THE CAPITAL OF ALASKA. 169 



little place, and many an English miner would be glad to be as well off as the men 

 settled there, who earn more money than at home, own their cottages and plots of 

 land, obtain most of their supplies cheaper than in England, and have a beautiful gulf 

 before them, in summer, at least, as calm as a lake, on which boating and canoeing is all 

 the rage in the evenings or on holidays. 



The Pacific Station is an extensive one, for it commences at the most northernmost 

 parts of Bering Sea, and extends below Cape Horn. It embraces the Alaskan coast. 

 Many English men-of-war have visited these latitudes, principally, however, in the cause 

 of science and discovery. 



In the old days, when the colony of Russian America was little better than are many 

 parts of Siberia convict settlements the few Government officials and officers of the 

 Russian Fur Company were, it may well be believed, only too ready to welcome any change 

 in the monotony of their existence, and a new arrival, in the shape of a ship from some 

 foreign port, was a day to be remembered, and of which to make much. The true 

 Russians are naturally hospitably and sociably inclined, and such times were the occasion 

 for balls, dinners, and parties to any extent. The writer well remembers his first visit to 

 Sitka, which, although the capital of Alaska, is situated on an island off the mainland. 

 On approaching the small and partially land-locked harbour, a mountain of no inconsiderable 

 height, wooded to the top, appeared in view, and below it a little town of highly-coloured 

 roofs, in the middle of which rose a picturesque rock, surmounted by a semi-fortified 

 castle, which, in the distance at least, looked most imposing. Near this, but separated by 

 a stockade, was the village of the Kalosh Indians, a powerful tribe, who had at times, as 

 the members of the expedition learned, given a considerable amount of trouble to the 

 Russians in 1804 they murdered nearly the whole of the Russian garrison while beyond 

 on every side were rocky shores and wooded heights. An old hulk or two, lying on the 

 beach below the old castle, itself principally built of wood, the residence of the Governor of 

 Russian America, then Prince Maksutoff, which had been roofed in and were used for 

 magazines of stores, and some rather shaky pile-whai*fs, made up the town. 



Soon was experienced the warmth of a Russian welcome, and for a week after- 

 wards a succession of gaieties followed, which were so very gay that they would 

 have killed most men, unless they had been fortified with a long sea-trip just before. 

 Every Russian seemed to wish the party to consider all that he had at their service ; the 

 samovar boiled up everywhere as they approached ; the little lunch-table of anchovies, and 

 pickles, rye-bread, butter, cheese, and so forth, with the everlasting vodka, was everywhere 

 ready, and except duty called, no one was obliged to go off at night to the three vessels 

 comprising the expedition to which the writer was attached, for the best bed in the house 

 was always at his service. There was only one bar-room in the whole town, and there only 

 a kind of lager -Her and vodka were to be obtained. When the country was, for a 

 consideration of 7,250,000 dollars, transferred to the United States, there was a "rush" 

 from Victoria and San Francisco. Keen Hebrew traders, knowing that furs up country 

 bore a merely nominal price, and that Sitka was the great entrepot for their collection 

 a million dollars' worth being frequently gathered there at a time thought they would be 

 able to buy them for next to nothing still. Parcels of land in the town, which had not at 

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