FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. Ill 



and others are decidedly dwarfish. The maimers and customs of these 

 people to day possess nothing in themselves of a barbarous or remark- 

 able character aside from that which belongs to an advanced state of 

 semicivilization. 



They are exceedingly polite and civil, not only in their business with 

 the agents of the Government and the company on the seal islands, but 

 umohg themselves: and they visit, the one with the other, freely and 

 pleasantly, the women being great gossips. But, on the whole, their 

 intercourse is subdued, for the simple reason that the topics of con- 

 versation are few: and judging from their silent but unconstrained 

 meetitigg, tbey seetu to have a mutual knowledge, as if by sympathy, as 

 to wliat may be occupying each other's minds, rendering speech super- 

 tluous. It is oiily when under the influence of beer or strong liquor 

 that they lose their naturally quiet and amiable disposition. They then 

 relapse into low, drunken orgies and loud, brawling noises. Having been 

 so long under the control and influence of the llussians, they have 

 adopted many Slavic customs, such as giving birthday dinners, nam- 

 Ihg their children, etc. They are remarkably attached to their church, 

 and no other form of religion could be better adapted or have a firmer 

 hold upon the sensibilities of the people. Their inherent chastity and 

 sobriety can not be commended. They have long since thrown away 

 the uncouth garments of the Russian rule — the shaggy dogskin caps, 

 with coats half seal and half sealion — for a complete outfit, capd-pie, 

 such as our own people buy in any furnishing house: the same boots, 

 flocks, linderclothing, and clothing, with ulsters and ulsterettes. But 

 the violence of the win<l prevents their selecting the hats of our haut 

 ion and sporting fraternity. As for the women, they, too, have kei)t 

 ])ace and even advanced to the level of the men^ for in these lower races 

 tlH're is much more vanity displayed by the masculine element than 

 the feminine, according to my observation. In other words^ 1 have 

 noticed a greater desire among the young men than among the young 

 women, of savage and semicivilized people, to be gayly dressed and to 

 look fine. 



But the visits of the wives of our Treasury officials and the company's 

 agents to these islands during the last twenty years, bringing with 

 them a full outfit, as ladies always do, of everything under the sun that 

 women want to wear, has given the native female mind an undue expan- 

 sion up there, and stimulated it to unwonted activity. They watch the 

 cut of the garments and borrow the i)atterns: and some of them are 

 very expert dressmakers to-day. When the llussians controlled affairs 

 the women were the hewers of the driftwood and the drawers of the 

 water. At St. Paul there was no well of drinking fluid about the village, 

 nor within half a mile of the village; there was no drinking water 

 unless it was caught in cisterns, and the cistern water, owing to the 

 l)articles of seal-fat soot which fall upon the roofs of the houses, is ren- 

 dered undrinkable; so that the supply for the town, until quite recently, 

 used to be carried by the women from two little lakes at the head of 

 the Lagoon, a mile and a half, as the crow flies, from the village, and 

 right under Telegraph Hill. This is quite a journey: and when it is 

 remembered that they drink so much tea, and that water has to go with 

 it, some idea of the labor of the old and young females can be derived 

 from an inspection of the map. Latterly, within the last fourteen years, 

 the coiuftany opened a spring, less than half a mile from the " gorode," 

 which they have plumbed and regulated, so that it supplies them with 

 water now, and renders the labor next to nothing, coni])ared with the 

 former difticulty. But to-day, when water is wanted in the Aleutian 



