88 TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 



beliefs, 'dreamers having the weird imagination of 

 children, but happy, content to live and die as their 

 ancestors have done before, representing a faot dis- 

 appearing form of primeval man, whose highest 

 intellectual attainments consist in devising means of 

 obtaining food and clothing. Suffering much, in 

 various periods of their history, at the hands of more 

 powerfully armed marauders from far-distant climes. 

 Gaining little in return for the importation of vile 

 spirits, or unknown diseases, which have wrought 

 havoc amongst their numbers. A race of fishermen 

 and hunters, but under the improved conditions of 

 the American rule, they have developed the industry 

 of fur trading. Formerly the valuable furs collected 

 for their own use too often fell a prey to the hands 

 of their marauding enemies, or Russian taskmasters. 

 With the purchase of Alaska by the Americans 

 from Russia in 1867, a new era dawned for the 

 natives. A rule of bloodshed, murder, and plunder 

 was succeeded by what is to-day an equally lenient 

 and in some cases too considerate form of govern- 

 ment. Some laws have been enacted giving them 

 certain privileges denied to many white men. This 

 applies more particularly to the framing of the 

 Alaskan Game Laws, whereby the natives are prac- 

 tically unrestricted as to time, numbers, or anything 

 else in their wanton destruction of game, both great 

 and small, throughout the country. Many wise rules 

 have been made to protect the game from too indis- 

 criminate slaughter by sportsmen and others. No 

 doubt can be entertained that such policy is an error 



