122 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



of abject physical misery and that excessive debauchery which had 

 stamped them more wretchedly than it had even their cousins of 

 Belcovsky. These people, in addition to their fine natural advan- 

 tages of position for hunting sea-otters, enjoy a location in close 

 juxtaposition to walrus-banks and sea-lion spits and islands else- 

 where on the Bering shore, where they find these pinnipeds in great 

 numbers at certain seasons of the year. The flesh, skins, blubber, 

 and sinews are both articles of essential use and of luxury to them. 

 Also, the same reindeer and brown-bear road, which we have just 

 noticed, passes close by the village, so that those desiderata of food- 

 supply and trade are very accessible. 



Near by the village, less than half a mile, as if planned espe- 

 cially by a merciful providence, there are a number of hot sulphur- 

 springs which would afford the diseased and sickly natives infinite 

 relief, if they could only be induced to make the necessary exertion 

 to go to them and bathe therein. Yet this officer of the Govern- 

 ment declares that not one of them could be induced by him to try 

 the efficacy of the healing waters " It was too far to walk ! " 



When our little vessel comes to anchor in Delarov Harbor, Oonga 

 Island, of the Shoomagin group, we see a flag flying from the summit 

 of a grassy knoll which caps an irregular but bluffy headland. The 

 village lies directly over, and under the shelter of that ridge, and it 

 opens quickly on our view as we pull around the point and land with 

 our dingy in a deeply indented cove upon a smooth sand and pebbly 

 beach. The town is just above, in its full extent, but it is a thickly 

 clustered mass of fourteen frame houses, twenty or twenty-one bar- 

 rabkies, and the ever-present church. It does not make near as 

 much of a spread as does Belcovsky, although it is quite as large. 

 This is the chief codfishing rendezvous for the white fishermen who 

 annually come up to the Shoomagin banks from San Francisco in 

 six or seven small schooners. The location and surroundings of 

 the little hamlet are exceedingly picturesque, but, unfortunately, 

 though in a somewhat less disagreeable extent, the people here are 

 also given over to those Belcovsky orgies, inasmuch as they, too, are 

 great and successful otter-hunters, and have an income of over six 

 hundred dollars for each family, which wealth seems to demoralize 

 far more than it comforts their existence. 



The strong southerly and southeast winds that prevail here 

 during the summer season are the most severe, and, strange to 

 say, they are the ones which are the coldest and the chilliest a 



