Viewed from a point at sea about 7 miles E. N. E., off Tolstoi Mees:

these characteristic swarms of water-fowl, arries and choochkies,

stirred up by an approach of the steamer, encircle the whole island

in this manner, and give notice to a mariner, in thick weather, of

the proximity of that island long before it can be seen]

St. George has an area of about twenty-seven square miles; it has

twenty-nine miles of coast-line, of which only two and a quarter

are visited by the fur-seals, and which is in fact all the eligible

landing-ground afforded them by the structure of the island. Nearly

half of the shore of St. Paul is a sandy beach, while on St. George

there is less than a mile of it all put together, namely: a few

hundred yards in front of the village, the same extent on the

Garden Cove beach, southeast side, and less than half a mile at

Zapadnie on the south side.

Just above the Garden Cove, under the overhanging bluffs, several

thousand sea-lions hold exclusive, though shy, possession. Here

there is a half-mile of good landing. On the north shore of the

island, three miles west from the village, a grand bluff wall of

basalt and tufa intercalated rises abruptly from the sea to a sheer

height of nine hundred and twenty feet at its reach of greatest

elevation: thence, dropping a little, runs clear around the island to

Zapadnie, a distance of nearly ten miles, without affording a single

passage-way up or down to the sea that thunders at its base. Upon its

innumerable narrow shelf-margins, and in its countless chinks and

crannies, and back therefrom over an extended area of lava-shingled

inland ridges and terraces, millions upon millions of water-fowl

breed during the summer months.

The general altitude of St. George, though in itself not great, has,

however, an average three times higher than that of St. Paul, the

elevation of which is quite low, and slopes gently down to the sea

east and north; St. George rises abruptly, with exceptional spots

for landing. The loftiest summit on St. George, the top of the hill

right back to the southward of the village, is nine hundred and

thirty feet, and is called by the natives Ahluckeyak. That on St.

Paul, as I have before said, is Bogaslov Hill, six hundred feet. All

elevations on either island, fifteen or twenty feet above sea-level,

are rough and hummocky, with the exception of those sand-dune tracts

at St. Paul and the summits of the cinder hills, on both islands.

Weathered out, or washed from the basalt and pockets of olivine

on either island, are aggregates of augite, seen most abundant on

the summit slopes of Ahluckeyak Hill, St. George. Specimens from

stratified bands of old, friable, gray lavas, so conspicuous on the

shore of this latter island, show an existence of hornblende and

vitreous felspar in considerable quantity, while on the south shore,

near Garden Cove, is a large dike of a bluish and greenish gray

phonolite, in which numerous small crystals of spinel are found. A

dike, with well-defined walls, of old close-grained, clay-colored

lava, is near the village of St. George, about a quarter of a mile

east from the landing, in the face of those reddish breccia bluffs

that rise from the sea. It is the only example of the kind on the

islands. The bases or foundations of the Pribylov Islands are, all of

them, basaltic; some are compact and grayish-white, but most of them

exceedingly porous and ferruginous.[100] Upon this solid floor are

many hills of brown and red tufa, cinder-heaps, etc. Polavina Sopka,

the second point in elevation on St. Paul Island, is almost entirely

built up of red scoria and breccia; so is Ahluckeyak Hill, on St.

George, and the cap to the high bluffs opposite. The village hill at

St. Paul, Cone hill, the Einahnuhto peaks, Crater Hill, North Hill,

and Little Polavina are all ash-heaps of this character. The bluffs

at the shore of Polavina Point, St. Paul, show in a striking manner

a section of the geological structure of the island. The tufas on

both islands, at the surface, decompose and weather into the base of

good soil, which the severe climate, however, renders useless to good

husbandmen. There is not a trace of granitic or of gneissoid rocks

found _in situ_. Metamorphic boulders have been collected along the

beaches and pushed up by heavy ice-floes which have brought them down

from Siberian coasts far away to the northwest. The dark-brown tufa

bluffs and the breccia walls at the east landing of St. Paul Island,

known as “Black Bluffs,” rise suddenly from the sea sixty to eighty

feet, with stratified horizontal lines of light-gray calcareous

conglomerate, or cement, in which are embedded sundry fossils

characteristic of and belonging to the Tertiary Age, such as _Cardium

grœnlandicum_, _C. decoratum_, and _Astarte pectunculata_, etc. This

is the only locality within the purview of the Pribylov Islands

where any palæontological evidence of their age can be found. These

specimens, as indicated, are exceedingly abundant; I brought down a

whole series, gathered there at the east landing or “Navastock,” in a

short half-hour’s search and labor.

Although small quantities of drift-wood lodge at all points of the

coast, yet the greatest amount is found on the south shore, and

thence around to Garden Cove; this drift-timber is usually wholly

stripped of its bark, principally pine and fir sticks, some of them

quite large, eighteen inches or two feet in diameter. Several years

occur when a large driftage will be thrown or stranded here; then

long intervals of many seasons will elapse with scarcely a log or

stick coming ashore. I found at Garden Cove, in June, 1873, the

well-preserved husk of a cocoanut, cast up by the surf on the beach:

did I not know that it was most undoubtedly thrown over by some

whaler in these waters, not many hundred miles away at the farthest,

I should have indulged in a pretty reverie as to its path in drifting

from the South Seas to this lonely islet. I presume, however, that

the timber which the sea brings for the Pribylov Islands is that

borne down upon the annual floods of the Kuskokvim and Nooshagak

Rivers on the mainland, and to the east-northeastward, a trifle more

than two hundred and twenty-five miles; it comes, however, in very

scant supply. I saw very little drift-wood on St. Matthew Island; but

on the eastern shore of St. Lawrence there was an immense aggregate,

which unquestionably came from the Yukon mouth.

The fact that fur-seals frequent these islands and those of Bering

and Copper, on the Russian side, to the exclusion of other land,

seems at first odd or singular, to say the least; but when we come

to examine the subject we find that those animals, when they repair

hither to rest for two or three months on the land, as they must do

by their habit during the breeding-season, require a cool, moist

atmosphere, imperatively coupled with firm, well-drained land,

or dry broken rocks or shingle, rather, upon which to take their

positions and remain undisturbed by the weather and the sea for a

lengthy period of reproduction. If the rookery-ground is hard and

flat, with an admixture of loam or soil, puddles are speedily formed

in this climate, where it rains almost every day, and when not

raining, rain-fogs take rapid succession and continue the saturation,

making thus a muddy slime, which very quickly takes the hair off the

animals whenever it plasters or wherever it fastens on them; hence

they carefully avoid any such landing. If they occupy a sandy shore

the rain beats that material into their large, sensitive eyes, and

into their fur, so they are obliged, from simple irritation, to leave

and return to the sea for relief.

This inspection of some natural characteristics of the Pribylov group

renders it quite plain that the Seal Islands, now under discussion,

offer to the _Pinnipedia_ very remarkable advantages for landing,

especially so at St. Paul, where the ground of basaltic rock and of

volcanic tufa or cement slopes up from many points gradually above

the sea, making thereby a perfectly adapted resting-place for any

number, from a thousand to millions, of those intelligent animals,

which can lie out here from May until October every year in perfect

physical peace and security. There is not a rod of ground of this

character offered to these animals elsewhere in all Alaska, not on

the Aleutian chain, not on the mainland, not on St. Matthew or St.

Lawrence. Both of the latter islands were surveyed by myself, with

special reference to this query, in 1874; every foot of St. Matthew

shore-line was examined, and I know that the fur-seal could not rest

on the low clayey flats there in contentment a single day; hence

he never has rested there, nor will he in the future. As to St.

Lawrence, it is so ice-bound and snow-covered in spring and early

summer, to say nothing of numerous other physical disadvantages, that

it never becomes of the slightest interest to fur-seals.

When Pribylov, in taking possession, landed on St. George a part

of his little ship’s crew, July, 1786, he knew that, as it was

uninhabited, it would be necessary to establish a colony there from

which to draft laborers to do all killing, skinning, and curing

of the peltries; therefore he and his associates, and his rivals

after him, imported natives of Oonalashka and Atkha—passive, docile

Aleutes. They founded their first village a quarter of a mile to the

eastward of one of the principal rookeries on St. George, now called

“Starry Arteel,” or “Old Settlement”; a village was also located at

Zapadnie, and a succession of barraboras planted at Garden Cove.

Then, during the following season, more men were brought up from

Atkha and taken over to St. Paul, where five or six rival traders

posted themselves on the north shore, near and at “Maroonitch,” and

at the head of the Big Lake, among the sand-dunes there. They were

then, as they are now, somewhat given to riotous living if they

only had the chance, and the ruins of the Big Lake settlement are

pleasantly remembered by the descendants of those pioneers to-day, on

St. Paul, who take off their hats as they pass by to affectionately

salute, and call the place “Vesolia Mista,” or “Jolly Spot”—the

aged men telling me, in a low whisper, that “in those good old days

they had plenty of rum.” But, when the pressure of competition

became great, another village was located at Polavina, and still

another at Zapadnie, until the activity and unscrupulous energy

of all these rival settlements well-nigh drove out and eliminated

the seals in 1796. Three years later the whole territory of Alaska

passed into the hands of the absolute power vested in the Russian

American Company. These islands were in the bill of sale, and early

in 1799 the competing traders were turned off neck and heels from

them, and the Pribylov group passed under the control of a single

man, the iron-willed Baranov. The people on St. Paul were then all

drawn together, for economy and warmth, into a single settlement at

Polavina. Their life in those days must have been miserable. They

were mere slaves, without the slightest redress from any insolence

or injury which their masters might see fit, in petulance or brutal

orgies, to inflict upon them. Here they lived and died, unnoticed and

uncared for, in large barracoons half under ground and dirt-roofed,

cold and filthy. Along toward the beginning or end of 1825, in order

that they might reap the advantage of being located best to load and

unload ships, the Polavina settlement was removed to the present

village site, as indicated on the map, and the natives have lived

there ever since.

On St. George the several scattered villages were abandoned, and

consolidated at the existing location some years later, but for a

different reason. The labor of bringing the seal-skins over to Garden

Cove, which is the best and surest landing, was so great, and that

of carrying them from the north shore to Zapadnie still greater,

that it was decided to place the consolidated settlement at such

a point between them, on the north shore, that the least trouble

and exertion of conveyance would be necessary. A better place,

geographically, for the business of gathering the skins and salting

them down at St. George cannot be found on the island, but a poorer

place for a landing it is difficult to pick out, though in this

respect there is not much choice outside of Garden Cove.

Up to the time of the transfer of the territory and leasing of the

islands to the Alaska Commercial Company, in August, 1870, these

native inhabitants all lived in huts or sod-walled and dirt-roofed

houses, called “barrabkies,” partly under ground. Most of these huts

were damp, dark, and exceedingly filthy: it seemed to be the policy

of a short-sighted Russian management to keep them so, and to treat

the natives not near so well as they treated the few hogs and dogs

which they brought up there for food and for company. The use of

seal-fat for fuel, caused the deposit upon everything within doors of

a thick coat of greasy, black soot, strongly impregnated with a damp,

moldy, and indescribably offensive odor. They found along the north

shore of St. Paul and at Northeast Point, occasionally scattered

pieces of drift-wood, which was used, carefully soaked anew in water

if it had dried out, split into little fragments, and, trussing the

blubber with it when making their fires, the combination gave rise

to a roaring, spluttering blaze. If this drift-wood failed them at

any time when winter came round, they were obliged to huddle together

beneath skins in their cold huts, and live or die, as the case might

be. But the situation to-day has changed marvellously. We see here

now at St. Paul, and on St. George, in the place of the squalid,

filthy habitations of the immediate past, two villages, neat,

warm, and contented. Each family lives in a snug frame-dwelling;

every house is lined with tarred paper, painted, furnished with a

stove, with out-houses, etc., complete; streets laid out, and the

foundations of these habitations regularly plotted thereon. There

is a large church at St. Paul, and a less pretentious but very

creditable structure of the same character on St. George; a hospital

on St. Paul, with a full and complete stock of drugs, and skilled

physicians on both islands to take care of the people, free of

cost. There is a school-house on each island, in which teachers are

also paid by the company eight months in the year, to instruct the

youth, while the Russian Church is sustained entirely by the pious

contributions of the natives themselves on these two islands, and

sustained well by each other. There are eighty families, or eighty

houses, on St. Paul, in the village, with twenty or twenty-four such

houses to as many families at St. George, and eight other structures.

The large warehouses and salt-sheds of the Alaska Commercial Company,

built by skilful mechanics, as have been the dwellings just referred

to, are also neatly painted; and, taken in combination with the

other features, constitute a picture fully equal to the average

presentation of any one of our small eastern towns There is no

misery, no downcast, dejected, suffering humanity here to-day. These

Aleutes, who enjoy as a price of their good behavior, the sole right

to take and skin seals for the company, to the exclusion of all other

people, are known to and by their less fortunate neighbors elsewhere

in Alaska as the “Bogatskie Aloutov,” or the “rich Aleutes.” The

example of the agents of the Alaska Commercial Company, on both

islands, from the beginning of its lease, and the course of the

Treasury agents during the last eight or nine years, have been

silent but powerful promoters of the welfare of these people. They

have maintained perfect order; they have directed neatness, and

cleanliness, and stimulated industry, such as those natives had never

before dreamed of.[101] The chief source of sickness used to arise

from the wretched character of the barrabkies in which they lived;

but it was, at first, a very difficult matter to get frame-houses

to supplant successfully the sod-walled and dirt-roofed huts of the

islands.

Many experiments, however, were made, and a dozen houses built, ere

the result was as good as the style of primitive housing, when it

had been well done and kept in best possible repair. In such a damp

climate, naturally, a strong moldy smell pervades all inclosed rooms

which are not thoroughly heated and daily dried by fires; and, in

the spring and fall, frost works through and drips and trickles

like rain adown the walls. The present frame-houses occupied by the

natives owe their dryness, their warmth, and protection from the

piercing “boorgas” to the liberal use of stout tarred paper in the

lining. An overpowering mustiness of the hallways, out-houses, and,

in fact, every roofed-in spot, where a stove is not regularly used,

even in the best-built residences, is one of the first disagreeable

sensations which the new arrivals always experience when they take

up their quarters here. Perhaps, if it were not for the nasal

misery that floats in from the killing-grounds to the novice, this

musty, moldy state of things up here would be far more acute, as an

annoyance, than it is now. The greater grief seems to soon fully

absorb the lesser one; at least, in my own case, I can affirm the

result.

As they lived in early time, it was a physical impossibility for them

to increase and multiply;[102] but, since their elevation and their

sanitary advancement are so marked, it may be reasonably expected

that those people for all time to come will at least hold their own,

even though they do not increase to any remarkable degree. Perhaps

it is better that they should not. But it is exceedingly fortunate

that they do sustain themselves so as to be, as it were, a prosperous

corporate factor, entitled to the exclusive privilege of labor on

these islands. As an encouragement for their good behavior the Alaska

Commercial Company, in pursuance of its enlightened treatment of

the whole subject, so handsomely exhibited by its housing of these

people, has assured them that so long as they are capable and willing

to perform the labor of skinning the seal-catch every year, so long

will they enjoy the sole privilege of participating in that toil

and its reward. This is wise on the part of the company, and it is

exceedingly happy for the people. They are, of all men, especially

fitted for the work connected with the seal-business—no comment is

needed—nothing better in the way of manual labor, skilled and rapid,

could be rendered by any body of men, equal in numbers, living under

the same circumstances, all the year round. They appear to shake

off the periodic lethargy of winter and its forced inanition, to

rush with the coming of summer into the severe exercise and duty

of capturing, killing, and skinning the seals, with vigor and with

persistent and commendable energy.

To-day only a very small proportion of the population are descendants

of the pioneers who were brought here by the several Russian

companies in 1787 and 1788; a colony of one hundred and thirty-seven

souls, it is claimed, principally recruited at Oonalashka and Atkha.

The Aleutes on the islands as they appear to-day have been so mixed

in with Russian, Koloshian, and Kamschadale blood that they present

characteristics, in one way or another, of all the various races of

men from the negro up to the Caucasian. The predominant features

among them are small, wide-set eyes, broad and high cheek-bones,

causing the jaw, which is full and square, to often appear peaked;

coarse, straight, black hair, small, neatly-shaped feet and hands,

together with brownish-yellow complexion. The men will average in

stature five feet four or five inches; the women less in proportion,

although there are exceptions to this rule among them, some being

over six feet in height, and others are decided dwarfs. The manners

and customs of these people to-day possess nothing in themselves of

a barbarous or remarkable character aside from that which belongs

to an advanced state of semi-civilization. They are exceedingly

polite and civil, not only in their business with the agents of the

company on the seal-islands, but among themselves, and they visit,

the one with the other, freely and pleasantly, the women being great

gossips; but, on the whole, their intercourse is subdued, for the

simple reason that the topics of conversation are few: and, judging

from their silent but unconstrained meetings, they seem to have a

mutual knowledge, as if by sympathy, as to what may be occupying

each other’s minds, rendering speech superfluous. It is only when

under the influence of beer or strong liquor that they lose their

naturally quiet and amiable disposition. They then relapse into low,

drunken orgies and loud, brawling noises.[103] Having been so long

under the control and influence of the Russians, they have adopted

many Slavic customs, such as giving birthday-dinners, naming their

children, etc. They are remarkably attached to their church, and no

other form of religion could be better adapted or have a firmer hold

upon the sensibilities of the people. Their inherent chastity and

sobriety cannot be commended. They have long since thrown away the

uncouth garments of Russian rule—those shaggy dog-skin caps, with

coats half seal and half sea-lion—for a complete outfit, _cap-à-pie_,

such as our own people buy in any furnishing house, the same boots,

socks, underclothing, and clothing, with ulsters and ulsterettes;

but the violence of the wind prevents their selecting the hats of

our fashion and sporting fraternity. As for the women, they, too,

have kept pace and even advanced to the level of the men, for in

these lower races there is usually more vanity displayed by the

masculine element than the feminine, according to my observation.

In other words, I have noticed a greater desire among the young men

than among the young women of savage and semi-civilized people to

be gaily dressed, and to look fine; but the visits of the wives of

our treasury officials and the company’s agents to these islands

during the last ten years, bringing with them a full outfit, as

ladies always do, of everything under the sun that women want to

wear, has given the native female mind an undue expansion up there

and stimulated it to unwonted activity. They watch the cut of the

garments and borrow the patterns, and some of them are very expert

dressmakers to-day. When the Russians controlled affairs, the women

were the hewers of drift-wood and the drawers of water. At St. Paul

there was no well of drinking-fluid about the village, nor within

half a mile of the village. There was no drinking-water unless it was

caught in reservoirs, and the cistern-water, owing to those particles

of seal-fat soot which fall upon the roofs of the houses, is rendered

undrinkable, so that the supply for the town until quite recently

used to be carried by women from two little lakes at the head of the

lagoon, a mile and a half as the crow flies from the village, and

right under Telegraph Hill. This is quite a journey, and when it is

remembered that they drink so much tea, and that water has to go

with it, some idea of the labor of the old and young females can be

derived from an inspection of the map. Latterly, within the last four

or five years, the company have opened a spring less than half a mile

from the “gorode,” which they have plumbed and regulated, so that it

supplies them with water now and renders the labor next to nothing,

compared with all former difficulty. But to-day, when water is wanted

in the Aleutian houses at St. Paul, the man has to get it—the woman

does not; he trudges out with a little wooden firkin or tub on his

back and brings it to the house.

Some of the natives save their money; yet there are very few

among them, perhaps not more than a dozen, who have the slightest

economical tendency. What they cannot spend for luxuries, groceries,

and tobacco they manage to get away with at the gaming-table. They

have their misers and their spendthrifts, and they have the usual

small proportion who know how to make money, and then how to spend

it. A few among them who are in the habit of saving have opened a

regular bank-account with the company. Some of them have to-day two

or three thousand dollars saved, drawing an interest of nine per cent.

When the ships arrive and go, the severe and necessary labor of

lightering their cargoes off and on from the roadsteads where they

anchor is principally performed by these people, and they are paid so

much a day for their labor: from fifty cents to one dollar, according

to the character of the service they render. This operation, however,

is much dreaded by the ship-captains and sea-going men, whose habits

of discipline and automatic regularity and effect of working render

them severe critics and impatient coadjutors of the natives, who, to

tell the truth, hate to do anything after they have pocketed their

reward for sealing; and when they do labor after this, they regard it

as an act of very great condescension on their part.

As they are living to-day up there, there is no restraint, such as

the presence of policemen, courts of justice, fines, etc., which we

employ for the suppression of disorder and maintenance of the law

in our own land. They understand that if it is necessary to make

them law-abiding, and to punish crime, such officers will be among

them, and hence, perhaps, is due the fact that from the time that

the Alaska Commercial Company has taken charge, in 1870, there has

not been one single occasion where the simplest functions of a

justice of the peace would or could have been called in to settle any

difficulty. This speaks eloquently for their docile nature and their

amiable disposition.

These people are singularly affectionate and indulgent toward

their children. There are no “bald-headed” tyrants in our homes as

arbitrary and ruthless in their rule as are those snuffly babies

and young children on the Seal Islands. While it is very young, the

Aleut gives up everything to the caprice of his child, and never

crosses its path or thwarts its desire; the “deetiah” literally take

charge of the house; but as soon as these callow members of the

family become strong enough to bear burdens and to labor, generally

between twelve and fifteen years of age, they are then pressed into

hard service relentlessly by their hitherto indulgent parents. The

extremes literally meet in this application.

They have another peculiarity: when they are ill, slightly or

seriously, no matter which, they maintain or affect a stolid

resignation, and are patient to positive apathy. This is not due to

deficiency of nervous organization, because those among them who

exhibit examples of intense liveliness and nervous activity behave

just as stolidly when ill as their more lymphatic townsmen do. Boys

and girls, men and women, all alike, are patient and resigned when

ailing and under treatment; but it is a bad feature after all,

inasmuch as it is well-nigh impossible to rally a very sick man who

himself has no hope, and who seems to mutely deprecate every effort

to save his life. The principal cause of death among the people,

by natural infirmity, on the Seal Islands is the varying forms

of consumption and bronchitis, always greatly aggravated by that

inherited scrofulous taint or stain of blood which was, in one way

or another, flowing through the veins of their recent progenitors,

both here and throughout the Aleutian Islands. There is nothing worth

noticing in the line of nervous diseases, unless it be now and then

the record of a case of alcoholism superinduced by excessive quass

drinking. The “makoolah” intemperance among these people, which was

not suppressed until 1876, was a chief factor to an immediate death

of infants; for, when they were at the breast, their mothers would

drink quass to intoxication, and the stomachs of newly-born Aleutes

or Creoles could not stand the infliction which they received, even

second-hand. Had it not been for this wretched spectacle, so often

presented to my eyes in 1872-73, I should hardly have taken the

active steps which I did to put the nuisance down; for it involved

me, at first, in a bitter personal controversy, which, although

I knew at the outset was inevitable, still it weighed nothing in

the scales against the evil itself. A few febrile disorders are

occurring, yet they yield readily to good treatment.

The inherent propensity of man to gamble is developed here to a

very appreciable degree, but it in no way whatever suggests the

strange gaming love and infatuation with which all Indians and Eskimo

elsewhere of Alaska are possessed. The chief delight of men and boys

in the two villages is to stand on the street corners “pitching”

half-dollars. So devoted, indeed, have I found the native mind to

this hap-hazard sport, that frequently I would detect groups of them

standing out in pelting gales of wind and of rain, “shying” silver

coins at the little dirt-driven pegs. A few of them, men and women,

play cards with much skill and intelligence.

One of the peculiarities[104] of these people is that they seldom

undress when they go to bed—neither the men, women, nor children;

and also that at any and all hours of the night during the summer

season, when I have passed in and out of the village to and from the

rookeries, I always found several of the natives squatting before

their house-doors or leaning against the walls, stupidly staring out

into the misty darkness of the fog, or chatting one with the other

over their pipes. A number of the inhabitants, by this disposition,

are always up and around throughout the settlement during the entire

night and day. In olden times, and even recently, these involuntary

sentinels of the night have often startled the whole village by

shouting at the top of their voices the pleasant and electric

announcement of the “ship’s light!” or they have frozen it with

superstitious horror at daybreak by then reciting some ghostly vision

that had appeared to them.

The urchins play marbles, spin tops, and fly kites, intermittently,

with all the feverish energy displayed by such youth of our own

surroundings; they frolic at base-ball, and use “shinny” sticks

with great volubility and activity. The girls are, however, much

more repressed, and, though they have a few games, and play quietly

with quaintly dressed dolls, yet they do not appear to be possessed

of that usual feminine animation so conspicuously marked in our

home-life.

The attachment which the natives have for their respective islands

was well shown to me in 1874. Then a number of St. George people were

taken over to St. Paul, temporarily, to do the killing incidental to

a reduction of the quota of twenty-five thousand for their island

and a corresponding increase at St. Paul. They became homesick

immediately, and were never tired of informing the St. Paul natives

that St. George was a far handsomer and more enjoyable island to live

upon; that walking over the long sand reaches of “Pavel” made their

legs grievously weary, and that the whole effect of this change of

residence was “ochen scootchnie.” Naturally the ire of the St. Paul

people rose at once, and they retorted in kind, indicating the rocky

surface of St. George and its great inferiority as a seal-island. I

was surprised at the genuine feeling on both sides, because, as far

as I could judge from a residence on each island, it was a clear case

of tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum between them as to opportunities and

climate necessary for a pleasurable existence. The natives themselves

are of one and common stock, though the number of Creoles on St.

George is relatively much larger than on St. Paul. Consequently the

tone of the St. George village is rather more sprightly and vivacious.

The question is naturally asked, How do these people employ

themselves during the long nine months of every year after the close

of the sealing season and until it begins again, when they have

little or absolutely nothing to do? It may be answered that they

simply vegetate, or, in other words, are entirely idle, mentally and

physically, during most of this period. But, to their credit, let

it be said that mischief does not employ their idle hands. They

are passive killers of time, drinking tea and sleeping, with a few

disagreeable exceptions, such as the gamblers. There are a half-dozen

of these characters at St. Paul, and perhaps as many at St. George,

who spend whole nights at their sittings, even during the sealing

season, playing games of cards taught by Russians and persons who

have been on the island since the transfer of the territory; but

the majority of the men, women, and children, not being compelled

to exert themselves to obtain any of the chief or even the least

of the necessaries of life, such as tea and hard bread, sleep the

greater portion of the time, when not busy in eating and in the daily

observances of that routine belonging to the Greek Catholic Church.

The teachings, pomp, and circumstance of the religious observances of

this faith alone preserve these people from absolute stagnation. In

obedience to its promptings they gladly attend church very regularly.

They also make and receive calls on their saints’ days, and such

days are very numerous. The natives add to these entertainments of

their saints’ day and birth-festivals, or “Emannimiks,” the music

of accordions and violins. Upon the former and its variation,

the concertina, they play a number of airs, and are real fond of

the noise. A great many of the women in particular can render

indifferently a limited selection of tunes, many of which are the

old battle-songs, so popular during the rebellion, woven into weird

Russian waltzes and love-ditties, which they have jointly gathered

from their former masters and our soldiers, who were quartered here

in 1869. From the Russians and the troops also they have learned to

dance various figures, and have been taught to waltz. These dances,

however, the old folks do not enjoy very much. They will come in and

sit around and look at the young performers with stolid indifference;

but if they manage to get a strong current of tea setting in their

direction, nicely sugared and toned up, they revive and join in the

mirth. In old times they never danced here unless they were drunk,

and it was the principal occupation of the amiable and mischievous

treasury agents and others in those early days to stimulate this

beery fun.

Seal-meat is their staple food, and in the village of St. Paul they

consume on an average fully five hundred pounds a day the year round,

and they are, by the permission of the Secretary of the Treasury,

allowed occasionally to kill five thousand or six thousand seal-pups,

or an average of twenty-two to thirty young “kotickie” for each man,

woman, and child in the settlements. The pups will dress ten pounds

each. This shows an average consumption of nearly six hundred pounds

of seal-meat by each person, large and small, during the year. To

this diet the natives add a great deal of butter and many sweet

crackers. They are passionately fond of butter. No epicure at home

or butter-taster in Goshen knows or appreciates that article better

than these people do. If they could get all that they desire, they

would consume one thousand pounds of butter and five hundred pounds

of sweet crackers every week, and indefinite quantities of sugar.

The sweetest of all sweet teeth are found in the jaw of the ordinary

Aleut. But it is of course unwise to allow them full swing in this

matter, for they would turn their stomachs into fermenting-tanks

if they had free access to an unlimited supply of saccharine food.

The company issues them two hundred pounds a week. If unable to get

sweet crackers, they will eat about three hundred pounds of hard

or pilot bread every week, and, in addition to this, nearly seven

hundred pounds of flour at the same time. Of tobacco they are allowed

fifty pounds per week; candles, seventy-five pounds; rice, fifty

pounds. They burn, strange as it may seem, kerosene-oil here to the

exclusion of that seal-fat which literally overruns the island. They

ignite and consume over six hundred gallons of kerosene-oil a year

in the village of St. Paul alone. They do not fancy vinegar very

much; perhaps fifty gallons a year are used up there. Mustard and

pepper are sparingly used, one to one pound and a half a week for

the whole village. Beans they peremptorily reject; for some reason

or other they cannot be induced to use them. Those who go about the

vessels contract a taste for split-pea soup, and a few of them are

sold in the village-store. Salt meat, beef or pork, they will take

reluctantly, if it is given to and pressed upon them; but they will

never buy it. I remember, in this connection, seeing two barrels

of prime salt pork and a barrel of prime mess salt beef opened in

the company’s store shortly after my arrival in 1872, and, though

the people of the village were invited to help themselves, I think

I am right in saying these three barrels were not emptied when I

left the island in 1873. They use a very little coffee during the

year—not more than one hundred pounds—but of tea a great deal. I do

not know exactly—I cannot find among my notes a record as to that

article—but I can say that they each drink not less than a gallon of

tea per diem. The amount of this beverage which they sip from the

time they rise in the morning until they go to bed late at night is

astounding. Their “samovars,” and latterly the regular tea-kettles

of our American make, are bubbling and boiling from the moment the

housewife bestirs herself at daybreak until the fire goes out when

she sleeps. It should be stated in this connection that they are

supplied with a regular allowance of coal every year by the company,

_gratis_, each family being entitled to a certain amount, which

alone, if economically used, keeps them warm all winter in their new

houses; but for those who are extravagant, and are itching to spend

their extra wages, an extra supply is always kept in the store-houses

of the company for sale. Their appreciation of and desire to possess

all the canned fruit that is landed from the steamer is marked to a

great degree. If they had the opportunity, I doubt whether a single

family on that island to-day would hesitate to bankrupt itself in

purchasing this commodity. Potatoes they sometimes demand, as well

as onions, and perhaps if these vegetables could be brought here and

kept to an advantage the people would soon become very fond of them.

Most of these articles of food mentioned heretofore are purchased by

the natives in the company’s store at either island. This food and

the wearing apparel, crockery, etc., which the company bring up here

for the use of the people, is sold to them at the exact cost price

of the same, plus the expenses of transportation, and many times

within my knowledge they have bought goods here at these stores at

less rates than they would have been subjected to in San Francisco.

The object of the company is not, under any circumstances, to make a

single cent of profit out of the sale of these goods to the natives.

They aim only to clear the cost and no more. Instructions to this

effect are given to its agents, while those of the Government are

called upon to take notice of the fact.

The store at St. Paul, as well as that at St. George, has its regular

annual “opening” after the arrival of the steamer in the spring, to

which the natives seem to pay absorbed attention. They crowd the

buildings day and night, eagerly looking for all the novelties in

food and apparel. These slouchy men and shawl-hooded women, who pack

the area before the counters, appear to feel as deep an interest in

the process of shopping as the most enthusiastic votaries of that

business do in our own streets. It certainly seems to give them the

greatest satisfaction of their lives on the Pribylov Islands.

With regard to ourselves up here in so far as a purely physical

existence goes, the American method of living on and in the climate

of the Pribylov Islands is highly conducive to strength and health.

Tea and coffee, seasoned with condensed milk and lump sugar; hot

biscuits, cakes and waffles; potatoes, served in every method of

cookery; salt salmon, codfish, and corned beef; mess pork, and, once

a week, a fresh roast of beef or steaks; all the canned vegetables

and fruits; all the potted sauces, jams and jellies; pies, puddings

and pastries; and the exhaustive list of purely seafaring dishes,

such as pea and bean, barley and rice soups, curries and maccaroni;

these constitute the staples and many of the luxuries with which

the agents of the Alaska Commercial Company prolong their existence

while living here in the discharge of their duties, and to which they

welcome their guests for discussion and glad digestion.

A piano on St. Paul, in the company house; an assorted library,

embracing over one thousand volumes, selected from standard authors

in fiction, science, and history, together with many other unexpected

adjuncts of high comfort for body and soul, will be found on these

islands, wholly unlocked for by those who first set foot upon them.

A small Russian printed library has also been given by the company

to the natives on each island for their special entertainment. The

rising generation of sealers, however, if they read at all, will read

our own typography.

Before leaving the consideration of these people, who are so

intimately associated with and blended into the business on these

islands, it may be well to clearly define the relation existing

between them, the Government, and the company leasing the islands.

When Congress granted to the Alaska Commercial Company of San

Francisco the exclusive right of taking a certain number of fur-seals

every year, for a period of twenty years on these islands, it did

so with several reservations and conditions, which were confided in

their detail to the Secretary of the Treasury. This officer and the

president of the Alaska Commercial Company agreed upon a code of

regulations which should govern their joint action in regard to the

natives. It was a simple agreement that these people should have a

certain amount of dried salmon furnished them for food every year, a

certain amount of fuel, a school-house, and the right to go to and

come from the islands as they chose; and also the right to work or

not, understanding that in case they did not work, their places would

and could be supplied by other people who would work.

The company, however, has gone far beyond this exaction of the

Government; it has added an inexpressible boon of comfort, in the

formation of those dwellings now occupied by the natives, which

was not expressed nor thought of at the time of the granting of

the lease. An enlightened business-policy suggested to the company

that it would be much better for the natives, and much better

for company too, if these people were taken out of their filthy,

unwholesome hovels, put into habitable dwellings, and taught to live

cleanly, for the simple reason that by so doing the natives, living

in this improved condition, would be able physically and mentally,

every season when the sealing work began, to come out from their

long inanition and go to work at once with vigor and energetic

persistency. The sequel has proved the wisdom of the company.

Before this action on their part, it was physically impossible

for the inhabitants of St. Paul or St. George Islands to take the

lawful quota of one hundred thousand seal-skins annually in less

than three or four working months. They take them in less than

thirty working days now with the same number of men. What is the

gain? Simply this, and it is everything: the fur-seal skin, from

the 14th of June, when it first arrives, as a rule, up to the 1st

of August, is in prime condition; from that latter date until the

middle of October it is rapidly deteriorating, to slowly appreciate

again in value as it sheds and renews its coat; so much so that it

is practically worthless in the markets of the world. Hence, the

catch taken by the Alaska Commercial Company every year is a prime

one, first to last—there are no low-grade “stagey” skins in it; but

under the old regimen, three-fourths of the skins were taken in

August, in September and even in October, and were not worth their

transportation to London. Comment on this is unnecessary; it is the

contrast made between a prescient business-policy, and one that was

as shiftless and improvident as language can well devise.[105]

The company found so much difficulty in getting the youth of

the villages to attend their schools, taught by our own people,

especially brought up there and hired by the company, that they have

adopted the plan of bringing one or two of the brightest boys down

every year and putting them into our schools, so that they may grow

up here and be educated, in order to return and serve as teachers

there. This policy is warranted by the success which attended an

experiment made at the time when I was up there first, whereby a

son of the chief was carried down and over to Rutland, Vt., for his

education, remained there four years, then returned and took charge

of the school on St. Paul, which he has had until recently, with

the happiest results in increased attendance and attention from the

children. But, of course, so long as the Russian Church service is

conducted in the Russian language, we will find on the islands more

Russian-speaking people than our own. The non-attendance at school

was not and is not to be ascribed to indisposition on the part of the

children and parents. One of the oldest and most intelligent of the

natives told me, explanatory of their feeling and consequent action,

that he did not, nor did his neighbors, have any objection to the

attendance of their children on our English school; but, if their

boys and young men neglected their Russian lessons they knew not who

were going to take their places, when they died, in his church, at

the christenings, and at their burial. To any one familiar with the

teachings of the Greek Catholic faith, the objection of old Philip

Vollkov seems reasonable. I hope, therefore, that, in the course of

time, the Russian Church service may be voiced in English; not that

I want to substitute any other religion for it—far from it; in my

opinion it is the best one we could have for these people—but until

this substitution of our language for the Russian is done, no very

satisfactory work, in my opinion, will be accomplished in the way of

an English education on the Seal Islands.

The Alaska Commercial Company deserves and will receive a brief but

comprehensive notice at this point. In order that we may follow

it to these islands, and clearly and correctly appreciate the

circumstance which gave it footing and finally the control of the

business, I will pass back and review a chain of evidence adduced in

this direction from the time of our first occupation, in 1867, of the

territory of Alaska.

It will be remembered by many people, that when we were ratifying

the negotiation between our Government and that of Russia, it became

painfully apparent that nobody in this country knew anything about

the subject of Russian America. Every school-boy knew where it was

located, but no professor or merchant, however wise or shrewd, knew

what was in it. Accordingly, immediately after the purchase was

made and the formal transfer effected, a large number of energetic

and speculative men, some coming from New England even, but most

of them residents of the Pacific coast, turned their attention to

Alaska. They went up to Sitka in a little fleet of sail and steam

vessels, but among their number it appears there were only two of

our citizens who knew of or had the faintest appreciation as to the

value of the Seal Islands. One of these, Mr. H. M. Hutchinson, a

native of New Hampshire, and the other, a Captain Ebenezer Morgan, a

native of Connecticut, turned their faces in 1868 toward them; also

an ex-captain of the Russian-American Company, Gustav Niebaum, who

became a citizen immediately after the transfer, knowing of their

value, chartered a small vessel, and hastened so as to land there a

few days even before Captain Morgan arrived in the _Peru_, a whaling

ship.

Mr. Hutchinson gathered his information at Sitka—Captain Morgan

had gained his years before by experience on the South Sea sealing

grounds. Mr. Hutchinson represented a company of San Francisco or

California capitalists when he landed on St. Paul; Captain Morgan

represented another company of New London capitalists and whaling

merchants. They arrived almost simultaneously, Morgan a few days

or weeks anterior to Hutchinson. He had quietly enough commenced

to survey and pre-empt the rookeries on the islands, or, in other

words, the work of putting stakes down and recording the fact of

claiming the ground, as miners do in the mountains; but later agreed

to co-operate with Mr. Hutchinson. These two parties passed that

season of 1868 in exclusive control of those islands, and they took

an immense number of seals. They took so many that it occurred to

Mr. Hutchinson unless something was done to check and protect these

wonderful rookeries, which he saw here for the first time, and

which filled him with amazement, that they would be wiped out by the

end of another season; although he was the gainer then, and would

be perhaps at the end, if they should be thus eliminated, yet he

could not forbear saying to himself that it was wrong and should

not be. To this Captain Morgan also assented, and Captain Niebaum

joined with them cordially. In the fall of 1868 Mr. Hutchinson and

Captain Morgan, by their personal efforts, interested and aroused

the Treasury Department and Congress, so that a special resolution

was enacted declaring the Seal Islands a governmental reservation,

and prohibiting any and all parties from taking seals thereon until

further action by Congress. In 1869, seals were taken on those

islands, under the direction of the Treasury Department, for the

subsistence of the natives only; and in 1870 Congress passed the

present law, for the protection of the fur-bearing animals on those

islands, and under its provisions, and in accordance therewith, after

an animated and bitter struggle in competition, the Alaska Commercial

Company, of which Mr. Hutchinson was a prime organizer, secured the

award and received the franchise which it now enjoys and will enjoy

for some time yet. The company is an American corporation, with a

charter, rules, and regulations. They employ a fleet of vessels,

sail and steam: four steamers, a dozen or fifteen ships, barks, and

sloops. Their principal occupation and attention is given naturally

to the Seal Islands, though they have stations scattered over the

Aleutian Islands and that portion of Alaska west and north of Kadiak.

No post of theirs is less than five hundred or six hundred miles from

Sitka.

Outside of the Seal Islands all trade in this territory of Alaska

is entirely open to the public. There is no need of protecting the

fur-bearing animals elsewhere, unless it may be by a few wholesome

general restrictions in regard to the sea-otter chase. The country

itself protects the animals on the mainland and other islands by its

rugged, forbidding, and inhospitable exterior.

The treasury officials on the Seal Islands are charged with the

careful observance of every act of the company; a copy of the

lease and its covenant is conspicuously posted in their office; is

translated into Russian, and is familiar to all the natives. The

company directs its own labor, in accordance with the law, as it

sees fit; selects its time of working, etc. The natives themselves

work under the direction of their own chosen foremen, or “toyones.”

These chiefs call out the men at the break of every working-day,

divide them into detachments according to the nature of the service,

and order their working. All communications with the laborers on the

sealing-ground and the company passes through their hands, those

chiefs having every day an understanding with the agent of the

company as to his wishes, and they govern themselves thereby.

The company pays forty cents for the labor of taking each skin. The

natives take the skins on the ground, each man tallying his work and

giving the result at the close of the day to his chief or foreman.

When the skins are brought up and counted into the salt-houses,

where the agent of the company receives them from the hands of the

natives, the two tallies usually correspond very closely, if they

are not entirely alike. When the quota of skins is taken, at the

close of two, three, or four weeks of labor, as the case may be,

the total sum for the entire catch is paid over in a lump to the

chiefs, and these men divide it among the laborers according to

their standing as workmen, which they themselves have exhibited on

their special tally-sticks. For instance, at the annual divisions

or “catch” settlement, made by the natives on St. Paul Island among

themselves, in 1872, when I was present, the proceeds of their work

for that season in taking and skinning seventy-five thousand seals,

at forty cents per skin, with extra work connected with it, making

the sum of $30,637.37, was divided among them in this way: There were

seventy-four shares made up, representing seventy-four men, though

in fact only fifty-six men worked, but they wished to give a certain

proportion to their church, a certain proportion to their priest,

and a certain proportion to their widows; so they water their stock,

commercially speaking.[106]

It will be remembered that at the time the question of leasing

the islands was before Congress much opposition to the proposal

was made, on several grounds, by two classes, one of which argued

against a “monopoly,” the other urging that the Government itself

would realize more by taking the whole management of the business

into its own hands. At that time far away from Washington, in

the Rocky Mountains, I do not know what arguments were used in

the committee-rooms, or who made them; but, since my careful and

prolonged study of the subject on the ground itself, and of the trade

and its conditions, I am now satisfied that the act of June, 1870,

directing the Secretary of the Treasury to lease the seal-islands

of Alaska to the highest bidder, under the existing conditions and

qualifications, did the best and the only correct and profitable

thing that could have been done in the matter, both with regard to

the preservation of the seal-life in its original integrity, and the

pecuniary advantage of the treasury itself. To make this statement

perfectly clear, the following facts, by way of illustration, should

be presented:

First. When the Government took possession of these interests in

1868 and 1869, the gross value of a seal-skin laid down in the best

market, at London, was less in some instances and in others but

slightly above the present tax and royalty paid upon it by the Alaska

Commercial Company.

Second. Through the action of the intelligent business-men who took

the contract from the Government in stimulating and encouraging the

dressers of the raw material, and in taking sedulous care that

nothing but good skins should leave the island, and in combination

with leaders of fashion abroad, the demand for the fur, by this

manipulation and management, has been wonderfully increased.

Third. As matters now stand, the greatest and best interests of the

lessees are identical with those of the Government; what injures

one instantly injures the other. In other words, both strive to

guard against anything that shall interfere with the preservation

of the seal-life in its original integrity, and both having it to

their interest, if possible, to increase that life; if the lessees

had it in their power, which they certainly have not, to ruin these

interests by a few seasons of rapacity, they are so bonded and so

environed that prudence prevents it.

Fourth, The frequent changes in the office of the Secretary of the

Treasury, who has very properly the absolute control of the business

as it stands, do not permit upon his part that close, careful

scrutiny which is exercised by the lessees, who, unlike him, have

but their one purpose to carry out. The character of the leading

men among them is enough to assure the public that the business is

in responsible hands, and in the care of persons who will use every

effort for its preservation and its perpetuation, as it is so plainly

their best end to serve. Another great obstacle to the success of

the business, if controlled entirely by the Government, would be

encountered in disposing of the skins after they had been brought

down from the islands. It would not do to sell them up there to the

highest bidder, since that would license the sailing of a thousand

ships to be present at the sale. The rattling of their anchor-chains

and the scraping of their keels upon the beaches of the two little

islands would alone drive every seal away and over to the Russian

grounds in a remarkably short space of time. The Government would

therefore need to offer them at public auction in this country:

that would be simple history repeating itself—the Government would

be at the mercy of any well-organized combination of buyers. Its

agents conducting the sale could not counteract the effect of such a

combination as can the agents of a private corporation, who may look

after their interest in all the markets of the world in their own

time and in their own way, according to the exigencies of the season

and the demand, and who are supplied with money which they can use,

without public scandal, in the manipulation of the market. On this

ground I feel confident in stating that the Treasury of the United

States receives more money, net, under the system now in operation

than it would by taking the exclusive control of the business. Were

any capable government officer supplied with, say, $100,000, to

expend in “working the market,” and intrusted with the disposal of

one hundred thousand seal-skins wherever he could do so to the best

advantage of the Government, and were this agent a man of first-class

ability and energy, I think it quite likely that the same success

might attend his labor in the London market that distinguishes the

management of the Alaska Commercial Company. But imagine the cry of

fraud and embezzlement that would be raised against him, however

honest he might be! This alone would bring the whole business into

positive disrepute, and make it a national scandal. As matters

are now conducted there is no room for scandal—not one single

transaction on the islands but what is as clear to investigation

and accountability as the light of the noonday sun; what is done is

known to everybody, and the tax now laid by the Government upon, and

paid into the treasury every year by the Alaska Commercial Company

yields alone a handsome rate of interest on the entire purchase-money

expended for the ownership of all Alaska.

It is frequently urged with great persistency, by misinformed and

malicious authority, that the lessees can and do take thousands of

skins in excess of the law, and this catch in excess is shipped _sub

rosa_ to Japan from the Pribylov Islands. To show the folly of such

a move on the part of the Company, if even it were possible, I will

briefly recapitulate the conditions under which the skins are taken.

The natives of St. Paul and St. George do themselves, in the manner

I have indicated, all the driving and skinning of the seals for the

company. No others are permitted or asked to land upon the islands

to do this work, so long as the inhabitants of the islands are equal

to it. They have been equal to it and they are more than equal to

it. Every skin taken by the natives is counted by themselves, as

they get forty cents per pelt for that labor, and, at the expiration

of each day’s work in the field, the natives know exactly how many

skins have been taken by them, how many of these skins have been

rejected by the company’s agent because they were carelessly cut and

damaged in skinning—usually about three-fourths of one per cent. of

the whole catch—and they have it recorded every evening by those

among them who are charged with the duty. Thus, were one hundred and

one thousand skins taken, instead of one hundred thousand allowed by

law, the natives would know it as quickly as it was done, and they

would, on the strength of their record and their tally, demand the

full amount of their compensation for the extra labor; and were any

ship to approach the islands, at any hour, these people would know it

at once, and would be aware of any shipment of skins that might be

attempted. It would then be the common talk among the three hundred

and ninety-eight inhabitants of the two islands, and it would be a

matter of record, open to any person who might come upon the ground

charged with investigation.

Furthermore, these natives are constantly going to and from

Oonalashka, visiting their relations in the Aleutian settlements,

hunting for wives, etc. On the mainland they have intimate

intercourse with bitter enemies of the company, with whom they

would not hesitate to talk over the whole state of affairs on the

islands, as they always do; for they know nothing else and think of

nothing else and dream of nothing else. Therefore, should anything

be done contrary to the law, the act could and would be reported by

these people. The Government, on its part, through its four agents

stationed on these islands, counts these skins into the ship, and

one of their number goes down to San Francisco upon her. There the

collector of the port details experts of his own, who again count

them all out of the hold, and upon that record the tax is paid and

the certificate signed by the Government.

It will therefore at once be seen, by examining the state of affairs

on the islands, and the conditions upon which the lease is granted,

that the most scrupulous care in fulfilling the terms of the contract

is compassed, and that this strict fulfilment is the most profitable

course for the lessees to pursue; and that it would be downright

folly in them to deviate from the letter of the law, and thus lay

themselves open at any day to discovery, the loss of their contract,

and forfeiture of their bonds. Their action can be investigated at

any time, any moment, by Congress; of which they are fully aware.

They cannot bribe these three hundred and ninety-eight people on the

islands to secrecy, any more successfully than they could conceal

their action from them on the sealing fields; and any man of average

ability could go, and can go, among these natives and inform himself

as to the most minute details of the catch, from the time the lease

was granted up to the present hour, should he have reason to suspect

the honesty of the Treasury agents. The road to and from the islands

is not a difficult one, though it is travelled only once a year.

FOOTNOTES:

[85] It was with peculiar pleasure that the writer undertook, at

the suggestion of Professor Baird, who is the honored and beloved

secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the task of examining into

and reporting upon this subject; and it is also gratifying to add,

that the statements of fact and the hypotheses evolved therefrom

by him in 1874 have, up to the present time, been verified by an

inflexible sequence of events on the ground itself. The concurrent

testimony of the numerous agents of the Treasury Department and

the Government generally, who have trodden in his footsteps, amply

testifies to their stability.

[86] Pribylov, the discoverer of the Seal Islands, was a native of

“old Russia.” His father was one of the surviving sailors of the

_St. Peter_, which was wrecked, with Bering in command, November

4, 1741, on Bering Island. The only reference which I can find

to him is the vague incidental expressions, used here and there

throughout an extended series of lengthy Russian letters published

by Techmainov, as illustrative of the condition of affairs in regard

to the Russian American Company. Pribylov was, when cruising in

1783-86 for the rumored seal-grounds, merely the first mate of the

sloop _St. George_. The captain and part owner was one M. Subov, who

was a member of a trading association then well organized in Alaska,

and widely known as the “_Laybaidev Lastochin_” Company. It does not

appear that Pribylov took any part in the business of sealing other

than that of remaining in charge of the company’s vessels. He died

while in discharge of these duties at Sitka, March, 1796, on his ship

_The Three Saints_.

Pribylov himself called these islands of his discovery after Subov;

but the Russians then, and soon after unanimously, indicated the

group by its present well-deserved title, “_Ostrovie Pribylova_.”

[87] Veniaminov says that he does feel inclined to believe this

story, as the peaks of Oonimak can be seen occasionally from St.

Paul. I have no hesitation in saying that they were never observed

by any mortal eye from the Pribylov group. The wide expanse of

water between these points, and the thick, foggy air of Bering Sea,

especially so at the season mentioned in this story above, will

always make the mountains of Oonimak invisible to the eye from Saint

Paul Island. A _mirage_ is almost an impossibility. It may have

been much more probable if the date was a winter one.—Veniaminov:

Zapieskie ob Oonalashkenskaho Otdayla, etc., 1842.

[88] A large amount of information in regard to the climate of these

islands has been collected and recorded by the signal service, United

States Army, and similar observations are still continued by the

agents of the Alaska Commercial Company.

[89] The rise and fall of tide at the Seal Islands I carefully

watched one whole season at St. Paul. The irregularity, however,

of ebb and flow is the most prominent feature of the matter. The

highest rise in the spring-tides was a trifle over four feet, while

that of the neap-tides not much over two. Owing to the nature of the

case, it is impossible to prepare a tidal calendar for Alaska, above

the Aleutian Islands, which will even faintly foreshadow a correct

registration in advance.

[90] The mosses at Kamminista, St. Paul, are the finest examples of

their kind on the islands; they are very perfect, and many species

are beautiful.

[91] That spruce-trees can be made to live transplanted from

indigenous localities to the barren slopes of the Aleutian Islands,

has been demonstrated; but in living these trees do nothing else,

and scarcely grow to any appreciable degree. A few spruce were

transferred to Oonalashka when Veniaminov was at work there in

1830-35. They are still standing and keep green, but the change

which such a long lapse of time should produce by growth has been

as difficult to determine as it is to find evidence of increased

altitude to the mountains around them since these Sitkan trees were

planted with pious hope at their feet fifty years ago. Though I can

readily understand why the salmon-berries of Oonalashka should not

do well on the Seal Islands (though I think they would at the Garden

Cove of St. George), yet I believe that the huckleberries of that

section would thrive at many places if carefully transplanted to

these localities: the southern slopes of Cemetery Ridge at Zapadnie;

the southern slopes of Telegraph Hill, and eastern fall of Tolstoi

peninsula down to the shore of the lagoon. They might also do well

set out at picked places around the Big Lake and on Northeast Point,

around the little lake thereon. If these bushes really throve here,

they would be the means of adding greatly to the comfort of the

inhabitants; for the Oonalashka huckleberry is an exceeding pleasant,

juicy fruit, large and well adapted for canning and preserving.

Having less sunshine here than at Illoolook, it may not ripen up as

well flavored, but will, I think, succeed. The roots of the bushes

when brought up from Oonalashka in April or early May should be kept

moist by wet-moss wrappings from the moment they are first taken up

until they are reset, with the tops well pruned back, on the Pribylov

Islands. The experiment is surely worth all the trouble of making,

and I hope it will be done.

[92] Blue foxes were also, and are, natives of the Commander Islands.

Steller describes their fearlessness when the shipwrecked crew of the

_St. Peter_ landed there, November 6, 1741.

In regard to these foxes the Pribylov natives declare that when the

islands were first occupied by their ancestors, 1786-87, the fur

was invariably _blue_; that the present smoky blue, or ashy indigo

color, is due to the coming of white foxes across on the ice from the

mainland to the eastward. The white-furred _vulpes_ is quite numerous

on the islands to-day. I should judge that perhaps one-fifth of the

whole number were of this color; they do not live apart from the blue

ones, but evidently breed “in and in.” I notice that Veniaminov,

also, makes substantially the same statement; only differing by

charging this deterioration of the blue foxes’ fur to a deportation

from outside of red foxes, on ice-floes, and adds that the natives

always hunted down these “krassnie peeschee” as soon as their

presence was known; hence my inability, perhaps, to see any sign of

their posterity in 1872-76.

The presence of these animals on the Pribylov Islands is a real

source of happiness to the natives, especially so to the younger

ones. The little pup-foxes make pets and playfellows for the

children, while hunting the adults during the winter gives wholesome

employment to the mind and body of the native who does so. They are

trapped in common dead-falls, steel spring-clips, or beaver traps,

and shot. A very large portion of the gossip on the islands is in

relation to this business.

[93] The temerity of the fox is wonderful to contemplate, as it goes

on a full run or stealthy tread up and down and along the faces of

almost inaccessible bluffs, in search of old and young birds and

their nests and eggs, for which the “peeschee” have a keen relish.

The fox always brings an egg up in its mouth, and, carrying it back

a few feet from the brink of the precipice, leisurely and with gusto

breaks the larger end and sucks the contents from the shell. One

of the curious sights of my notice, in this connection, was the

sly, artful, and insidious advances of Reynard at Tolstoi Mees, St.

George, where, conspicuous and elegant in its fluffy white dress, it

cunningly stretched on its back as though dead, making no sign of

life whatever, save to gently hoist its thick brush now and then;

whereupon many dull, curious sea-birds, _Graculus bicristatus_, in

their intense desire to know all about it, flew in narrowing circles

overhead, lower and lower, closer and closer, until one of them came

within the sure reach of a sudden spring and a pair of quick snapping

jaws, while the gulls and others, rising safe and high above,

screamed out in seeming contempt for the struggles of the unhappy

“shag,” and rendered hideous approbation.

[94] Using the egg of our domestic fowl, the hen, as a standard, the

following note made in regard to the size and quality of the eggs

of the sea-birds of these waters may not be uninteresting to many.

When daily served on St. George, during June and July, with eggs of

indigenous sea-fowl, I recorded my gastronomic comparisons which

occurred then as I ate them. Here follows a recapitulation:

Fresh-laid eggs of “lupus,” or _F. glacialis_: Best eggs known to the

islands; can be soft-boiled or fried, etc., and are as good as our

own hens’ eggs; the yolk is light and clear; the size thereof is in

shape and bulk like a duck’s egg; it has a white shell. Season: June

1st to 15th, inclusive; scarce on St. Paul, and not abundant on St.

George.

Fresh-laid eggs of “arrie,” or _L. arra_: Very good; can be

soft-boiled or fried; are best scrambled; yolks are dark; no strange

taste whatever to them; pyriform in shape; large as a goose-egg;

shell gayly-colored; they are exceedingly abundant on Walrus Island

and St. George; tons of them. Season: June 25th to July 10th,

inclusive.

Fresh-laid eggs of gulls, _Laridæ_: Perceptibly strong; cannot be

relished unless in omelettes; yolks very dark; size and shape of

our hen’s egg; shell dark, clay-colored ground, mottled. Season:

June 5th to July 20th, inclusive; they are in moderate supply only.

The other eggs in the list, such as those of the “choochkie,” the

“shag,” and the several varieties of water-fowl which breed here,

are never secured in sufficient quantity to be of any consideration

as articles of diet. It is, perhaps, better that a scarcity of their

kind continue, judging from the strong smack of the choochkie’s, the

repulsive taint of the shag’s, and the “twang” of the sea-parrot’s,

all of which I tasted as a matter of investigation.

[95] The St. George natives have caught codfish just off the Tolstoi

Head early in June; but it is a rare occurrence. By going out two

or three miles from the village at either island during July and

August the native fisherman usually captures large halibut—not in

abundance, however. The St. Paul people, as well as their relatives

on St. George, fish in small “two-hole” bidarkies. They go out

together in squads of four to six. One man alone in the kyack is not

able to secure a “bolshoi poltoos.” The method, when the halibut is

hooked, is to call for your nearest neighbor in his bidarka, who

paddles swiftly up. You extend your paddle to him, retaining your own

hold, and he grasps it, while you seize his in turn, thus making it

impossible to capsize, while the large and powerfully struggling fish

is brought to the surface between the canoes and knocked on the head.

It is then towed ashore and carried in triumph to its lucky captor’s

house.

[96] _Gasterosteus cataphractus_; and _pungitius_; _beautiful

sticklebacks_.

[97] United States Revenue-marine cutter _Reliance_, June to October,

1874.

[98] To visit Walrus Island in a boat, pleasantly and successfully,

it is best to submit to the advice and direction of the natives. They

leave the village in the evening, and, taking advantage of the tide,

proceed along the coast as far as the bluffs of Polavina, where they

rest on their oars, doze, and smoke until the dawning of daylight, or

later, perhaps, until the fog lifts enough for them to get a glimpse

of the islet which they seek. They row over then in about two hours

with their bidarrah. They leave, however, with perfect indifference

as to daylight or fog. Nothing but a southeaster can disturb their

tranquillity when they succeed in landing on Walrus Island. They

would find it as difficult to miss striking the extended reach of

St. Paul on their return, as they found it well-nigh impossible to

push off from Polavina and find “Morzovia” in a thick, windy fog and

running sea.

Otter Island, or “Bobrovia,” is easily reached in almost any weather

that is not very stormy, for it looms up high above the water. It

takes the bidarrah about two hours to row over from the village,

while I have gone across once in a whale-boat with less than one

hour’s expenditure of time, sail, and oars _en route_.

[99] That profile of the south shore, between the village hill and

Southwest Point, taken from the steamer’s anchorage off the village

cove, shows its characteristic and remarkable alternation of rookery

slope and low sea-level flats. This point of viewing is slightly more

than half a mile true west of the village hill, to a sight which

brings Bogaslov summits and Tolstoi Head nearly in line. At Zapadnie

is the place where the Russian discoverers first landed in 1787,

July 10th. With the exception of that bluffy west-end Einahnuhto

cliffs, the whole coast of St. Paul is accessible, and affords an

easy landing, except at the short reach of “Seethah” and the rookery

points, as indicated. The great sand beach of this island extends

from Lukannon to Polavina, thence to Webster’s house, Novastoshnah;

from there over, and sweeping back and along the north shore to

Nahsayvernia headland, then between Zapadnie and Tolstoi, together

with the beautiful though short sand of Zoltoi. This extensive and

slightly broken sandy coast is not described as peculiar to any other

island in Alaska, or of Siberian waters.

There are no running streams at any season of the year on St. Paul;

but an abundance of fresh water is plainly afforded by the numerous

lakes, all of which are “svayjoi,” save the lagoon estuary. The four

big reefs which I have located are each awash in every storm that

blows from seaward over them; they are all rough, rocky ledges. That

little one indicated in English Bay caused the wrecking of a large

British vessel in 1847, which was coming in to anchor just without

Zapadnie; a number of the crew were “masslucken,” so my native

informant averred. Most of the small amount of drift-wood that is

found on this island is procured at Northeast Point and Polavina; the

north shore from Maroonitch to Tsammanah has also been favored with

sea-waif logs in exceptional seasons, to the exclusion of all other

sections of the coast. The natives say that the St. George people

get much more drift-wood every year, as a rule, than they do on St.

Paul. From what I could see during my four seasons of inspection,

they never have got much, under the best of circumstances, on either

island. They pay little attention to it now, and gather what they do

during the winter season, going to Polavina and the north shore with

sleds, on which they hoist sails after loading there, and scud home

before strong northerly blasts.

Captain Erskine informs me that the water is free and bold all around

the north shore, from Cross Hill to Southwest Point; no reefs or

shoals up to within half a mile of land anywhere. English Bay is very

shallow, and no sea-going vessel should attempt to enter it that

draws over six feet.

[100] The profile of the coast of St. George’s Island, which I

give on the map, presents clearly an idea of its characteristic,

bold, abrupt elevation from the sea. From the Garden Cove around to

Zapadnie beach there is no natural opportunity for a man to land;

then, again, from Zapadnie beach round to Starry Arteel there is not

a sign of a chance for an agile man to come ashore and reach the

plateau above. From Starry Arteel to the Great Eastern rookery there

is an alternation, between the several breeding-grounds, of three low

and gradual slopes of the land to sea-level; these, with the landing

at Garden Cove and at Zapadnie, are the only spots of the St. George

coast where we can come ashore. An active person can scramble up at

several steep places between the Sea Lion rookery and Tolstoi Mees,

but the rest of that extended bluffy sea-wall, which I have just

defined, is wholly inaccessible from the water. A narrow strip of

rough, rocky shingle, washed over by every storm-beaten sea, is all

that lies beneath the mural precipices.

In the spring, when snow melts on the high plateau, a beautiful

cascade is seen at Waterfall Head; its feathery, filmy, silver

ribbon of plunging water is thrown out into exquisite relief by

the rich background of that brownish basalt and tufa over which it

drops. Another pretty little waterfall is to be seen just west of

the village, at this season only, where it leaps from a low range of

bluffs to the sea. The first-named cascade is more than four hundred

feet in sheer unbroken precipitation.

One or two small, naked, pinnacle rocks, standing close in, and

almost joined to the beach at the Sea Lion rookery, constitute the

only outlying islets or rocks; a stony kelp-bed at Zapadnie, and one

off the Little Eastern rookery, both of limited reach seaward, are

the only hindrances to a ship’s sailing boldly round the island, even

to scraping the bluffs, at places, safely with her yard-arms. I have

located the Zapadnie shoal by observation from the bluffs above;

while Captain Baker, of the _Reliance_, sounded out the other.

[101] Surprise has often been genuine among those who inquire, over

the fact that there is no law officer here at either village, and

wonder is expressed why such provision is not made by the Government.

But when the following facts relative to this subject are understood,

it is at once clear that a justice of the peace and his constabulary

would be entirely useless if established on the seal-islands. As

these natives live here, they live as a single family in each

settlement, having one common purpose in life and only one; what

one native does, eats, wears, or says, is known at once to all the

others, just as whatsoever any member of our household may do will

soon be known to us all who belong to its organization; hence if they

steal or quarrel among themselves, they keep the matter wholly to

themselves, and settle it to their own satisfaction. Were there rival

villages on the islands and diverse people and employment, then the

case would be reversed, and the need of legal machinery apparent.

[102] The population of St. Paul in 1880 was 298. Of these, 14 were

whites (13 males and 1 female), 128 male Aleutians, and 156 females.

On St. George we have 92 souls: 4 white males, 35 male Aleutians, and

53 females, a total population on these islands of 390. This is an

increase of between thirty and forty people since 1873. Prior to 1873

they had neither much increased nor diminished for fifty years, but

would have fallen off rapidly (since the births were never equal to

the deaths) had not recruits been regularly drawn from the mainland

and other islands every season when the ships came up.

[103] This evil of habitual and gross intoxication under Russian

rule was not characteristic of these islands alone. It was universal

throughout Alaska. Sir George Simpson, speaking of the subject when

in Sitka, April, 1842, says: “Some reformation certainly was wanted

in this respect, for of all the drunken as well as of all the dirty

places that I had visited, New Archangel (Sitka) was the worst. On

the holidays in particular, of which, Sundays included, there are one

hundred and sixty-five in the year, men, women, and even children

were to be seen staggering about in all directions.”—Simpson: Journey

Around the World, 1841-42, p. 88.

[104] I was told by a very bright Russian, who spent a season here,

1871-72, as special agent of the Treasury Department, that the

Aleutian ancestors of these people when they were converted and

baptized into the Greek Catholic Church received their names, brand

new, from the fertile brains of priests, who, after exhausting the

common run of Muscovitic titles, such as our Smiths and Joneses, were

compelled to fall back upon some personal characteristics of the new

claimant for civilized nomenclature. Thus we have to-day on the Seal

Islands a “Stepan Bayloglazov,” or, “Son of a White Eye,” “Oseep

Baizyahzeekov,” or “Son of Man without a Tongue.” A number of the old

Russian governors and admirals of the imperial navy are represented

here by their family names, though I do not think, from my full

acquaintance with the namesakes, that the distinguished owners in the

first place had anything to do with their physical embodiment on the

Pribylov Islands.

[105] Living as the Seal-islanders do, and doing what they do, the

seal’s life is naturally their great study and objective point. It

nourishes and sustains them. Without it they say they could not live,

and they tell the truth. Hence, their attention to the few simple

requirements of the law, so wise in its provisions, is not forced

or constrained, but is continuous. Self-interest in this respect

appeals to them keenly and eloquently. They know everything that

is done and everything that is said by anybody and by everybody in

their little community. Every seal-drive that is made, and every

skin that is taken, is recorded and accounted for by them to their

chiefs and their church, when they make up their tithing-roll at

the close of each day’s labor. Nothing can come to the islands,

by day or by night, without being seen by them and spoken of. I

regard the presence of these people on the islands at the transfer,

and their subsequent retention and entailment in connection with

the seal-business, as an exceedingly good piece of fortune, alike

advantageous to the Government, to the company, and to themselves.

[106]

37 first-class shares, at $451 22 each.

23 second-class shares, at 406 08 each.

4 third-class shares, at 360 97 each.

10 fourth-class shares, at 315 85 each.

These shares do not represent more than fifty-six able-bodied men.

In August, 1873, while on St. George Island, I was present at a

similar division, under similar circumstances, which caused them to

divide among themselves the proceeds of their work in taking and

skinning twenty-five thousand seals, at forty cents a skin, $10,000.

They made the following subdivision:

Per share.

17 shares each, 961 skins $384 40

2 shares each, 935 skins 374 00

3 shares each, 821 skins 328 40

1 share each, 820 skins 328 00

3 shares each, 770 skins 308 00

3 shares each, 400 skins 160 00

These twenty-nine shares referred to, as stated above, represent only

twenty-five able-bodied men; two of them were women. This method of

division as above given is the result of their own choice. It is an

impossible thing for the company to decide their relative merits

as workmen on the ground, so they have wisely turned its entire

discussion over to them. Whatever they do they must agree to—whatever

the company might do they possibly and probably would never clearly

understand, and hence dissatisfaction and suspicion would inevitably

arise. As it is, the whole subject is most satisfactorily settled.