Alaska Part 46

Gera.s.senoff is now serving a life-sentence in the government penitentiary on McNeil's Island; the man he murdered lies in an unmarked grave; the girl--for the story has its touch of awful humor!--the girl married another man within a twelvemonth.

There is a persistent invitation at Sand Point to the swimmer. The temptation to sink down, down, through those translucent depths, and then to rise and float lazily with the jelly-fishes, is almost irresistible. There is a seductive, languorous charm in the slow curve of the waves, as though they reached soft arms and wet lips to caress.

There are more beautiful waters along the Alaskan coast, but none in which the very spirit of the swimmer seems so surely to dwell.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

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 sh.o.r.es 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_ anch.o.r.ed more than a mile from sh.o.r.e, and when the boat was lowered we joyfully made ready to descend. We were surprised that no one would go ash.o.r.e with us. Important duties claimed the attention of officers and pa.s.sengers; yet they seemed interested in our preparations.

"Won't you come ash.o.r.e with us?" we asked.

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

"Have you ever been ash.o.r.e 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 ash.o.r.e.

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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.eward, 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 sh.o.r.es of the Aliaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. The Shumagins and Sannak islands were the richest grounds.

Sea-otter, furnis.h.i.+ng 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 sh.o.r.es, 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 ash.o.r.e, 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, hards.h.i.+p, 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 ash.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+pping 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 G.o.dliness--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 a.s.sailed 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 gra.s.s 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 ash.o.r.e. 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 grat.i.tude 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.