341 



these people as they did those of dogs, and treated them accord- 

 ingly J they took, under Baranov and his subordinates, hunting- 

 parties of five hundred to a thousand picked Aleuts, eleven or 

 twelve hundred miles to the eastward of their homes, in skin- 

 baidars and bidarkies, or kyacks, traversing one of the wildest 

 and roughest of coasts, and used them not only for the severe 

 drudgery of otter-hunting, but to fight the Koloshians and 

 other savages all the way up and down the coast ; this soon 

 destroyed them, and few ever got back alive. 



" When the Territory came in our possession, the Eussians 

 were taking between four and five hundred sea-otters from the 

 Aleutian Islands and south of the peninsula of Alaska, with 

 perhaps a hundred and fifty more from Kenai, Yahkutat, and 

 the Sitkan district j the Hudson's Bay Company and other trad- 

 ers getting about two hundred more from the coast of Queen 

 Charlotte's and Vancouver's Islands, and off Gray's Harbor, 

 Washington Territory. 



" Now, during the last season, 1873, instead of less than seven 

 hundred skins, as obtained by the Eussians, our traders secured 

 not much less than four thousand sMns. This immense differ- 

 ence is not due to the fact of there being a proportionate 

 increase of sea-otters, but to the organization of hunting-par- 

 ties in the same spirit and fashion, as in the early days above 

 mentioned. The keen competition of our traders will ruin the 

 business in a comparatively short time if some action is not 

 taken by the Government; and to the credit of these traders 

 let it be said, that while they cannot desist, for if they do others 

 will step in and profit at their expense, yet they are anxious 

 that some prohibition should be laid upon the business. This 

 can be easily done, and in such manner as to perpetuate the sea- 

 otter, not only for themselves, but for the natives, who are 

 dependent upon its hunting for a living which makes them 

 superior to savages. 



" Over two-thirds of all the sea otters taken in Alaska are 

 secured in two small areas of water, little rocky islets and reefs 

 around the island of Saanach and the Chernobours, which 

 proves that these animals, in spite of the incessant hunting all 

 the year round on this ground, seem to have some particular 

 preference for it to the practical exclusion of nearly all the rest 

 of the coast in the Territory. This may be due to its better 

 adaptation as a breeding-ground. It is also noteworthy that 

 all the sea-otters taken below the Straits of Fuca are shot by 



