The natives of this latitude are robust and hearty in appearance, their regular food supply being such as to sustain them in a good physical condition. Seal and fish oil are cheap and abundant, and enter into all of their cooking combinations. During the ripening season the wild berries, which are remarkably abundant, are gathered by the bushel, giving employment to the youthful portion of the community. Large quantities are dried for winter use, but during the bearing season the people almost live upon them, always adding a portion of oil as a condiment. Game, such as deer, bears, mountain goats, and wild geese, is very plenty a little way inland. These are hunted and supplied to the whites by the aborigines, but they do not themselves seem to care particularly for meat of any sort so long as they can obtain plenty of fish and oil. At Sitka and Fort Wrangel fine large codfish are retailed at five cents each, a twenty pound salmon costs in the season ten to fifteen cents, and halibut sell at about the same rate according to size. These latter average from eighty to a hundred pounds in weight on this coast, and in some parts of the waters bordering western Alaska they are twice that size. Ducks are to be had at ten and fifteen cents per pair, wild geese at fifteen cents each, and so on. The natives are preëminently fish-eaters, and are as a rule well developed about the chest and shoulders, though the lower parts of their bodies are diminutive owing to their exercise being taken almost altogether at the paddle while sitting in their boats. The physical contrast between them and our Western Indians, who are meat-eaters, is very decided. The one lives in a canoe a large portion of his time, the other upon horseback or engaged upon long foot-marches; the one is lithe and sinewy, the other is greasy and flabby. Though the physical condition of our Western Indians is unquestionably much superior to that of the native Alaskans, yet the latter are the most intelligent.