APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 303 



rooms beiiifif haudsoraely decorated and richly furnished; commandinfif 

 a view of the whole establishment, which was in fact a little village, 

 while about half way down the rock two batteries on terraces frownecl 

 respectively over land and water." There was another Administrator- 

 General since the visit of Sir Edward Belcher; bnt again the wife plays 

 her charjning part. After portraying her as a native of Ilelsingfors, in 

 Finland, the visitor adds: "So this pretty and ladylike woman had 

 come to this secluded home from the farthest extremity of the Empire." 

 Evidently in a mood beyond contentment, he says: " We sat down to 

 a good dinner in the French style, the party, in addition to our host 

 and hostess and ourselves, comprising twelve of the Company's officers ;" 

 and his final judgment seems to be given when he says: "The good 

 folks appear to live well. The surrounding country abounds in the 

 chevreuil [roebuck], the finest meat that I ever ate, with the single 

 exception of moose, while in a little stream within a mile of the fort 

 salmon are so i)lentiful that, when ascending the river, the^' have been 

 known literally to embarrass the movements of a canoe." (Simpson's 

 "Journey," Vol. I^ p. 221.) Such is the testimony. 

 With these concluding pictures I turn from the Government. 



POPULATIOI^. 



II. I come now to the ro2)Hlation, which may be considered in its num- 

 bers and in its character. In neither respect, perhaps, can it add much 

 to the value of the country, except so far as native hunters and trappL'rs 

 are needed for the supply of furs. Professor Agassiz touches this point 

 in a letter which I have just received from him, where he says : " To me 

 the fact that there is as yet hardly any population would have great 

 weight, as this secures the Settlement to our race." lUit we ought to 

 know something at least of the people about to become the subjects of 

 our jurisdiction, if not our fellow-citizens, 



(1) In trying to arrive at an idea of their numbers, 1 begin with Lippin- 

 cott's "Gazetteer," as it is the most accessible, according to which the 

 whole population in 1855, aboriginal, Ilussian, and Creole, was ()J,0()0. 

 The same estimate a])pears also in the " London Im])erial Gazetteer" and 

 in the "Geogra])hie" of Wappiius. Keith Johnston, in his "Atlas," 

 calls the population in 1852, (j(),()00. McCulloch, in the last edition of 

 his " Geographical Dictionary," puts it as high as 72,375. On the other 

 hand, the "Almanach de Gotha" for the present year, received only a 

 few weeks ago, calls it in round numbers 50,000. This estimate seems 

 to have been adopted substantially from the great work entitled "Les 

 Peuples de la Eussie," which from its character I am disposed to con- 

 sider as the best authority. 



Exaggerations are common with regard to the inhabitants of newly- 

 acquired possessions, and this distant region has been no exception. 

 An enthusiastic estimate once placed its i^opulation as high as 400,000. 

 Long ago Schelekoft", an early Kussian adventurer, reported that he had 

 subjected to the Crown of Eussia 50,000 "men" in the Island of Kodiak 

 alone. But Lisiansky, who followed him there in 1805, says "the popu- 

 lation of this island, when compared with its size, is very small." 

 ("Voyage," p. 193.) After the "minutest research" at that tune he 

 found that it amounted only to 4,000 souls. It is much less now; prob- 

 ably not more than 1,500. 



Of course, it is easy to know the number of those within the imme- 

 diate jurisdiction of the Company. Tliis is determined by a census 

 from time to time. Even here the aborigines are the most numerous. 



