CHAPTER XXXVI

Belkoffski! There was something in the name that attracted my attention the first time I heard it; and my interest increased with each mile that brought it nearer. It is situated on the green and sloping shores of Pavloff Bay, which rise gradually to hills of considerable height. Behind it smokes the active volcano, Mount Pavloff, with whose ashes the hills are in places gray, and whose fires frequently light the night with scarlet beauty.

The _Dora_ anchored more than a mile from shore, and when the boat was lowered we joyfully made ready to descend. We were surprised that no one would go ashore with us. Important duties claimed the attention of officers and passengers; yet they seemed interested in our preparations.

"Won't you come ashore with us?" we asked.

"No, I thank you," they all replied, as one.

"Have you ever been ashore here?"

"Oh, yes, thank you."

"Isn't it interesting, then?"

"Oh, very interesting, indeed."

"There is something in their manner that I do not like," I whispered to my companion. "What do you suppose is the matter with Belkoffski."

"Smallpox, perhaps," she whispered back.

"I don't care; I'm going."

"So am I."

"What kind of place is Belkoffski?" I asked one of the sailors who rowed us ashore.

He grinned until it seemed that he would never again be able to get his mouth shut.

"Jou vill see vot kind oof a blace it ees," he replied luminously.

"Is it not a nice place, then?"

"Jou vill see."

We did see.

The tide was so low and the shore so rocky that we could not get within a hundred yards of any land. A sailor named "Nelse" volunteered to carry us on his back; and as nothing better presented itself for our consideration, we promptly and joyfully went pick-a-back.

This was my most painful experience in Alaska. My father used to make stirrups of his hands; but as Nelse did not offer, diffidence kept me from requesting this added gallantry of him. It was well that I went first; for after viewing my friend's progress shoreward, had I not already been upon the beach, I should never have landed at Belkoffski.

For many years Belkoffski was the centre of the sea-otter trade. This small animal, which has the most valuable fur in the world, was found only along the rock shores of the Aliaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. The Shumagins and Sannak islands were the richest grounds. Sea-otter, furnishing the court fur of both Russia and China, were in such demand that they have been almost entirely exterminated--as the fur-bearing seal will soon be.

The fur of the sea-otter is extremely beautiful. It is thick and velvety, its rich brown under-fur being remarkable. The general color is a frosted, or silvery, purplish brown.

The sea-otter frequented the stormiest and most dangerous shores, where they were found lying on the rocks, or sometimes floating, asleep, upon fronds of an immense kelp which was called "sea-otter's cabbage." The hunters would patiently lie in hiding for days, awaiting a favorable opportunity to surround their game.

They were killed at first by ivory spears, which were deftly cast by natives. In later years they were captured in nets, clubbed brutally, or shot. They were excessively shy, and the difficulty and danger of securing them increased as their slaughter became more pitiless. Only natives were allowed to kill otter until 1878, when white men married to native women were permitted by the Secretary of the Treasury to consider themselves, and to be considered, natives, so far as hunting privileges were concerned.

The rarest and most valuable of otter are the deep-sea otter, which never go ashore, as do the "rock-hobbers," unless driven there by unusual storms. "Silver-tips"--deep-sea otter having a silvery tinge on the tips of the fur--bring the most fabulous prices.

The hunting of these scarce and precious animals calls for greater bravery, hardship, perilous hazard, and actual suffering than does the chase of any other fur-bearing animal. Pitiful, shameful, and loathsome though the slaughter of seals be, it is not attended by the exposure and the hourly peril which the otter hunter unflinchingly faces.

Sea-otter swim and sleep upon their backs, with their paws held over their eyes, like sleepy puppies, their bodies barely visible and their hind flippers sticking up out of the water.

The young are born sometimes at sea, but usually on kelp-beds; and the mother swims, sleeps, and even suckles her young stretched at full length in the water upon her back. She carries her offspring upon her breast, held in her forearms, and has many humanly maternal ways with it,--fondling it, tossing it into the air and catching it, and even lulling it to sleep with a kind of purring lullaby.

Both the male and female are fond of their young, caring for it with every appearance of tenderness. In making difficult landings, the male "hauls out" first and catches the young, which the mother tosses to him. Sometimes, when a baby is left alone for a few minutes, it is attacked by some water enemy and killed or turned over, when it invariably drowns. The mother, returning and finding it floating, dead, takes it in her arms and makes every attempt possible to bring it to life. Failing, she utters a wild cry of almost human grief and slides down into the sea, leaving it.

The otter hunters used to go out to sea in their bidarkas, with bows, arrows, and harpoons; several would go together, keeping two or three hundred yards apart and proceeding noiselessly. When one discovered an otter, he would hold his paddle straight up in the air, uttering a loud shout. Then all would paddle cautiously about, keeping a close watch for the otter, which cannot remain under water longer than fifteen or twenty minutes. When it came up, the native nearest its breathing place yelled and held up his paddle, startling it under the water again so suddenly that it could not draw a fair breath. In this manner they forced the poor thing to dive again and again, until it was exhausted and floated helplessly upon the water, when it was easily killed. Frequently two or three hours were required to tire an otter.

This picturesque method of hunting has given place to shooting and clubbing the otter to death as he lies asleep on the rocks. As they come ashore during the fiercest weather, the hunter must brave the most violent storms and perilous surfs to reach the otter's retreat in his frail, but beautiful, bidarka. With his gut kamelinka--thin and yellow as the "gold-beater's leaf"--tied tightly around his face, wrists, and the "man-hole" in which he sits or kneels, his bidarka may turn over and over in the sea without drowning him or shipping a drop of water--on his lucky days. But the unlucky day comes; an accident occurs; and a dark-eyed woman watches and waits on the green slopes of Belkoffski for the bidarka that does not come.

There were only women and children in the village of Belkoffski that June day. The men--with the exception of two or three old ones, who are always left, probably as male chaperons, at the village--were away, hunting.

The beach was alive, and very noisy, with little brown lads, half-bare, bright-eyed, and with faces that revealed much intelligence, kindness, and humor.

They clung to us, begging for pennies, which, to our very real regret, we had not thought to take with us. Candy did not go far, and dimes, even if we had been provided with them, would have too rapidly run into dollars.

Long-stemmed violets and dozens of other varieties of wild flowers covered the slopes. One little creek flowed down to the sea between banks that were of the solid blue of violets.

But the village itself! With one of the prettiest natural locations in Alaska; with singing rills and flowery slopes and a volcano burning splendidly behind it; with little clean-looking brown lads playing upon its sands, a Greek-Russian church in its centre, and a resident priest who ought to know that cleanliness is next to godliness--with all these blessings, if blessings they all be, Belkoffski is surely the most unclean place on this fair earth.

The filth, ignorance, and apparent degradation of these villagers were revolting in the extreme. Nauseous odors assailed us. They came out of the doors and windows; they swam out of barns and empty sheds; they oozed up out of the earth; they seemed, even, to sink upon us out of the blue sky. The sweetness and the freshness of green grass and blowing flowers, of dews and mists, of mountain and sea scented winds, are not sufficient to cleanse Belkoffski--the Caliban among towns.

An educated half-breed Aleutian woman, married to a white man, accompanied us ashore. She was on her way to Unalaska, and had been eager to land at Belkoffski, where she was born.

Her father had been a priest of the Greek-Russian church and her mother a native woman. She had told us much of the kind-heartedness and generosity of the villagers. Her heart was full of love and gratitude to them for their tenderness to her when her father, of blessed memory, had died.

"I have never had such friends since," she said. "They would do anything on earth for those in trouble, and give their own daily food, if necessary. I have never seen anything like it since. Education doesn't put _that_ into our hearts. Such sympathy, such tenderness, such understanding of grief and trouble!--and the kind of help that helps most."

If this be the real nature of these people, only the right influence is needed to lift them from their degradation. The larger children--the brown-limbed, joyous children down on the beach--looked clean, probably from spending much time in the healing sea.

The people of the islands do not travel much, and our fellow-voyager had not been to Belkoffski since she was a little girl. For many years she had been living among white people, with all the comforts and cleanliness of a white woman. I watched her narrowly as we went from house to house, looking for baskets.

We had told her we desired baskets, and she had offered to find some for us. After we saw the houses and the women, we would have touched a leper as readily as we would have touched one of the baskets that were brought out for our inspection; but politeness kept us from admitting to her our feeling.

As for her own courtesy and restraint, I have never seen them surpassed by any one. Shock upon shock must have been hers as we passed through that village of her childhood and affection. She went into those noisome hovels without the faintest hesitation; she breathed their atmosphere without complaint; she embraced the women without shrinking.

She knew perfectly why we did not buy the baskets; but she received our excuses with every appearance of believing them to be sincere, and she offered us others with utmost dignity and with the manner of serving us, strangers, in a strange land.

If her delicacy was outraged by the scenes she witnessed, there was not the faintest trace of it visible in her manner. She made no excuses for the people, nor for their manner of living, nor for the village. Belkoffski had been her childhood's home, her father's field; its people had befriended her and had given her love and tenderness when she was in need; therefore, both were sacred and beyond criticism.

When we returned to the ship, she could not have failed to hear the jests and frank opinions of Belkoffski which were freely expressed among the passengers; but her grave, dark face gave no sign that she disapproved, or even that she heard.

A government cutter should be sent to Belkoffski with orders to clean it up, and to burn such portions as are past cleansing. So far as the Russian priest and the people in his charge are concerned, they would be benefited by less religion and more cleanliness.

Dr. Hutton, an army surgeon stationed at Fort Seward on Lynn Canal, and Judge Gunnison, of Juneau, have recently made an appeal to President Roosevelt for relief for diseased and suffering Indians of Alaska.

Tuberculosis and trachoma prevail among the many tribes and are increasing at an alarming rate, owing to the utter lack of sanitation in the villages. Alaskans travelling in the territory are thrown in constant contact with the Indians. They are encountered on steamers and trains, in stores and hotels. Owing to the pure air and the general healthfulness of the northern climate, Alaskans feel no real alarm over the conditions prevailing as yet; but all feel that the time has arrived when the Indians should be cared for.

Everything purchased of an Indian should be at once fumigated--especially furs, blankets, baskets, and every article that has been handled by him or housed in one of his vile shacks.

The United States Grand Jury recently recommended that medical men be sent by the government to attend the disease-stricken creatures, and that a system of inspection and education along sanitary lines--with special stress laid upon domestic sanitation--should be established.

This system should be extended to the last island of the Aleutian Chain, and in the interior down the Yukon to Nome. The fur trade and the canneries depend largely upon the labor of Indians. The former industry could scarcely be made successful without them. The Indians are rapidly becoming a "vanishing race" in the North, as elsewhere. For the vices that are to-day responsible for their unfortunate condition they are indebted to the white men who have kept them supplied with cheap whiskey ever since the advent of the first American traders who taught them, soon after the purchase of Alaska by the United States, to make "hootchenoo" of molasses, flour, dried apples, or rice, and hops. This highly intoxicating and degrading liquor was known also as molasses-rum. During the latter part of the seventies, six thousand five hundred and twenty-four gallons of molasses were delivered at Sitka and Wrangell.

The loss of their help, however, is not so serious--being merely a commercial loss--as the danger to civilized people by coming in contact with these dreaded diseases. An Indian in Alaska whose eyes are not diseased is an exception, while the ravages of consumption are very frequently visible to the most careless observer. Both diseases are aggravated by such conditions as those existing at Belkoffski. A physician should be stationed there for a few years at least, to teach these poor, kind-hearted people what the Russian priest has not taught them--the science of sanitation.

Bishop Rowe reports that if there were no missionaries to protect the Eskimo and Indians from unscrupulous white whiskey-traders, they would survive but a short time. When they can obtain cheap liquors they go on prolonged and licentious debauches, and are unable to provide for their actual physical needs for the long, hard winter. Their condition then becomes pitiable, and many die of hunger and privation. Prosecutions are made entirely by missionaries. One Episcopal missionary post is conducted by two young women, one of whom was formerly a society woman of Los Angeles. The post is more than a thousand miles from Fairbanks, the nearest city, and one hundred and twenty-five miles from the nearest white settler. It is owing to the reports and the prosecutions of missionaries in all parts of Alaska that the outrages formerly practised upon Eskimo women by licentious white traders are on the decrease.

Federal Commissioner of Education Brown advocates a compulsory school law for Alaska. He favors instruction in modern methods of fishing and of curing fish; in the care of all parts of walrus that are merchantable; in the handling of wooden boats, the tanning and preparing of skins, in coal mining and the elements of agriculture.

In 1907 fifty-two native schools were maintained in Alaska, with two thousand five hundred children enrolled. Ten new school buildings have recently been constructed.

The reindeer service has been one of Alaska's grave scandals, but it has greatly improved during the past year.

The Eskimo, or Innuit, inhabit a broad belt of the coast line bordering on Behring Sea and the Arctic Ocean, as well as along the coast "to Westward" from Yakutat; also the lower part of the Yukon.

Lieutenant Emmons, who is one of the highest authorities on the natives of Alaska and their customs, has frequently reported the deplorable condition of the Eskimo, and the prevalence of tuberculosis and other dread diseases among them.

In 1900 an epidemic of measles and _la grippe_ devastated the Northwestern Coast. Out of a total population of three thousand natives about the mouth of the Kuskokwim, fully half died, without medical attendance or nursing, within a few months.

The hospitality and generous kindness of the Eskimo to those in need is proverbial. Ever since their subjection by the early Russians--to whom, also, they would doubtless have shown kindness had they not been afraid of them--no shipwrecked mariner has sought their huts in vain. Often the entire crew of an abandoned vessel has been succored, clothed, and kept from starvation during a whole winter--the season when provisions are scarce and the Eskimo themselves scarcely know how to find the means of existence.

Along the islands, the rivers, and lakes, nature has provided them with food and clothing, if they were but educated to make the most of these blessings.

But the vast country bordering the coast between the Kuskokwim and the Yukon, and extending inland a hundred and fifty miles, is low and swampy. This is the dreariest portion of Alaska. Tundra, swamps, and sluggish rivers abound. There is no game, and the natives live on fish and seal. The winters are severe, the climate is cold and excessively moist. Food has often failed, and the old or helpless are called upon to go alone out upon the storm-swept tundra and yield their hard lives--bitter and cheerless at the best--that the young and strong may live. As late as 1901 Lieutenant Emmons reports that this system of unselfish and heart-breaking suicide was practised; and it is probably still in vogue in isolated places when occasion demands.

This district is so poor and unprofitable that the prospector and the trader have so far passed it by; yet, by some means, the white man's worst diseases have been carried in to them.

These people are in dire need of schools, hospitals, medical treatment, and often simple food and clothing.

Farther north, on Seward Peninsula and along the lower Yukon, the natives who have mingled with the miners and traders could easily be taught to be not only self-supporting but of real value to the communities in which they live. They are intelligent, docile, easily directed, and eager to learn. Lieutenant Emmons found that everywhere they asked for schools, that their children, to whom they are most affectionately devoted, may learn to be "smart like the white man."

They are more humble, dependent, and trustful than the Indians, and could easily be influenced. But people do not go to Alaska to educate and care for diseased and loathsome natives, unless they are paid well for the mission. So long as the natives obey the laws of the country, no one has authority over them. No one is interested in them, or has the time to spare in teaching them. The United States government should take care of these people. It should take measures to protect them from the death-dealing whiskey with which they are supplied; to provide them with schools, hospitals, medical care; it should supply them with reindeer and teach them to care for these animals.

Surely the government of the United States asks not to be informed more than once by such authorities as Lieutenant Emmons, Bishop Rowe, Judge Gunnison, Ex-Governor Brady, and Doctor Hutton that these most wretched beings on the outskirts of the world are begging for education, and that they are sorely in need of medical services.

The government schools in the territory of Alaska are supported by a portion of the license moneys levied on the various industries of the country. Alaska has an area of six hundred thousand square miles and an estimated native and half-breed population of twenty-five thousand; and for these people only fifty-two schools and as many poorly paid teachers!

When I have criticised the Russian Church because it has not taught these people cleanliness, I blush--remembering how my own government has failed them in needs as vital. And when I reflect upon the outrages perpetrated upon them by my own fellow-countrymen--who have deprived them largely of their means of livelihood, robbed them, debauched them, ravished their women, and lured away their young girls--when I reflect upon these things, my face burns with shame that I should ever criticise any other people or any other government than my own.

The recent rapid development of Alaska, and the appropriation of the native food-supplies by miners, traders, canners, and settlers, present a problem that must be solved at once. In regard to the Philippines, we were like a child with a new toy; we could not play with them and experiment with them enough; yet for forty years these dark, gentle, uncomplaining people of our most northern and most splendid possession--beautiful, glorious Alaska--have been patiently waiting for all that we should long ago have given them: protection, interest, and the education and training that would have converted them from diseased and wretched beings into decent and useful people.

According to Lieutenant Emmons, the condition of the Copper River Indians is exceptionally miserable; and of all the native people, either coastal or of the interior, they are most needy and in want of immediate assistance. Reduced in number to barely two hundred and fifty souls, scattered in small communities along the river valleys amidst the loftiest mountains of the continent and under the most rigid climatic conditions, their natural living has been taken from them by the white man, without the establishment of any labor market for their self-support in return.

Prior to 1888 they lived in a very primitive state, and were, even then, barely able to maintain themselves on the not over-abundant game life of the valley, together with the salmon coming up the river for spawning purposes. The mining excitement of that year brought several thousand men into the Copper River Valley, on their way to the Yukon and the Klondike.

They swept the country clean of game, burnt over vast districts, and frequently destroyed what they could not use. About the same time the salmon canneries in Prince William Sound, having exhausted the home streams, extended their operations to the Copper River delta, decreasing the Indians' salmon catch, which had always provided them with food for the bitter winters.

These Indians are simple, kind-hearted, and have ever been friendly and hospitable to the white man. They respect his cache, although their own has not always been respected by him.

At Copper Centre, which is connected by military wagon road with the coast at Valdez, flour sells for twenty-four dollars a hundredweight, and all other provisions and clothing in proportion; so it may be readily understood that the white people of the interior cannot afford to divide their provisions with the starving Indians, else they would soon be in the same condition themselves. Therefore, for these Indians, too,--fortunately few in number,--the government must provide liberally and at once.