sustained well by each other. There are eighty families, or eighty houses, on St. Paul, in the village, with twenty or twenty-four such houses to as many families at St. George, and eight other structures. The large warehouses and salt-sheds of the Alaska Commercial Company, built by skilful mechanics, as have been the dwellings just referred to, are also neatly painted; and, taken in combination with the other features, constitute a picture fully equal to the average presentation of any one of our small eastern towns There is no misery, no downcast, dejected, suffering humanity here to-day. These Aleutes, who enjoy as a price of their good behavior, the sole right to take and skin seals for the company, to the exclusion of all other people, are known to and by their less fortunate neighbors elsewhere in Alaska as the “Bogatskie Aloutov,” or the “rich Aleutes.” The example of the agents of the Alaska Commercial Company, on both islands, from the beginning of its lease, and the course of the Treasury agents during the last eight or nine years, have been silent but powerful promoters of the welfare of these people. They have maintained perfect order; they have directed neatness, and cleanliness, and stimulated industry, such as those natives had never before dreamed of.[101] The chief source of sickness used to arise from the wretched character of the barrabkies in which they lived; but it was, at first, a very difficult matter to get frame-houses to supplant successfully the sod-walled and dirt-roofed huts of the islands. Many experiments, however, were made, and a dozen houses built, ere the result was as good as the style of primitive housing, when it had been well done and kept in best possible repair. In such a damp climate, naturally, a strong moldy smell pervades all inclosed rooms which are not thoroughly heated and daily dried by fires; and, in the spring and fall, frost works through and drips and trickles like rain adown the walls. The present frame-houses occupied by the natives owe their dryness, their warmth, and protection from the piercing “boorgas” to the liberal use of stout tarred paper in the lining. An overpowering mustiness of the hallways, out-houses, and, in fact, every roofed-in spot, where a stove is not regularly used, even in the best-built residences, is one of the first disagreeable sensations which the new arrivals always experience when they take up their quarters here. Perhaps, if it were not for the nasal misery that floats in from the killing-grounds to the novice, this musty, moldy state of things up here would be far more acute, as an annoyance, than it is now. The greater grief seems to soon fully absorb the lesser one; at least, in my own case, I can affirm the result.