Although the Aleut does not give you, at first, the least idea that he has ever had any severe training of a heroic order, yet it is a fact that most of the young men, ere they become recognized hunters, had to “win their spurs,” as it were. The old men always impress upon the native youth that great importance of strictly observing the customs of their forefathers in conducting the chase, and that neglect in this respect will surely bring upon them disaster and punishment; therefore the young men are encouraged to go to sea in gales of wind, and make difficult landings with their bidarkas at surf-washed places. Before the advent of Russian priests, every village had one or two old men at least, who considered it their especial business to educate the children; thereupon, in the morning or the evening when all were at home, these aged teachers would seat themselves in the centre of one of the largest village yourts or “oolagamuh:” the young folks surrounded them, and listened attentively to what they said—sometimes failing memory would cause the old preceptors to repeat over and over again the same advice or legend in the course of a lecture. The respect of the children, however, never allowed or occasioned an interruption of such a senile oration. But to-day their education, in so far as the strict sense of the term goes, is received from the priests and deacons of the Greek Church. They seem to have abandoned all the shamanism, the mummery and savagery of their primitive lives eagerly and willingly for those practices and precepts of the Christian faith; in this strange accord the Kadiakers also joined. No recourse to violent measures was ever resorted to by the Russian missionaries, who were always met more than half-way by these singular heathen. An Aleut is the better Christian when fairly compared with the Kaniag—the latter is not half as sincere or faithful. Stepan Glottov, in 1759, wintered, first of all white men, at Oomnak Island, and he lived there then in perfect peace and quiet with the natives; so amicable were his relations with these people, that he persuaded their chief to be baptized, and to allow a little son to go with Glottov to Kamchatka, where the youth lived several years, then returned, well versed in the Russian language, and assumed the title of supreme chief of the Aleutians; this is the earliest record made of the conversion of these people. In 1796 the first priest or missionary came among them; and never, from that time to the present moment, has a representative of that church ever been treated otherwise than well by these islanders.