114 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



that region at least, when they returned to their country, they 

 were never heard from in favor of Alaska. 



A very natural question arises in this connection as to whether 

 or no the savages of Alaska will ever increase in numbers or dimin- 

 ish to actual extermination as time advances. It appears very plain, 

 however, that the inhabitants of the Aleutian chain, the Peninsula, 

 and Cook's Inlet are nearly as numerous to-day as they have been 

 ever since the small-pox decimation of 1838-39. But all author- 

 ities agree in declaring that these people have never regained their 

 numerical force represented in the settlement prior to the advent 

 of the scourge which depopulated them. As to the Eskimo of 

 the Bering Sea coasts and the Koloshians of the Sitkan region, it 

 seems well established, from what we can learn, that they have re- 

 gained their former strength in part, and were they only provident 

 they might live by hundreds where they now exist in tens. Indif- 

 ferent, wholly indifferent when living, they are as apathetic when 

 they face death. 



After reading the quaint yet strong narrative of the ferocity 

 and strength of the Kaniags which Shellikov * has given us, it is 

 hard, indeed, to realize that bold pioneer's feeling as we now look 

 in upon the steep slopes of Three Saints Bay, where, at the head of 

 it, within the sweep of a sand-spit, he erected the first permanent 

 white habitation ever planted on Kadiak with the aid of the one 

 hundred and fifty or sixty Russians who formed his company. 

 Here, to-day, we see a cluster of sod-walled barraboras and two 

 small, frame trading-houses, in which live one hundred and ninety 

 of the descendants of those hardy savages who terrified and nearly 

 annihilated the party of Shellikov one hundred years ago in this 

 very spot. Nothing else is left, for Baranov in 1796 removed the 

 post itself to the present site of Kadiak village. As we scan the 

 settlement of Three Saints we notice that the most prominent ob- 

 ject is the rough-hewn walls and thatched roof of an old Greek 

 chapel, in front of which is a rude trestle ; from the upper frame of 

 this a bell hangs. Now a stooping figure emerges from the church 

 door ; he seizes the clapper, or bell tongue, with both hands and 

 swings it vigorously. Promptly the villagers emerge from their huts ; 

 trotting and shambling in single file, they all troop into the chapel. 



* Grigoria Shellikova Stransvovania, or Shellikov's Journeys, from 1783 

 to 1787. Published, St. Petersburg, 1792-93. 12mo. 2 vols. 



