But his thoughts swung to a theme as little disburdening. His needs, as he had confided to Concha, were very pressing. The dry or frozen fish, the sea dogs, the fat of whales, upon which the employees of the Company were forced to subsist in the least hospitable of climes, had ravaged them with scorbutic diseases until their numbers were so reduced by death and desertion that there was danger of depopulation and the consequent bankruptcy of the Company. Since June of the preceding year until his departure from New Archangel in the previous month, he had been actively engaged in inspection of the Company's holdings from Kamchatka to Sitka: reforming abuses, establishing schools and libraries, conceiving measures to protect the fur-bearing animals from reckless slaughter both by the promuschleniki and marauding foreigners; punishing and banishing the worst offenders against the Company's laws; encouraging the faithful, and sharing hardships with them that sent memories of former luxuries and pleasures scurrying off to the realms of fantasy. But his rule would be incomplete and his efforts end in failure if the miserable Russians and natives in the employ of the Company were not vitalized by proper food and cheered with the hope of its permanence. In Santiago's story of the Russian visitor's achievements and status there was the common mingling of truth and fiction the exalted never fail to inspire. Rezanov, although he had accomplished great ends against greater odds, was too little of a courtier at heart ever to have been a prime favorite in St. Petersburg until the accession of a ruler with whom he had something in common. A dissolute woman and a crack-brained despot were the last to appreciate an original and independent mind, and the seclusion of Alexander had been so complete during the lifetime of his father that Rezanov barely had known him by sight. But the Tsarovitz, enthusiastic for reform and a passionate admirer of enterprise, knew of Rezanov, and no sooner did he mount his gory throne than he confirmed the Chamberlain in his enterprise, and two years later made him a Privy Counsellor, invested him with the order of St. Ann, and chose him for the critical embassy to the verdant realm with the blind and gateless walls.