36 THE ASIATIC FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 



are but few parts of the ocean the flora of which exceeds or even approaches that 

 around Bering Island, in so far as multitude of individuals or number of magnificent 

 forms are concerned." 



NATIVE POPULATION OP THE COMMANDER ISLANDS. 



The Commander Islands, when discovered in 1741, were uninhabited, and no trace 

 of any former population has been found. For over 80 years the islands remained 

 without a regular population, although they were visited almost yearly up to the end of 

 the eighteenth century by numerous parties of Russian fur hunters, or promyshleniks, 

 as they are called. In the early days it was the custom of these hardy frontiersmen to 

 pass the first winter on Bering Island ia order to secure provisions of sea-cow meat for 

 their further expeditions. Sometimes the crews of several vessels wintered there at 

 the same time; in one year at least (1754-55) numbering over 100 men. Those were 

 gay days on Bering Island, when the sea cow, the sea otter, the blue fox, and the fur- 

 seal were still plentiful. But these precious animals were soon exterminated, literally, 

 as the sea cow, or commercially, as the three other species, and the inhospitable and 

 dangerous shores of the Commander Islands were but seldom visited by sailors or 

 hunters. About the year 1819, when Pitr Burdukofski says he was born on Copper 

 Island, there were a couple of temporary settlements of hunters (mostly men) on the 

 islands, 15 people (with one baidar) living on Copper Island and 30 on Bering Island. 

 The settlements were on Copper Island at Palata, and on Bering Island at Staraya 

 Gavan, Saranna, and Gavan. 



When the colonial district of Atkha was established by the Eussian- American 

 Company, in 1826, it was decided to locate permanently a number of natives from the 

 other Aleutian Islands, and consequently two colonies of Aleuts and half-breeds, the 

 offspring of Eussian promyshleniks and Aleut women, were planted on Bering and 

 Copper islands. At the time of Liitke's visit to Bering Island, September 20, 1828, 

 there lived on that island 110 inhabitants, "Eussians, Creoles, and Aleuts, employed 

 in hunting fur-seals and foxes," but there was not then as yet established any 

 permanent settlement on Copper Island. Hunting parties visited the latter island in 

 baidarkas (Liitke, Voyage aut. Monde, i, 1835, pp. 276-277). A similar colony, 

 located on the Kuril Islands, was made up mostly from natives of the Kadiak district. 

 The colony on Bering Island consisted chiefly of natives of Atkha Island, or the 

 Andreanovski group in general, while the Coijper islanders were made up mostly of 

 men and women from Attn. Although the inhabitants of the two islands by transfer 

 and intermarriage have become considerably mixed of late, yet the difference in origin 

 is still traceable in the dialects spoken, the Atkha people still preponderating on 

 Bering Island, the Attn islanders on Copper Island. 



Of late years two other elements have been added to the native population. As 

 noted above, the Eussian-American Company had located -a colony of natives, mostly 

 from the Kadiak district, on the Kuril Islands. When the latter islands were ceded 

 to Japan these natives and their offspring declared their intention of remaining 

 Eussian subjects and were transferred to Kamchatka. After a miserable existence for 

 several years in a small village outside of Petropaulski, they were located on the east 

 coast near Cape Lopatka, in order to hunt sea otters. Their village was situated in a 

 small bay just back of Cape Zholti.' They did not do well there, and during the last 



1 1 have partly traced the history of these natives in an article iu Science (n. s. ii, July 19, 1895, 

 pp. 62-63). When that was written I little thought that on the very day of its publication I should 

 be living among these same natives on Bering Island. 



