172 OUR AEOTIC PKOVINCE. 



made that spot too lonely for him, and he soon removed to San 

 Francisco. A few years ago a final transfer was made to Illoo- 

 look. As far as possible the natives support their own respective 

 chapels, erect the church structures, keep them in repair, and make 

 an annual contribution sufficient to support a reader, or " deacon," 

 so that the order of daily services shall be constantly in oj^eration. 

 When a community is too poor, however, to do this, then the 

 bishop has money supplied to him by the Russian Home Church 

 Fund, which he uses to maintain the proper conduct of those chap- 

 els situated at impecunious settlements. Of course these outlying 

 and far-distant hamlets of the Aleutian archipelago are unable to 

 secure and pay, each one, for the services of a regularly ordained 

 resident priest. Therefore a parish priest, either from Oonalashka, 

 Belcovsky, Sitka, or even San Francisco, is in the habit of making 

 a tour of the entire Alaskan circuit once in every year or two, so 

 as to administer the higher offices of the church, such as baptism, 

 marriage, etc. 



Most amusing is that intense outward piety of these grimy peo- 

 ple — they greet you with a blessing and a prayer for your good 

 health in the same breath, and they part from you murmuring a 

 benediction. They never sit down to their rude meals without 

 asking the blessing of God ; never enter a neighbor's house Avith- 

 out crossing themselves at the threshold ; and in most of the bai'- 

 raboras a little image-picture of a patron saint will be found in one 

 corner, high up on a shelf, to which the face of every member of 

 the family is always turned when they rise and retire — the head 

 bowed and the cross sign made before this " eikon," in humility 

 and silence. These people also carry the precepts and i^hi-aseology 

 of the church upon their lijis, constantly repeating them during 

 holy weeks and pious festivals. 



The fact that among all the savage races found on the northwest 

 coast by Christian pioneers and teachers, the Aleutians are the only 

 practical converts to Christianity, goes far, in my opinion, to set 

 them apart as very differently constituted in mind and disposition 

 from our Indians and our Eskimo of Alaska. To the latter, how- 

 ever, they seem to be intimately allied, though they do not mingle 

 in the slightest degree. They adopted the Christian faith Avith 

 very little opposition, readily exchanging their barbarous customs 

 and wild superstitions for the rites of the Greek Catholic Church 

 and its more refined myths and legends. 



