Among the Islands 235 



clouds, that we were passing fine scenery. When 

 the fog fell, what a sight! There was Pobloff and 

 his bride — the higher peak rising twelve thousand 

 feet, wearing his black cap and plume, and his 

 bride, their white robes meeting and mingling. 

 She was exactly like him, only smaller, and her 

 plume was not of smoke, but of snow, dropping 

 over like a white ostrich plume. As I write I do 

 not know whether I took their photographs success- 

 fully on the jarring boat, but I hope, when I get 

 where I can develop my plates, to find them there 

 in their beauty. Our first stop east of the pass out 

 of Bering Sea was Bellkorky, the usual thin line 

 of houses on the beach, with a Russian church. 

 This was once the prosperous seat of the sea-otter 

 fur fishery. As many as thirty thousand of the 

 otters were taken in a single season, and the spoils 

 were divided about equally between the church and 

 the traders in rum — par nobile fratruin. Now the 

 .sea-otter is nearly extinct, and as a single skin is 

 worth four hundred dollars, the remnant is pursued 

 to the uttermost. When an otter is sighted, all 

 hope for him to escape is gone. Out of the ship, 

 or off the shore from which he is seen, come the 

 long, slim, swift kyacks, which the natives, with 

 their sharp paddles and strong arms, drive forward, 

 swift as the wind. The otter makes a long dive 

 and rises a half-mile or a mile away, for he is swift 

 also, but the kyack nearest him compels him to 

 dive again. The chase in some instances extends 



