CHAPTER IX. 



BERING ISLAND. 



We anchor off Nikolsky — Breeding-places of the Fur Seal — "We sledge across the 

 island — Evidences of its gi'adual elevation — Raids by predatory schooners — The 

 "rookery" — Land life of Callorhinus — Arrival of the bulls — Their installation 

 — Arrival of the cows — Organisation of the "rookery" — The adult animals — 

 The pups and hoUuschicki — Slaughtering — Annual take of skins — Curing the 

 skins — The Alaska Commercial Company — Dr. Stejneger — Relics of Bering and 

 his crew — Importation of reindeer — We return to Kamschatka. 



Eastwaeds from Kamschatka stretches the curious cham of vol- 

 canic rocks known as the Aleutian Islands. A vast series of 

 stepping-stones, as it were, to the dreary fog-bound coast of Alaska, 

 they correspond geologically as well as geograpliically to the equally 

 lonely, hut less known chain — the Kuriles — connecting Yezo with 

 the peninsula we have just left. All but the two most westerly 

 belong to Alaska, and are in consequence American, but Bering 

 and Copper Islands, together known to the Eussians as the 

 Komandorskis,^ form part of the dominions of the Czar. 



A glance at the map tells us nothing with regard to the im- 

 portance of these two islands. There seems to be no reason why 

 they should not be just as valueless as the other islands of the 

 chain. Dreary, barren, and treeless ; covered with great stretches 

 of tiindra, lake, and marsh ; exposed to the full force of the terrific 

 gales which rage in those latitudes during the autmnn and spring ; 

 hidden in fog throughout the short summer, and partially ice-bound 



^ So called after Commander Bering, who perished there in 1741. 



