o2 THE JKANNKTTE AIK.TIC EXPEDITION. 



Indian then draws his knife with great deliberation, and ad- 

 dressing the bear says: 'I know yon are not afraid; but 

 neither am I. I am as brave as you arc/ Then advancing 

 cautiously, he improves the first opportunity when Bruin is 

 off his guard to give him a thrust with the knife in a vital 

 spot, and the savage has one more deed of valor to boast of 

 to his friends Avhen they gather in their dance-house to 

 'ung-to-ah,' a ceremony which consists of dancing around 

 the fire and relating, in a kind of song or chant, to the music 

 of a drum, their deeds of daring in the past, and indulging 

 in promises of still more glorious ones in the future. 



"The result of the conflict, however, is not always entirely 

 in the Indian's favor; the bear sometimes gets the best of it, 

 and handles the savage very roughly. We saw several 

 natives who bore the marks of very severe scalp wounds re- 

 ceived in encounters with bears." 



After his first visit to St. Michaels, Captain Hooper 

 steamed westward to St. Lawrence Island, to investigate the 

 reported wholesale starvation of the natives during the two 

 or three preceding winters. 



" We stopped," he says, " off the first village, about mid- 

 night of June 2oth, and found the village entirely deserted, 

 with sleds, boat-frames, paddles, spears, bows and arrows, 

 etc., strewn in everv direction. We found no dead bodies, 



V 



probably missed them in the faint twilight, as we subsequently 

 learned at the west end of the island that they had all died. 

 From the number of houses, boats, etc., we estimated the 

 number of those who had died to be about fifty. 



" On the 2t>th we followed along tiie north side of the 

 island, examining the villages as we came to them. At Cape 

 Siepermo we found the village deserted, not a sign of life re- 

 maining. I counted fifty-four dead bodies, and as these were 

 nearly all full-grown males, there can be no doubt that many 

 more died. The women and children doubtless died first, 

 and were buried. Most of those seen were just outside the 

 village, with their sleds beside them, evidently having been 

 dragged out by the survivors, as they died, until they, be com- 



