[47] With the exception of Prince of Wales Island in the Sitkan archipelago, Kadiak is the largest Alaskan island. There is not much difference between these two islands in landed area; the former, however, is the bigger. [48] These “galiots” where characteristically named by Shellikov’s spiritual advisers, viz.: _The Three Saints_; _The Archangel Michael and Simeon, the Friend of God_; and _Anna the Prophetess_. Bad weather and poor navigation caused the vessels to separate, so that Shellikov was compelled to winter on Bering Island; but during the following year the little fleet was reorganized, and it reached Oonalashka, where repairs again were necessary. [49] Shellikov says that this man returned the following day and refused to leave the Russian camp; that he not only accompanied and served him in all his voyages thereafter, but often warned the party of hostile ambuscades and hidden dangers by land and sea. [50] Cleanliness and comfort, however, were but little regarded by the Russian fur-traders, who gave their surroundings of residence no sanitary attention whatever. Even Baranov himself was supremely indifferent, and when the Imperial Commissioner, Resanov, called on him at Sitka in 1805, the chief manager of the Russian American Company was living in a mere hut, “in which the bed was often afloat,” and a leak in the roof too small a matter to notice! [51] On Wood Island, however, a small field of rye, oats, or barley, is planted every year for the use of the horses kept there; here a plough is employed. These cereals never ripen, but are cut green, and fed as fodder. Corn is a total failure everywhere, even as fodder. No cereals have been ripened in Alaska; the attempt, however, has been made a thousand times. [52] The first cattle brought into Alaska were taken to Kadiak in 1795, and from this central station the stock was distributed—so that by 1833 it had increased to a herd of over two hundred and twenty. At the present writing it is very doubtful whether there are sixty head in the whole region. Every season it is the habit of traders and others to send upon steamers as they go, a few head of beef-steers, which are turned out at Sitka, Kadiak, and Oonalashka to fatten during the summer, and then are slaughtered when winter ensues. Pigs thrive here, but live too much on the sea-refuse for the good of their flesh. So they are not favored. [53] The church records show that the people of the Kadiak district have decreased as follows: 1796—6,510; 1818—3,430; 1819—3,252; 1822—2,819; 1863—2,217; 1880—1,813. Small-pox, measles, and other imported diseases have caused this. [54] The little girls, as a rule, receive the earliest garments, generally nothing but a cotton shift and a torn blanket.