122 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



festivals, or " Emaiiuimiks," tlie masic of accordeons and violins. Upon 

 the former aud its variation, the concertina, they play a number of airs, 

 and are very fond of the noise. A great many of tlie women, in parti- 

 cular, can render indifferently a limited selection of tunes, many of which 

 are the old battle songs so popular during the rebellion, woven into 

 weird liussian waltzes and love ditties, wliich they have jointly gath- 

 ered from their former masters and our soldiers, who were quartered 

 here in 18(19, From the Enssians and the troops, also, they have learned 

 to dance various figures and have been taught to waltz. These dances, 

 however, the old folks do not enjoy very much. They will come in and 

 sit around and look at the young performers with stolid indifference; 

 but, if tliey manage to get a strong current of tea setting in their direc- 

 tion, nicely sugared and toned up, they revive and join in the mirth. 

 In old times they never danced here unless they were drunk ; and it was 

 the principal occupation of the amiable and mischievous Treasury agents 

 and others in the early days, to oi)en u^) this beery fun. Happily, that 

 nuisance is abated. During the last six or eight years they have organ- 

 ized a very good string and brass band on St. Paul Island, and play 

 well. 



NUMBER OF THE ISLANDERS. 



The population^ of St. Paul Island in 1872 was 235 souls; to-day, in 

 1890, it is 213 souls. Of St. George Island in 1872, it was 127 souls; to- 

 day it is 98. This declares a decrease, since then, of 93. Prior to 1873 

 they had neither much increased nor diminished for 50 years, but would 

 have fallen off rapidly (for the birtbs were never equal to the deaths) 

 had not recruits been regularly drawn from the maiidand and other 

 islands every season when the ships came up. As they lived then, it 

 was a physical impossibility for them to increase and multiply. But 

 since their elevation and their sanitary advancement became so marked 

 it was reasonably expected that those people for all time to come would 

 at least hold their own, even though they do not increase to any remark- 

 able degree. Perhaps it is better that they should not. They are, of 

 all men, es])ecially fitted for the work connected with the seal business. 

 No comment is needed. Nothing better in the way of manual labor, 

 skilled and rapid, could be rendered by any body of men equal in num- 

 bers living under the same circumstances all the year round. They 

 appear to shake off the periodic lethargy of winter and its forced inani- 

 tion, to rush with the coming of summer, into the severe exercise aud 

 duty of capturing, killing, and skinning the seals with vigor and with 

 persistent and commendable energy. 



To-day, only a very small proportion of the population are descendants 

 of the i)ioneers who were brought here by the several Russian com- 

 panies in 1787 and 1788; a colony of 137 souls, it is claimed, princi- 

 pally recruited at Unalaska and Atka. The principal cause of death 

 among the people by natural infirmity on the seal islands is the varying 

 forms of consumption and bronchitis, always greatly aggravated by that 

 Inherited scrofulous taint or stain of blood which was, in one way or 

 another, flowing through the veins of their recent progenitors, both 

 here and throughout the Aleutian Islands. There is nothing worth 

 noticing in the line of nervous diseases, unless it be now and then the 

 record of a case of alcoholism, superinduced by excessive quass drink- 

 ing. This "makoolah" intemperance among these people, which was 



' In the report of Mr. Goff, extracts of which I reprint in Section VIII, will be 

 found all the details of the earnings, etc., of these people. 



