Mrs. Kahgoon, however, is a true woman. She naturally desires all the bright ribbons and cheap jewellery which the artful trader exhibits to her longing eyes in his store, that stands so near and so handy to her barrabkie, and her means only limit the purchase which she makes of these prized desiderata. She dresses her hair in braids, as a rule, and twists them up behind. She seldom wears a bonnet or hat, but has a handkerchief, generally of cotton, sometimes silken, always tied over her head, and when she goes, as she often does, out to call on a neighboring spinster or madam, or to the store, she throws a small woollen shawl over head and shoulders, holding it drawn together under her chin by one hand. As we have intimated, she dresses principally in cotton fabrics, with skirts, overskirts, white stockings, etc.; but when she was a girl, and much more than that, she usually went, with her legs and feet bare, into the teeth of biting winds and over frosty water and wood-paths. [Illustration: A Barrabkie. (_The characteristic dwelling of Aleutes and Kadiakers._)] The domestic life of this hunter and his wife is all bound up within the shelter of their “barrabkie.” This hut or house of the Aleutian hunter is half under ground, or, in other words, it is an excavation on the village site of a piece of earth ten or fifteen feet square, three or four feet deep, which is laid back up and over upon a wooden frame or whalebone joisting, which is securely built up within and above this excavation, so that a rafter-ceiling is made about six feet in the clear from the earthen floor. A wall of peaty sod is piled up around outside, two and three feet thick. The native architect enters this dwelling through a little hall patched on to that leeward side from the winds prevalent in the vicinity. The door is low, even for Kahgoon, and he stoops as he opens and closes it. If he has been a successful hunter, he will have the floor laid with boards secured from the trader; but if he has been unlucky, then nothing more to stand upon than the earth is afforded. This barrabkie is divided into two rooms, not wholly shut out one from the other, by a half-partition of mats, timber, or some hanging curtains, which conceal the bedroom or “spalniah” from the direct gaze of the living and cook-room. They are very fond of comfortable beds, having adopted the feather-ticks of the Russians. Soap is an expensive luxury, so Kahgoon’s wife is economical of its use for washing in her laundry; and, though she may desire to spread over her sleeping couch the counterpane and fluted shams of our own choice, she has nothing better than a colored quilt which the traders bring up here especially to meet this demand. A small deal-table, two or three empty cracker-boxes from the store, and a rude bench or two constitute all the furniture, while a little cast-iron stove, recently introduced, stands in one corner, and the heating and cooking is created and performed thereon.