THE GREAT ALEUTIAN CHAIN. 153 



in twenty, struck in this manner by native hunters, was ever 

 secured ; nevertheless, that one alone (when cast ashore) amply 

 repaid the labor and the exposure incurred chiefly by watching day 

 after day, in storm and fog, from the bluffs of Akoon and Akootan. 

 The lucky hunter who successfully claimed, by his spear-head 

 mark, the credit of slaying such a stranded calf or yearling, was 

 then an object of the highest respect among his fellow-men, and it 

 was remembered well of him even long after death.* Also, the 

 greatest expression of respect for the size and ability of a native 

 village and its people was the statement that it was so populous as 

 to be able to eat all the meat and blubber of a large whale's carcass 

 in a single day ! 



As we " put about " under the frowning walls at Cape North, 

 of Akootan, our captain says that the next tack will carry us into 

 Oonalashka Harbor. Meanwhile, as we stand out into the waters of 

 Bering Sea, we have a superb vista of the rugged, seared, and 

 smoking summit of Akootan itself, which rears its hot head high 

 above the rough, rocky island that bears its name. The beaches 

 are few and far between, and there is but little land upon this 

 island to invite a pedestrian, since masses of dark basalt, vesicular 

 and olivine, are scattered in wild profusion everywhere. Over the 

 northeast side steamy clouds arise from the path of a hot spring, 

 which gushes out of the mountain, so hot that meat and fish are 

 cooked in its scalding flood by the natives. On the very crest, as 

 it were, of this whale-backed volcano, are two small, deep lakes 

 that once were the vent-holes of subterranean fires. In olden times 

 seven settlements, with a population of more than six hundred 

 Aleutes, lived on the coast of this island, which, with Akoon, was 

 then the whale-hunter's paradise. To-day we find it utterly deso- 

 late, inhabited by a poverty-stricken hamlet of sixty-five natives, 

 who are located on the southwest shore. The able-bodied men of 



* Then it was the custom to cut up the dead body of a celebrated native 

 whale-hunter into small pieces, each of which was kept by the survivors to 

 rub over their spear-heads, being carefully dried and preserved for that pur- 

 pose. Again, in ancient times, the pursuit of the whale was the prelude to 

 many secret and superstitious observances by the hunters. These primitive 

 whalers preserved the bodies of distinguished hunters in caves, and before 

 going out on a whale-chase would carry those remains into the water of streams 

 so as to drink of that which flowed over them. The tainted draught conveyed 

 the spirit and luck of the departed ! 



