1 78 Sport and Life. 



one of its sand dunes. The survivors, after subsisting during the 

 six winter months on the putrid carcases of two whales, finally 

 managed to reach Okhotsk in an open boat constructed out of some 

 of the planks of the St. Peter. 



The second vessel was more fortunate, and the furs brought 

 home by her, and which were sent by a special caravan to the 

 Tsarina Catherine, proclaimed far and wide the rare beauties of 

 the Alaska peltries. From that time on numerous private fur- 

 collecting expeditions set sail from Kamchatka ; but, unlike the 

 first, which was entirely a Government undertaking, with the 

 Imperial Treasury at its back, their equipments were of the most 

 wretched kind. In barge-like boats made of hewn boards, fastened 

 together with raw hide thongs, caulked with moss, the sails made 

 of reindeer hides, and straps of elk skin used in lieu of ropes, these 

 bold freebooters set out from Kamchatka for the land of furs. 

 What wonder that many failed to return from across a sea which, 

 when not enveloped in mist, was swept by terrific gales. Those 

 that did reach the home port safely brought back enormous quan- 

 tities of the richest furs, over which the nobles of Russia and the 

 Mongolian mandarins went wild. Those were the days of prizes 

 when, as happened to one trader, 200 sea otter skins, worch then 

 between 2000 and 3000, were obtained in exchange for an iron 

 chisel, the like of which the unsophisticated natives had never seen, 

 or when the innocent Aleut was willing to barter his long cloak, 

 made of the same precious pelt, worth many hundreds of pounds, 

 for a woollen shirt. Some of the hauls made by the Russians in the 

 virgin Behring Sea hunting grounds, and of which record has come 

 down to us, are worth mentioning. Thus one Bassof garnered on 

 his first trip 1600 sea otter as well as 2000 blue fox pelts, netting 

 him, when he landed at Kamchatka, the then enormous sum of over 

 20,000 sterling, their value in St. Petersburg, it must be remem- 

 bered, being quite four times as great. Another the noted 

 " foxhunter" Tolstykh as the result ot three trips to the Aleutian 

 Islands, returned with 10,168 sea otter, 2572 blue fox, and 840 seal 

 skins, their value at the present prices exceeding half a million 



