As they lived in early time, it was a physical impossibility for them to increase and multiply;[102] but, since their elevation and their sanitary advancement are so marked, it may be reasonably expected that those people for all time to come will at least hold their own, even though they do not increase to any remarkable degree. Perhaps it is better that they should not. But it is exceedingly fortunate that they do sustain themselves so as to be, as it were, a prosperous corporate factor, entitled to the exclusive privilege of labor on these islands. As an encouragement for their good behavior the Alaska Commercial Company, in pursuance of its enlightened treatment of the whole subject, so handsomely exhibited by its housing of these people, has assured them that so long as they are capable and willing to perform the labor of skinning the seal-catch every year, so long will they enjoy the sole privilege of participating in that toil and its reward. This is wise on the part of the company, and it is exceedingly happy for the people. They are, of all men, especially fitted for the work connected with the seal-business—no comment is needed—nothing better in the way of manual labor, skilled and rapid, could be rendered by any body of men, equal in numbers, living under the same circumstances, all the year round. They appear to shake off the periodic lethargy of winter and its forced inanition, to rush with the coming of summer into the severe exercise and duty of capturing, killing, and skinning the seals, with vigor and with persistent and commendable energy. To-day only a very small proportion of the population are descendants of the pioneers who were brought here by the several Russian companies in 1787 and 1788; a colony of one hundred and thirty-seven souls, it is claimed, principally recruited at Oonalashka and Atkha.