Population of the Commander Islands. 



The fundamental group of the highest of mam- 

 malia-the man, was brought in 1828 from the Aleutian 

 Islands Atkha and Attou, in consequence of which, every 

 island received representatives of the same island, in view 

 of an existing animosity between the inhabitants of the 

 different groups of the Aleutian Islands. The Behring 

 Island received the inhabitants of Atkha, the Copper 

 Island those of Attou. 



Both branches spoke in dialects of the same language. 

 At the end of the 40 years the Russian-American com- 

 pany began to settle here as pensioners-natives of European 

 Russia; but whether this was a Slavonic branch-it is 

 difficult to say, most likely the greatest part were Great- 

 Russians, though to be sure it is almost certain there will 

 have been also some Ziranes, Gipsies and even one 

 Kirgese-woman. The present existing population is a 

 result of the cross-breed of the colonists of these different 

 races. It is owing to the intermarriages between the sett- 

 lers of these different races that the at present existing po- 

 pulation is, what it now is. To this the administration 

 added some Esquimaux (from the Kodjak Isl.) colonists 

 of the Kurile strait, among which there were also Kalo- 

 shensky Creoles. Undoubtedly through dying out of this 

 metization there and the idea of making use of Russian 

 descendants from Kamtchatka this experiment proved 

 to be totally unsuccessful as only the inferior element 

 went to the Islands. 



