TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 269 



of that priceless creature, now almost extinct, the sea- 

 otter. 



A strange old Aleut told me the story as we sat by 

 a flickering fire, beneath a sky of deepest blue, dotted 

 with a wealth of silver stars, wreathed here and there 

 in a veil of gossamer mist. And as the native wove 

 his romance into the silence of the night the witchery 

 of the scene and the hour lent a thrill of enchantment 

 and imparted a sentimental feeling of poesy which, 

 perhaps, the story lacks when told again in England, 

 in plain, bald fashion. 



A mighty chief of the Aleuts had a beautiful 

 daughter, and, by another wife, an equally handsome 

 son. Nobody could hunt the creatures of the wild 

 like this young Aleut; nobody flung a spear so 

 accurately, or sought the earliest walrus with such 

 success. These two young people, who lived but the 

 breadth of a river apart, had somehow never chanced 

 to meet until they were about seventeen and eighteen 

 years old, and when at last Fate brought them to- 

 gether she decreed that the ill-starred girl and boy 

 should not know that their relationship was such as 

 to preclude the great burning affection which instan- 

 taneously arose between them. When the Aleut chief 

 heard of the desire of the lovers to marry each other 

 his horror knew no bounds, his rage no limits ; for the 

 Aleuts regard a thing of that kind as deadly sin, con- 

 trary to one or two other nations and tribes we wot of. 

 He came as a Daniel to judge. His commands were 

 issued, and they were to the effect that the young 

 people must never meet again, nevermore hold con- 



