walls bathing their precipitous sides in the emerald waters, and clothed with dense pine forests wherever a tree can grow.

A number of islets scattered over the surface of the bay add to the beauty of the scene. The furs collected by the company are chiefly those of seabears, sea-otters, foxes, beavers, bears, lynxes, American martens, etc., and are partly furnished by the subjects of its own territory (Aleuts, Kadjacks, Kenaïzes, Tchugatchi, Aliaskans), who are compelled to hunt on its account, and partly obtained by barter from the independent tribes of the mainland, or from the Hudson's Bay Company. The greater part is sent to Ochotsk or the Amoor, and from thence through Siberia to St. Petersburg; the rest to the Chinese ports, where the skins of the young sea-bear always find a ready market.

Of all the aboriginal tribes which inhabit the vast territory of Russian America, the most worthy of notice is that of the Aleuts. Less fortunate than their independent relatives, the Esquimaux of the north-who in the midst of privations maintain an imperturbable gayety of temper these islanders have been effectually spirit-broken under a foreign yoke. In 1817 the cruel treatment of their masters had reduced them to about a thousand; since that time their number has somewhat increased, the company having at length discovered that man is, after all, the most valuable production of a land, and that if depopulation increased still further, they would soon have no more hunters to supply them with furs.

Every Aleut is bound, after his eighteenth year, to serve the company three years; and this forced labor-tax does not seem at first sight immoderate, but if we consider that the islanders, to whom every foreign article is supplied from the warehouses of the company, are invariably its debtors, we can not doubt that as long as the Aleut is able to hunt, he is obliged to do so for the wages of a slave. The Bishop Ivan Weniaminow, who resided ten years at Unalaska, draws a picture of this people which exhibits evident marks of a long servitude. They never quarrel among each other, and their patience is exemplary. Nothing can surpass the fortitude with which they endure pain. On the other hand, they never show excessive joy; it seems impossible to raise their feelings to the pitch of delight. Even after a long fast, a child never grasps with eagerness the proffered morsel, nor does it on any occasion exhibit the mirth so natural to its age.

In hunting the marine animals, the Aleuts exhibit a wonderful skill and intrepidity. To catch the sea-otter, they assemble in April or May at an appointed spot, in their light skin boats, or baidars, and choose one of their most respected chiefs for the leader of the expedition, which generally numbers from fifty to a hundred boats. Such hunting-parties are annually organized from the Kurile Islands to Kadjack, and consequently extend their operations. over a line of 3000 miles. On the first fine day the expedition sets out and proceeds to a distance of about forty versts from the coast, when the baidars form into a long line, leaving an interval of about 250 fathoms from boat to boat, as far as a sea-otter diving out of the water can be seen, so that a row of thirty baidars occupies a space of from ten to twelve versts. When the

number of the boats is greater, the intervals are reduced. Every man now looks upon the sea with great attention. Nothing escapes the eye of the Aleut; in the smallest black spot appearing but one moment over the surface of the waters, he at once recognizes a sea-otter. The baidar which first sees the animal rows rapidly towards the spot where the creature dived, and now the Aleut, holding his oar straight up in the air, remains motionless on the spot. Immediately the whole squadron is on the move, and the long, straight line changes into a wide circle, the centre of which is occupied by the baidar with the raised oar. The otter, not being able to remain long under water, reappears, and the nearest Aleut immediately greets him with an arrow. This first attack is seldom mortal; very often the missile does not even reach its mark, and the sea-otter instantly disappears. Again the oar rises from the next baidar; again the circle forms, but this time narrower than at first; the fatigued otter is obliged to come oftener to the surface, arrows fly from all sides, and finally the animal, killed by a mortal shot, or exhausted by repeated wounds, falls to the share of the archer who has hit it nearest to the head. If several otters appear at the same time, the boats form as many rings, provided their number be sufficiently great.

The boldest of all hunters, the Aleuts of the Fox Islands, pursue the sea-otter also in winter. If, during the summer chase, the rapidity and regularity with which all the movements are performed, and the sure eye and aim of the archers command the spectator's admiration, this winter chase gives him occasion to wonder at their courage. During the severest winter-storms the otter shelters himself on the shore of some small uninhabited island or on a solitary rock, and after having carefully ascertained that no enemy is near, coils himself up and falls asleep. While the storm still rages, two Aleuts approach the rock in two single baidars from the leeward. The hunter in the foremost baidar stands upright, a gun or a club in his hand, and waits in this position till a wave brings him near to the summit of the rock. He now springs on land, and while his companion takes care of the baidar, approaches the sleeping otter and shoots it or kills it with his club. With the assistance of his companion who has remained on the water, he springs back into his baidar as soon as the crest of a wave brings it within his reach.

The sea-bear is nearly as valuable as the sea-otter, to the fur company, as the woolly skin of the young animal is the only one of the whole seal tribe which is reckoned among the finer peltry. The sea-bears are chiefly killed on the Commodore and Pribilow islands, particularly on St. Paul, where they are hunted by a certain number of Aleuts located there under Russian superintendence. The chase begins in the latter part of September, on a cold, foggy day, when the wind blows from the side where the animals are assembled on the rocky shore. The boldest huntsmen open the way, then follow the older people and the children, and the chief personage of the band comes last, to be the better able to direct and survey the movements of his men, who are all armed with clubs. The main object is to cut off the herd as quickly as possible from the sea. All the grown-up males and females are spared and allowed to escape, but most of the young animals are sentenced to death. Those

which are only four months old (their furs being most highly prized) are doomed without exception; while of the others that have attained an age of one, two, or three years, only the males are killed. For several days after the massacre, the mothers swim about the island, seeking and loudly wailing for their young.

From October 5 St. Paul is gradually deserted by the sea-bears, who then migrate to the south and re-appear towards the end of April, the males arriving first. Each seeks the same spot on the shore which he occupied during the preceding year, and lies down among the large stone blocks with which the flat beach is covered. About the middle of May the far more numerous females begin to make their appearance, and the sea-bear families take full possession of the strand. Each male is the sultan of a herd of females, varying in number according to his size and strength; the weaker brethren contenting themselves with half a dozen, while some of the sturdier and fiercer fellows preside over harems 200 strong. Jealousy and intrusion frequently give rise to terrible battles. The full-grown male sea-bear, who is about four or five times larger than the female, grows to the length of eight feet, and owes his name to his shaggy blackish fur, and not to his disposition, which is far from being cruel or savage.

Armed with a short spear, a single Aleut does not hesitate to attack the colossal whale. Approaching cautiously from behind in his baidar until he reaches the head, he plunges his weapon into the animal's flank under the fore fin, and then retreats as fast as his oar can carry him. If the spear has penetrated into the flesh, the whale is doomed; it dies within the next two or three days, and the currents and the waves drift the carcass to the next shore. Each spear has its peculiar mark by which the owner is recognized. Sometimes the baidar does not escape in time, and the whale, maddened by pain, furiously lashes the water with his tail, and throws the baidar high up into the air, or sinks it deep into the sea. The whale-fishers are highly esteemed among the Aleuts, and their intrepidity and skill well deserve the general admiration. Of course many of the whales are lost. In the summer of 1831, 118 whales were wounded near Kadjack, of which only forty-three were found. The others may have been wafted far out into the sea to regale the sharks and sea-birds, or driven to more distant shores, whose inhabitants no doubt gladly welcomed their landing. Wrangell informs us that since 1833 the Russians have introduced the use of the harpoon, and engaged some English harpooners to teach the Aleuts a more profitable method of whale-catching, but we are not told how the experiment has succeeded.

The company, besides purchasing a great quantity of walrus-teeth from the Tchuktchi of the Bering's Straits and Bristol Bay, send every year a detachment of Aleuts to the north coast of Aliaska, where generally a large number of young walruses, probably driven away by the older ones, who prefer the vicinity of the polar ice, spend the summer months.

The walruses herd on the lowest edge of the coast which is within reach of the spring tides. When the Aleuts prepare to attack the animals, they take leave of each other as if they were going to face death, being no less afraid of the tusks of the walruses than of the awkwardness of their own companions.

Armed with lances and heavy axes, they stealthily approach the walruses, and having disposed their ranks, suddenly fall upon them with loud shouts, and endeavor to drive them from the sea, taking care that none of them escape into the water, as in that case the rest would irresistibly follow and precipitate the huntsmen along with them. As soon as the walruses have been driven far enough up the strand, the Aleuts attack them with their lances, striking at them in places where the hide is not so thick, and then pressing with all their might against the spear, to render the wound deep and deadly. The slaughtered animals tumble one over the other and form large heaps, whilst the huntsmen, uttering furious shouts and intoxicated with carnage, wade through the bloody mire. They then cleave the jaws and extract the tusks, which are the chief objects of the slaughter of several thousand walruses, since neither their flesh nor their fat is made use of in the colony. The carcasses are left on the shore to be washed away by the spring tides, which soon efface the mark of the massacre, and in the following year the inexhaustible north sends new victims to the coast.

Sir George Simpson, in his " Overland Journey round the World," relates that the bales of fur sent to Kiachta are covered with walrus hide; it is then made to protect the tea-chests which find their way to Moscow, and after all these wanderings, the far-travelled skin returns again to New Archangel, where, cut into small pieces and stamped with the company's mark, it serves as a medium of exchange.

The skin of the sea-lion (Otaria Stelleri) has but little value in the furtrade, as its hair is short and coarse, but in many other respects the unwieldy animal is of considerable use to the Aleut. Its hide serves to cover his bai、 dar; with the entrails he makes his water-tight kamleika, a wide, long shirt which he puts on over his dress to protect himself against the rain or the spray; the thick webs of its flippers furnish excellent soles for his boots, and the bristles of its lip figure as ornaments in his head-dress.

Purchase of Alaska by the United States.-The Russian American Telegraph Scheme.--Whymper's Trip up the Yukon.-Dogs.-The Start.-Extempore Water-filter.--Snow-shoes.-The Frozen Yukon.---Under-ground Houses.-Life at Nulato.-Cold Weather.--Auroras.--Approach of Summer. ---Breaking-up of the Ice.-Fort Yukon.-Furs.-Descent of the Yukon.-Value of Goods.-Arctic and Tropical Life.-Moose-hunting.-Deer-corrals.--Lip Ornaments.-Canoes.--Four-post Coffin. -The Kenaian Indians.-The Aleuts.-Value of Alaska.

IN 1867 the Russian Government sold to the United States all of its posses

sions in America, comprising an area of more than 500,000 square miles, equal in extent to France, Germany, and Great Britain, stretching from 54° 40′ north latitude to the Arctic Ocean. The sum paid was about seven and a quarter millions of dollars. In this purchase is included Mount St. Elias, the highest peak in North America, rising to a height of more than 18,000 feet, and one of the loftiest single peaks on the globe. The real value of this new acquisition was quite unknown to both buyer and seller. In the southern part, and on the islands, there is considerable vegetation and forests of large trees; and it is said that there is some mineral wealth. But the greater part of the territory is essentially Arctic. It now bears the designation of the Territory of Alaska, an abbreviation of Aliaska, the name of the peninsula stretching into the North Pacific Ocean.

Little information has as yet been gained of this region. The most important is the result of a journey up the River Yukon, performed in 1866 by Mr. Frederick Whymper, an artist connected with the Telegraph Expedition. This telegraph enterprise was undertaken in the confident expectation that the ca