WONDERFUL SEAL ISLANDS. 193 



sailed from any port, provided with good charts and equipped with 

 all the marine machinery known to navigation, and that vessel has 

 hovered for nine successive days off the north point and around 

 St. Paul Island, sometimes almost on the reef, and never more 

 than ten miles away, without actually knowing where the island 

 was ! So Pribylov did well, considering, when at the beginning of 

 the third summer's tedious search, in July, 1786, his old sloop ran 

 up against the walls of Tolstoi Mees, at St. George, and, though 

 the fog was so thick that he could see scarce the length of his ves- 

 sel, his ears were regaled by the sweet music of seal-rookeries 

 wafted out to him on the heavy air. He knew then that he had 

 found the object of his search, and he at once took possession of 

 the island in the Russian name and that of his craft. 



His secret could not long be kept. He had left some of his 

 men behind him to hold the island, and when he returned to Oona- 

 lashka they were gone ; and ere the next season fairly opened, a 

 dozen vessels were watching him and trimming in his wake. Of 

 course, they all found the island, and in that year, July, 1787, the 

 sailors of Pribylov, on St. George, while climbing the bluffs and 

 straining their eyes for a relief-ship, descried the low coast and 

 scattered cones of St. Paul, thirty-six miles to the northwest of 

 them. When they landed at St. George, not a sign or a vestige of 

 human habitation was found thereon ; but during the succeeding 

 year, when they crossed over to St. Paul and took possession of 

 it, in turn, they were surprised at finding on the south coast of 

 that island, at a point now known as English Bay, the remains of a 

 recent fire. There were charred embers of driftwood and places 

 where grass had been scorched ; there was a pipe and a brass knife- 

 handle, which, I regret to say, have long passed beyond the cog- 

 nizance of any ethnologist. This much appears in the Russian 

 records. 



But, if we can believe the Aleutes in what they relate, the islands 

 were known to them long before they were visited by the Russians. 

 They knew and called them "Ateek," after having heard about 

 them. The legend of these people was as follows : 



Eegad-dah-geek, a son of an Oonimak chief of the name of Ah- 

 kak-nee-kak, was taken out to sea in a bidarka by a storm, the 

 wind blowing strong from the south. He could not get back to 

 the beach, nor could he make any other landing, and was obliged 

 to run before the wind three or four days, when he brought up 

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