Early in this commerce, desirable furs were obtained in barter for a trifle; and when something of value was exchanged, it was much out of proportion to the furs. This has been the case generally in dealing with the natives, until their eyes have been slowly opened. In Kamtchatka, at the beginning of the last century, half a dozen sables were obtained in exchange for a knife, and a dozen for a hatchet; and the Kamtchadales wondered that their Cossack conquerors were willing to pay so largely for what seemed worth so little. Similar incidents on the Northwest Coast are reported by the early navigators. Cook mentions that in exchange for “beads” the Indians at Prince William Sound “readily gave whatever they had, even their fine sea-otter skins,” which they prized no more than other skins, until it appeared how much they were prized by their visitors.[145] Where there was no competition, prices rose slowly, and many years after Cook, the Russians at Oonalaska, in return for “trinkets and tobacco,” received twelve sea-otter skins, and fox skins of different kinds to the number of near six hundred.[146] These instances show in a general way the spirit of this trade even to our own day. On the coast, and especially in the neighborhood of the factories, the difference in the value of furs is recognized, and a proportionate price obtained, which Sir Edward Belcher found in 1837 to be for “a moderately good sea-otter skin from six to seven blankets, increasing to thirteen for the best,” together with “sundry knick-knacks.”[147] But in the interior it is otherwise. A recent resident in the region of the Yukon assures me that he has seen skins worth several hundred dollars bartered for goods worth only fifty cents.