264 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



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 1,000 volumes, selected from standard authors in fic- 

 tion, science, and history, together with many other unexpected 

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

 Islands, wholly unexpected to those who first set foot npon them. A 

 small Kussian printed library has also been given by the company to 

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

 generation of sealers here, if they read at all, will read our own 

 typography. 



G. Food and store shopping of the natives [Section 5]. — 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 wear- 

 ing apparel, crockery, etc., which the company bring up here for the 

 use of the people, is sold to tl'.em at the exact cost price of the same, 

 plus the expenses of transportation; and many times within my knowl- 

 edge 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 

 tlie 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 

 wliich 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 here, seem to feel as deep an interest in 

 the process of shojiping as the niost enthusiastic votaries of tliat busi- 

 ness do in our own streets; it certainly seems to give tbem the greatest 

 satisfaction of their lives on the Pribilof Islands. 



H. Vigilance op the natives [Section 7]. — One of the peculiari- 

 ties of these people is that they seldom nndress 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 chat- 

 ting one with the other over their jiipes. 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 have frozen it with superstitious 

 horror in the recital at daybreak of ghostly visions. 



I. Habits of fue-seal pups [Section 9 J. — I have repeatedly watched 

 young pups as they made advances to nurse from another pup's mother; 

 the result invariably being that while the motlier Monld permit her own 

 offspring to suckle freely, yet when these little strangers touched her 

 nipples she would either move abruptly away, or else turn quickly 

 down upon her stomach, so that the maternal fountains were inacces- 

 sible to the alien and hungry "kotickie." 1 have witnessed so many 

 examples of the females turning pups away, to suckle only some par- 



