THE GREAT ISLAND OF KADIAK. 117 



them to the bottom of the ocean had it arisen in the time of 

 their passage.* 



A great expanse of tide-troubled and wind-tossed water is bound 

 between the northern coast of Kadiak and the volcanic ridges of 

 the mainland opposite. The Straits of Shellikov are fair to see on 

 the chart, but the mariner who has once sailed into them, lured 

 there by the false promise of a sheltered passage, never fails to 

 avoid the track afterward he gladly makes the open detour of the 

 broad Pacific. That same precipitous mountain range which we 

 have gazed upon as it rose in sullen grandeur from the waters of 

 Cook's Inlet, still fronts us, just as boldly, as it sweeps down the 

 entire three hundred miles of the peninsula, forming the southern 

 coast of that land. The sombre green and blue timber-cloak, so 

 characteristic of its northern range, is here replaced by the russet- 

 grays and brownish-yellows of that sphagnum and moss which 

 now supplant the coniferous forests of Cook's Inlet, giving to the 

 picture a much richer tone. Several of these peaks in this chain of 

 mountains thus extended down the south coast of the peninsula are 

 five and seven thousand feet in altitude, their summits much eroded 

 and broken. They hold in their lofty solitudes a great many little 

 glaciers, that, however, never come down to the sea as they habit- 

 ually do in the Choogatch and Elias Alps. The feet of these pen- 

 insular mountains are washed by the direct roll of the ocean waves, 

 which dash into innumerable fiords and coves, studded with small, 



* The true reason for this hegira of the convicts is a most amusing one. It 

 is as follows : Shortly after the transfer, in 1869, General Thomas made an ex- 

 tended inspection of the Alaskan posts on a steamer detailed for that work. 

 He was accompanied by a certain representative of a Protestant Board of Mis- 

 sions. The vessel accidentally ran across Ookamok Island when making her 

 way to the westward from Kadiak and touched there, where, ignorant of the 

 fact that the people were convicts and their descendants, moved by their piti- 

 ful tales of privation, a large amount of ship's stores were landed upon the 

 beach to satisfy the " suffering " natives : they ate, drank, and were merry, and 

 lived sumptuously for several months afterward. But an end to these good 

 things came at last ; the reaction in the settlement was terrible. So, urged by 

 its pangs, the penal colony determined to pack up and move to the nearest 

 point possible, where, when living, they could again meet, and often too, their 

 kind benefactors ! Hence that startling journey to find those generous Ameri- 

 cans. Lately, however, the traders at Kadiak have taken many of these peo- 

 ple back to Ookamok, where they begged to be allowed to go and end their 

 lives. This is the most desolate island, perhaps, in all the range of that vast 

 Aleutian archipelago. 



