KAMTSCHATKA. 315 



tribes of the same branch. They are liarinless, 

 wretched slaves, who are even now let out without 

 due economy, though not with the same wanton 

 }3rodigality as formerly, and whose race will soon 

 be extinct. * 



Sauer, DavidofF, Langsdorff, Krusenstern, and 

 others, have expressed their opinions on this subject. 



We shall indulge in but a few observations on 

 the more northern tribes, the Tschukutskoi, the 

 inhabitants of St. Lawrence Island, and the shores 

 of Kotzebue*s Sound ; and refer to the Russian 

 accounts, Cook, the narrator of Billing's expedi- 

 tion, Saretscheff and Sauer, and to the account of 

 our voyage. More competent persons have taken 

 it upon them to speak on these tribes. 



* Sauer, in the Supplement to his Voyage, gives an extract 

 from the journal of a Russian officer, which speaks of the first 

 Russian hunters on these islands. " They used, not unfre- 

 quently, to place the men close together, and try through how 

 many the ball of their rifle-barrelled musket would pass ! Ge- 

 gori Schelikoffhas been charged with this act of cruelty, and I 

 have reason to believe it." 



In Billing's time, the people of Oonalashka were still distin- 

 guished by greater civilization, refinement, and skill in arts, but 

 now no longer. 



On the West Indian islands the negro-slaves, not unfrequently, 

 fled into the inaccessible mountains of the interior [Negres mar- 

 rons, Cimarrons). Here, where only the sea aflbrds sustenance, 

 the Aleutians, on several islands, are said to have fled into the 

 mountains. 



We have been officially informed, that the number of the 

 Aleutians on the Fox islands was, in the year 1806, ISS^ men, 

 and 570 women; and, in 1817, 462 men, and 584- women (?). 



