One cannot but conjecture what must have been the secret thoughts of the thousands of aborigines on this occasion, as they witnessed the ceremony of transferring Alaska from their former to their new masters. It was an event of immense interest, of most vital import to them, but yet one in which they were entirely ignored. They knew the significance of that change of flags, of that roar of artillery, emphasized by other naval and military movements, but they had no voice whatever in the agreement by which they were virtually bought and sold like so many head of cattle, and their native land bartered for gold. We leave the reader to moralize over this aspect of the matter, a fruitful theme for the political economist. With this change of government came a new people; the majority of the Russians promptly left the country, and their places were taken by Americans. Sitka, the capital of the Territory, is sheltered by a snow-crowned mountain range on one side, and protected from the broad expanse of the Pacific on the other by a group of many thickly wooded islands. The waters of the harbor are as clear as a mountain stream, so that, as in sailing over the Bahama Banks, one can see the bottom many fathoms down with perfect distinctness, where the myriad curiosities of submarine life attract the eye by their novel and varied display. Among other tropical growth, sponges, coral branches, and long rope-like algæ are seen, planted here doubtless by the equatorial current which so constantly laves these shores. The town lies clustered near the shore, forming a pleasing picture as one approaches from the sea. The most prominent feature is the castle, not a battlemented, ivy-covered, mediæval structure, but a severely plain, weather-beaten, moss-grown, dilapidated affair, which crowns a rocky elevation of the town. It is a hundred and forty feet long by seventy deep, constructed of huge cedar logs which are securely riveted to the rock by numerous clamps and bolts. This was for many years the grand residence of the Russian governors,—after the capital was removed from St. Paul, on the island of Kodiak,—several of whom were of the Muscovite nobility and brought hither their wives and daughters to live with them in this isolated spot. One can hardly conceive of a greater social contrast than naturally existed between St. Petersburg and this half savage hamlet of Baranoff Island. For delicate and refined ladies, such a change from court life must have been little less of a hardship than actual banishment to dreaded Siberia.