THE COOKERY OF THE SALMON 191 



lude to the tragedy of revenge. But the sterlet, 

 though rich, is rare — a local delicacy limited to the 

 affluents of the Caspian and Black Seas, and all the 

 Westerns generally know of it is by the periodical 

 remittances of caviare. As for the salmon, it is to be 

 found in abundance wherever there are cold waters 

 and cool climates. Indeed, it is almost as prolific as 

 the herring ; and though it does not swim about in 

 shoals, it would multiply so as to become a nuisance 

 were it not for the hosts of finned and feathered 

 enemies that prey voraciously on the spawn and the 

 smolts. As it is, in the lower waters of Alaskan rivers 

 the banks are malarious through the short, hot summers, 

 with the piles of decaying salmon cast up by the 

 floods. Yet the Indians do their utmost to abate the 

 plague by gorging on them when they come in fresh- 

 run from the sea and half-starving, on them when 

 smoked, through the long, dark winters. Canning 

 factories on the shores of Alaska and Labrador give an 

 air of busy industry to oases in that bleak desolation ; 

 and through the provision merchants and co-operative 

 stores, the salmon of the sub- Arctic floods is made as 

 cheap and common as the board-like bacalao which 

 taxes the dura ilia of the Portuguese. 



Yet, though we are glad to think that the salmon 

 has become a luxury of the poor, he is likewise, and 



