aleuts were easily weaned from
their early Pantheism, and from their savage songs and dances, described
by the earlier voyagers. They no longer wore their painted masks and
hats, although some treasured them in secret.
The successful hunter, in times of famine or scarcity of food, shared
with all who were in need. The latter met him when his boat returned,
and sat down silently on the shore. This is a sign that they ask for
aid; and the hunter supplies them, without receiving, or expecting,
either restitution or thanks. This generosity is like that of the people
of Belkoffski; it comes from the heart.
The Aleutians were frequently intoxicated; but this condition did not
lead to quarrelling or trouble. Murder and attempts at murder were
unknown among them.
If an Aleut were injured, or offended, after the introduction of
Christianity, he received and bore the insult in silence. They had no
oaths or violent epithets in their language; and they would rather
commit suicide than to receive a blow. The sting that lies in cruel
words they dreaded as keenly.
Veniaminoff found that the Aleuts would steal nothing more than a few
leaves of tobacco, a few swallows of brandy, or a little food; and these
articles but rarely.
The most striking trait of character displayed by the Aleut was, and
still is, his patience. He never complained, even when slowly starving
to death. He sat by the shore; and if food were not offered to him, he
would not ask. He was never known to sigh, nor to groan, nor to shed
tears.
These people were found to be very sensitive, however, and capable of
deep emotion, even though it was never revealed in their faces. They
were exceedingly fond of, and tender with, their children, and readily
interpreted a look of contempt or ridicule, which invariably offended in
the highest degree.
The most beautiful thing recorded of the Aleut is that when one has done
him a favor or kindness, and has afterward offended him, he does not
forget the former favor, but permits it to cancel the offence.
They scorn lying, hypocrisy, and exaggeration; and they never betray a
secret. They are so hospitable that they will deny themselves to give to
the stranger that is in need. They detest a braggart, but they never
dispute--not even when they know that their own opinion is the correct
one.
Veniaminoff admitted that the Aleuts who had lived among the Russians
were passionately addicted to the use of liquor and tobacco. But even
with their drunkenness, their uncleanness, and their immorality, the
Aleutian character seems to have possessed so many admirable, and even
unusual, traits that, if the training and everyday influences of these
people had been of a different nature from what they have been since
they lost Veniaminoff, they would have, ere this, been able to overcome
their inherited and acquired vices, and to have become useful and
desirable citizens.
They were formerly of a revengeful nature, but after coming under the
influence of Veniaminoff, no instance of revenge was discovered by him.
They learned readily, with but little teaching, not only mechanical
things, but those, also, which require deep thought--such as chess, at
which they became experts.
One became an excellent navigator, and made charts which were followed
by other voyagers for many years. Others worked skilfully in ivory, and
the dark-eyed women wove their dreams into the most precious basketry of
the world.