232 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



ble and exertion of conveyance would be necessary. A better place, 

 geographically, for the business of gathering the skins and salting 

 them down at St. George cannot be found on the island, but a 

 poorer place for a landing it is difficult to pick out, though in this 

 respect there is not much choice outside of Garden Cove. 



Up to the time of the transfer of the territory and leasing of 

 the islands to the Alaska Commercial Company, in August, 1870, 

 these native inhabitants all lived in huts or sod- walled and dirt- 

 roofed houses, called " barrabkies," partly under ground. Most of 

 these huts were damp, dark, and exceedingly filthy : it seemed to be 

 the policy of a short-sighted Russian management to keep them 

 so, and to treat the natives not near so well as they treated the few 

 hogs and dogs which they brought up there for food and for com- 

 pany. The use of seal-fat for fuel, caused the deposit upon every- 

 thing within doors of a thick coat of greasy, black soot, strongly im- 

 pregnated with a damp, moldy, and indescribably offensive odor. 

 They found along the north shore of St. Paul and at Northeast 

 Point, occasionally scattered pieces of drift-wood, which was used, 

 carefully soaked anew in water if it had dried out, split into little 

 fragments, and, trussing the blubber with it when making their fires, 

 the combination gave rise to a roaring, spluttering blaze. If this 

 drift-wood failed them at any time when winter came round, they 

 were obliged to huddle together beneath skins in their cold huts, 

 and live or die, as the case might be. But the situation to-day has 

 changed marvellously. We see here now at St. Paul, and on St. 

 George, in the place of the squalid, filthy habitations of the imme- 

 diate past, two villages, neat, warm, and contented. Each family 

 lives in a snug frame-dwelling ; every house is lined with tarred 

 paper, painted, furnished with a stove, with out-houses, etc., com- 

 plete ; streets laid out, and the foundations of these habitations reg- 

 ularly plotted thereon. There is a large church at St. Paul, and a 

 less pretentious but very creditable structure of the same character 

 on St. George ; a hospital on St. Paul, with a full and complete 

 stock of drugs, and skilled physicians on both islands to take care 

 of the people, free of cost. There is a school-house on each island, 

 in which teachers are also paid by the company eight months in the 

 year, to instruct the youth, while the Russian Church is sustained 

 entirely by the pious contributions of the natives themselves on 

 these two islands, and sustained well by each other. There are 

 eighty families, or eighty houses, on St. Paul, in the village, with 



