The neatness of the villages which we have just visited at Kadiak and Cook’s Inlet has no counterpart in Belcovsky, where, in spite of its much greater trade and wealth, the filth and neglect everywhere manifested among the barraboras and their interiors, are in harsh and disagreeable contrast, while the taciturn, swelled heads of the inmates speak volumes for the strength of that carousal during the night prior to your arrival. A small frame house is pointed out as the school, where it seems that those natives actually sustain a teacher and send a large percentage of their children. It declares that these people are not vicious at heart, though they cannot resist intemperance. They read and write, however, principally in the Aleutian dialect, using an alphabet prepared for their race by the Greek Catholic missionaries in 1810-25. But, while the large capture of sea-otters and consequent flow of the traders’ money and supplies into this settlement brings these people greater wealth than that showered elsewhere, yet the real physical misery of those natives of Belcovsky proves the truth and points the moral of a very old saying which declares that riches alone do not bring contentment to the human mind, be it ever so high or ever so low. A strong south wind is springing up, and you are told by the skipper that you must get aboard as quickly as possible, for it is sure destruction to his vessel if she lies long at anchor in the offing, since the sunken rocks and open roadstead are dangerous. The little schooner is rapidly put under way, “beating out” in the freshening gale and headed for Oonga, which is the next settlement in importance, about fifty miles east. Sailing-vessels never come into Belcovsky, except those of rival traders, because it is the most risky port that the mariner has to make in all these waters of Alaska. Before leaving the sea-otter emporium it is well to call attention to the fact that at a small indentation of this same peninsula, twenty-nine miles to the northward, is a settlement made up entirely of the poor relatives of these Belcovsky people, some forty or fifty souls, who, however, take a great pride in their superior health and morality. They have a little chapel, and enjoy much better opportunities for hunting bear and reindeer. These animals, the reindeer leading, always followed by the bears, come down at regular intervals in large herds from a great moorland to the northeast, travelling on a well-beaten “road” or track, which leads clear to the westernmost end of the peninsula, where those bovine road-makers plunge into and cross the narrow Krenitzin Straits to renew their land march and scatter all over the rugged and extended tundra and mountain sides of Oonimak Island.