THE INTERREGNUM. 117 



campany would call at tlie islands on their cruises of protection against the foreign^ 

 chiefly American— fleets of whale ships which infested the waters in those days, and 

 even lauded on and raided the islands ' 



When finally, in 1868, the Russian- American Company abandoned the management 

 of the islands, the so called "interregnum" commenced. The islands were placed 

 under the jurisdiction of the Petropaulski district, and the first thing Mr. F. 

 Khmeleoski, the ispraviiik, or official, of that place, did was to issue a proclamation 

 declaring the natives to be free men^ and giving them liberty and power to regulate 

 all their affairs, including the catch of the fur-bearing animals. It seems that only a 

 noncommissioned officer, Teterin, was left in charge. 



Quite a number of foreign merchants, among them the Russian vice-consul at 

 Honolulu, Mr. Pfluger, but mostly American citizens, prominent among whom was the 

 so-called " Ice Comi)any " of San Francisco, flocked to the islands, their schooners bring- 

 ing all sorts of trade goods, necessities and luxuries of life— particularly the latter— 

 and, not to be forgotten, plenty of alcohol. In return they brought away as many 

 pelts as they could induce the natives to secure. The rivalry between the traders was 

 very sharp, and the natives had high carnival most of the time as a consequence. 

 Gambling and drinking prevailed to a fearful extent, and the natives were willing to 

 sell auything and everything for whisky. The drunken debauches were carried on 

 right on the rookeries, and it is authoritatively stated that, as the skins of the female 

 seals were higher priced, because of their finer fur, quite a number of this class were 

 slain. Besides, drunken men would not be very apt to discriminate as nicely as 

 necessary to distinguish the females from the bachelors. It is also authoritatively 

 asserted that a count of the skins taken was never kept, neither by the natives nor 

 by the police authorities in Petropaulski. The figures presented elsewhere, giving 

 the total export of skins for the period as from G0,000 to 65,000, are, therefore, only 

 guesses, and are probably underestimated rather than overestimated. At least one of 

 the vessels, with its valuable cargo of furs, was lost. As a result of this reckless 

 slaughter the rookeries were nearly ruined in those three years. 



In 1871 there was a wholesome awakening. Hutchinson, Kohl & Co., a San 

 Francisco firm which had already acquired extensive property and trading rights in 

 Alaska, had opened negotiations with the authorities at St. Petersburg for a lease of 

 the islands on practically the same conditions upon which the Alaska Commercial 

 Company leased the Pribilof Islands of the United States, and the contract was 

 signed February 18, 1871, but was kept a profound secret until the following summer. 

 In the meantime the Ice Company, ignorant of the lease and in anticipation of a 



'Note, for instance, the case told by Tikhmenief (Istor. Oboz. Ross. Amer. Komp., ii, p. 131?) 

 to the effect that "in 1847 one of the whalers came to Bering Island, and on the captain being told 

 that he mast not capture aea lions on a neighboring small island [evidently Ari-Kamen], he ordered the 

 overseer of the island to be turned off his ship, and immediately went on shore with his men with the 

 evident intention of disregarding the prohibition. It was only when active steps were taken to resist 

 them that the whalers left, but before going they cut down a plantation, which had been grown with 

 great trouble, the island being without other trees or shrubs." It is curious to reflect that the British 

 case at the Paris Tribunal has taken this incident as a proof that "traffic in fur-seal skins was carried 

 on by a United States whaler at Bering Island" (Fur Seal Arb., iv, p. 66). There never were fur seals 

 on the island referred to, though, on the contrary, it formerly abounded in sea lions (sivutch), the 

 only animal mentioned by Tikhmenief. • 



2 During the regime of the Russian-American Company the natives were practically serfs. 



