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"If the breeze holds we could pick up one of the Aleutians in a few days, but I'm keeping south of the islands. There'll probably be ugly ice along the beaches, and I've no fancy for being cast ashore by a strong tide when the fog lies on the land. With westerly winds I'd sooner hold on for Alaska. We could lie snug in an inlet there, and, it's quite likely, get a cedar that would make a spar.
Once they had reached the Aleutians, natives were engaged to do the actual hunting under their direction. Exiles and criminals could not be expected to use gentle methods to attain their ends. 'God is high in the heavens and the Czar is far away, they said. The object was quick profit, and plundering was the easiest way to attain it. How were the Aleutian Indians paid?
Others not. Say they've turned native. Don't know myself." "The Aleutians!" exclaimed Billy Edwards. "Great Cats! What a drift! How many thousand miles would that be?" "Not as far as many another derelict has wandered in her time, son," said Barnett.
A few Aleutians only, who happened to be out in their little baidars, escaped by standing out to sea, and brought to Kodiack the news of the annihilation of the settlement at Sitka. This occurrence took place in the year 1804, when the present Admiral Krusenstern made his voyage round the world, and his second ship, the Neva, was bound for this colony.
Data on later days can be found in abundance in Krusenstern's Voyage, London, 1813; Kohl's History, London, 1862; Langsdorff's Travels, London, 1813; Stejneger's Contributions to Smithsonian, 1884, and Report on Commander Islands; Elliott's Our Arctic Province; Dall's Alaska; Veniaminof's Letters on Aleutians; Cleveland's Voyages, 1842, Nordenskjöld's Voyage of the Vega; Macfie's Vancouver Island; Ivan Petroff's Report on Alaska, 1880; Lisiansky's Voyage Round the World; Sauer's Geographical Account of Expedition to Northern Parts; Kotzebue's Voyages of Discovery, 1819, and New Voyage, 1831; Chappe d'Auteroche's Siberia and Kracheninnikof's Kamchatka, 1764; Simpson's Voyage Round World, 1847; Burney's Voyages; Gmelin's Siberia, Paris, 1767; Greenhow's Oregon; Pallas's Northern Settlements; Broughton's Voyage, 1804; Berg's Aleutian Islands; Bancroft's Alaska; Massa.
Fog off the Aleutians three hundred an' fifty days of the year, as a rule. Soon as we sight land, which'll be Unalaska or thereabouts, he'll have the course changed. There's a considerable fleet of United States revenue cutters at Unalaska, an' Carlsen won't pull ennything until we're well west of there. He's pretty cocky this mornin'. Wal, we'll see."
And as the coast curves off from Vancouver Island up to the Aleutians belonging to that portion of America ceded by Russia to the United States in 1867 it was highly probable that the "Albatross" would cross it at the end of the curve, if her course remained unchanged. How long the night appeared to be to the two friends! How eager they were to get out of their cabins!
A writer in Harper's Magazine, speaking of the Aleutians, remarks: "When first discovered this people were living in large yurts, or dirt houses, partially underground ... having the entrances through a hole in the top or centre, going in and out on a rude ladder. Whether these tribes at this time were organized in gentes and phratries is not known.
The salt spray froze upon my mother's breast till her breath passed with the passing of the tide. But I I raised my voice with the wind and the storm, and lived. 'We dwelt in Akatan 'Where? asked Malemute Kid. 'Akatan, which is in the Aleutians; Akatan, beyond Chignik, beyond Kardalak, beyond Unimak. As I say, we dwelt in Akatan, which lies in the midst of the sea on the edge of the world.
The chief furs obtained by Aleutians who hunt for the Company are those of the otter, the beaver, the fox, and the souslic. The natives also hunt the walrus, seal, and whale, not to speak of the herring, the cod, salmon, turbot, lote, perch, and tsouklis, a shell fish found in Queen Charlotte's Islands, used by the Company as a medium of exchange with the Americans.
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