CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE ACCORDING GENESIS

HISTORY OF ALASKA.

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.

In the great seizure and partition of America by European powers there was no reason why Russia should not have a share. She was mistress in the east and north as were France arid Spain in the west and south; she was as grasping as Portugal and as cold and cruel as England; and because she owned so much of Europe and Asia in the Arctic, the desire was only increased thereby to extend her broad belt quite round the world. It was but a step across from one continent to the other, and intercourse between the primitive peoples of the two had been common from time immemorial. It was but natural, I say, in the gigantic robbery of half a world, that Russia should have a share; and had she been quicker about it, the belt might as well have been continued to Greenland and Iceland.

Geographically, Alaska is the northern end of the long cordillera which begins at Cape Horn, extends through the two Americas, and is here joined by the Nevada-Cascade range; the Coast Range from Lower California breaking into islands before reaching this point. It is not always and altogether that cold and desolate region which sometimes has been pictured, and which from its position we might expect. Its configuration and climate are exceedingly varied. The southern seaboard is comparatively mild and habitable; the northern frigid and inhospitable.

Standing at Mount St Elias as the middle of a crescent, we see the shoreline stretching out in either direction, toward the south-east and the south-west, ending in the former at Dixon Inlet, and in the latter sweeping off and breaking into mountainous islands as it continues its course toward Kamchatka. It is a most exceedingly rough and uncouth country, this part of it; the shoreline being broken into fragments, with small and great islands guarding the labyrinth of channels, bays, sounds, and inlets that line the mainland. Back of these rise abruptly vast and rugged mountains, the two great continental chains coming together here as if in final struggle for the mastery. The coast range along the Pacific shore of Alaska attains an elevation in places of eight or nine thousand feet, lying for the most part under perpetual snow, with here and there glistening white peaks fourteen or sixteen thousand feet above the sea. And the ruggedness of this Sitkan or southern seaboard, the thirty-miles strip as it is sometimes called, with the Alexander archipelago, continues as we pass on, to the Alaskan Mountains and the Aleutian archipelago. It is in the Alaskan Range that nature assumes the heroic, that the last battle of the mountains appears to have been fought. The din of it has as yet hardly passed away; the great peaks of the range stand there proudly triumphant but still angry; grumbling, smoking, and spitting fire, they gaze upon their fallen foes of the archipelago, giants like themselves, though now submerged, sunken in the sea, if not indeed hurled thence by their victorious rivals. These great towering volcanic peaks and the quaking islands are superb beyond description, filling the breast of the beholder with awe. And the ground about, though cold enough upon the surface, steams and sweats in sympathy, manifesting its internal warmth in geysers and hot springs, while from the depths of the sea sometimes belches forth fire, if certain navigators may be believed, and the sky blazes in northern lights.

All along this sweep of southern seaboard Europeans may dwell in comfort if so inclined. Even in midwinter the cold is seldom severe or of long duration. An average temperature is 42°, though extremes have been named for certain localities of from 19° to 58°, and again from 58° below zero in January, to 9 5° in summer. Winter is stormy, the winds at Sitka at this season being usually easterly, those from the south bringing rain and snow. When the wind is from the north-west the sky is clear, and the cold nights are often lighted by the display of the aurora borealis. Winter breaks up in March, and during the clear cold days of April the boats go out after furs. Yet, for a good portion of the year there is an universal and dismal dampness—fogs interminable and drizzling rain; clouds thick and heavy and low-lying, giving a water fall of six or eight feet in thickness.

Much of the soil is fertile, though in places wet. Behind a low wooded seaboard often rise abruptly icy steeps, with here and there between the glacier canons broad patches of sphagnum one or two feet thick, and well saturated with water. The perpetual snow-line of the Makushin volcano is three thousand feet above the sea, and vegetation ceases at an altitude of twenty-five hundred feet. Grain does not ripen, but grasses thrive almost everywhere on the lowlands. Berries are plentiful, particularly cranberries, though the sunlight is scarcely strong enough to flavor them well. Immense spruce forests tower over Prince William Sound and about Sitka. Kadiak is a good grazing country, capable of sustaining large droves of cattle. On the Aleutian Islands trees do not grow, but the grasses are luxuriant. In a word, here in the far north we find a vegetation rightly belonging to a much lower latitude.

The warm Japan current which comes up along the coast of Asia, bathing the islands of the Aleutian archipelago as it crosses the Pacific and washing the shores of America far to the southward, transforms the whole region from what would otherwise be inhospitable into a habitation fit for man. Arising off the inner and outer shores of Lower California, this stream first crosses the Pacific as the great northern equatorial current, passing south of the Hawaiian Islands and on to the coast of Asia, deflecting northward as it goes, and after its grand and life-compelling sweep slowly returns to its starting-point. It is this that clothes temperate isles in tropical vegetation, makes the silk-worm flourish far north of its rightful home, and sends joy to the heart of the hyperborean, even to him upon the strait of Bering, and almost to the Arctic sea. It is this that thickly covers the steep mountain sides to the height of a thousand feet and more with great growths of spruce, alder, willow, hemlock, and yellow cedar. It is the striking of this warm current of air and water against the cold shores of the north that causes nature to steam up in thick fogs and dripping moisture, and compels the surcharged clouds to drop their torrents.

Chief among the fur-bearing animals is the sea­otter, in the taking of whose life the lives of thousands of human beings have been laid down. Of fish there are cod, herring, halibut, and salmon, in abundance. The whale and the walrus abound in places.

Go back into the interior if you can get there, or round by. the Alaskan shore north of the islands, along Bering sea and strait, which separate Asia and America and indent the eastern border with great bays into which flow rivers, one of them, the Yukon, having its sources far back in British Columbia; ascend this stream, or traverse the country between it and the Arctic Ocean, and you will find quite a different order of things. Clearer skies are there, and drier, colder airs, and ice eternal. Along the Arctic shore runs a line of hills in marked contrast to the mountains of the southern seaboard. Between these ranges flow the Yukon with its tributaries, the Kuskokvim, Sela­wik, and other streams.

Mr Petrof, who traversed this region in 1880, says of it: “Here is an immense tract reaching from Bering strait in a succession of rolling ice-bound moors and low mountain ranges, for seven hundred miles an unbroken waste, to the boundary line between us and British America. Then, again, from the crests of Cook’s Inlet and the flanks of Mount St Elias northward over that vast area of rugged mountain and lonely moor to the east, nearly eight hundred miles, is a great expanse of country... by its position barred out from occupation and settlement by our own people. The climatic conditions are such that its immense area will remain undisturbed in the possession of its savage occupants, man and beast.”

Before speaking of the European discovery and conquest of Alaska, let us briefly glance at the condition and character of those about to assume the mastery here.

It was in the middle of the sixteenth century that the Russians under Ivan Vassilievich, the Terrible, threw off the last yoke of Tartar Khans; but with the independence of the nation thus gained, the free cities, principalities, and provinces lost all trace of their former liberties. An empire had been wrung from the grasp of foreign despots, but only to be held by a despotism more cruel than ever had been the Tartar domination. Ignorance, superstition, and servitude were the normal condition of the lower classes. The nation could scarcely be placed within the category of civilization. While in Spain the ruling spirit was fanaticism, in Russia it was despotism.

Progress was chained; if any sought to improve their lot they dared not show their gains lest their master should take them. And the people thus long accustomed to abject servility and concealment acquired the habit of dissimulation to a remarkable degree. There was no recognition of the rights of man, and little of natural morality. It was a preestablished and fundamental doctrine that the weaker were slaves of the stronger. In feudal times the main difference between the lowest class in Russia and in other parts of Europe was that the former were not bound to the soil. Their condition however was none the less abject, their slavery if possible was more complete. And what is not a little singular in following the progress of nations, Russia, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, introduced this custom of binding men to lands, just when the other states of Europe were abolishing it. Freemen were authorized by law to sell themselves. Insolvent debtors became the property of their creditors. And howsoever bound, men could obtain their liberty only by purchase.

Women, even of the better class, were held in oriental seclusion, and treated as beasts; husbands and fathers might torture and kill them, and sell the off­spring, but if a wife killed her husband she was buried up to the neck and left to starve.

Pewter was unknown; only wooden dishes were in use. Each man carried a knife and wooden spoon tied to the belt or sash. Bedding was scarcely used at court; among rich and poor alike a wooden bench, the bare floor, or at the most a skin of bear or wolf, sufficed for sleeping. The domestic ties were loose; since the crimes of individuals were visited upon the whole kindred the children scattered as soon as they were able. The lower classes had but a single name, which was conferred in baptism, consequently the nearest relatives soon lost sight of each other in their wandering life. Subsequently the serfs were attached to the soil, but even to the present day an almost irresistible disposition to rove is noticeable among the Russian people.

The nobles, reared by a nation of slaves, were scarcely more intelligent than they. But few of the priests understood Greek; and reading and writing even among the nobles was almost unknown; astronomy and anatomy were classed among the diabolic arts; calculations were made by means of a string of balls, and skins of animals were the currency. Punishments were as barbarous as manners. The peculator was publicly branded with a hot iron, then sent back to his place, thus dishonoring himself and degrading his office. When a person was punished for crime, all the members of his family were doomed to suffer likewise. Every Russian who strayed beyond the frontier became a rebel and a heathen.

Nobles alone could hold land; the tillers were as slaves. True, a middle or merchant class managed amidst the general disruption to maintain some of their ancient privileges. The gosti, or wholesale deal­ers, of Moscow, Novgorod, and Pleskovo might sit at table with princes, and go on embassies; they were free from imposts and many other exactions. Even the small traders preserved some of the benefits which had originated in the free commercial cities. The priests, seeing their influence at court declining, cultivated the merchants, and married among their families.

Thus all combined to strengthen the trading class as compared with the agricultural. Taxes and salaries were paid in furs; in all old charters and other docu­ments penalties and rewards are given in furs. The very names of the early coins of Novgorod point to their origin; we see there the grivernik grivnui, from the mane or long hairs along the back; the oushka and poloushka, ear and half-ear. This feature in the national economy explains to a certain extent the slow spread of civilization over the tsar s dominions. In a country where furs are the circulating medium, and hence the great desideratum, the people must scatter and lead a savage life.

The same cause, however, which impeded social and intellectual development furnished, a stimulus for the future aggrandizement of the Muscovite domain. For more than two and a half centuries the Hanseatic League had monopolized the foreign trade; but the decline of Novgorod, the growing industry of the Livonian cities, and the appearance of the ships of other countries in the Baltic were already threatening the downfall of Hanseatic commerce, when an unexpected discovery made the English acquainted with the White Sea, which afforded direct intercourse with the inland provinces of the Russian empire. The Hanse, by its superiority in the Baltic, had excluded all other maritime nations from Russian commerce, but it was beyond the reach of their power to prevent the English from sailing to the White Sea. In 1553, at the suggestion of Sebastian Cabot, England sent three vessels under Sir Hugh Willoughby in search of a north-east passage to China. Two of the vessels were lost, and the third, commanded by Richard Chancellor, entered the White Sea. No sooner did he know that the shore was Russia than Chancellor put on a bold face and said he had come to establish commercial relations. The tsar, informed of the arrival of the strangers, ordered them to Moscow. The insolent behavior of the Hanse League had excited the tsar’s displeasure, and he was only too glad of other intercourse with civilized nations. Every encouragement was offered by the Russian monarch, and trade finally opened with England, and special privileges were granted to the so-called Russia Company of English merchants.

The English commercial expeditions through Russia, down the Volga, and across the Caspian to Persia, were not financially successful, though perhaps valuable as a hint to the Portuguese that the latter did not hold the only road to India. To Russia, also, this traffic proved by no means an unalloyed blessing. The wealthy merchants of Dantzig and other Hanse towns along the Baltic, who had enjoyed a monopoly of Russian commerce, looked on with jealousy, and it was doubtless owing to enmity in this influential quarter that Ivan failed in all his attempts to secure Esthonia and Livonia, and gain access to the Baltic seaports. On the other hand, English enterprise brought about commerce with different nations, and introduced the products of north-western Europe into the tsar’s dominions. Further than this, the Muscovites copied English craft, and became more proficient in maritime affairs. An incident connected with this traffic may be considered the first link of a long chain of events which finally resulted in Russia’s stride across the Ural Mountains, and the formation of a second or reserve empire, without which the original or European structure might long since have fallen. On the return of an English expedition from Persia across the Caspian, in 1573, the ship was attacked by Cossacks, who gained possession of vessel and cargo, setting the crew adrift in a boat furnished with some provisions. The Englishmen made their way to Astrakhan, and on their report of what had befallen them two armed vessels were sent out. The pirates were captured and put to death, while the cargo, worth between 30,000 and 40,000 pounds sterling, was safely landed at Astrakhan. The tsar then despatched a numerous land force to destroy the nest of robbers infesting the Lower Volga and the Caspian. His army spread dismay. The Cossacks saw that submission was death, and many leaped from the blood­stained deck of their rude barks to the saddle, being equally familiar with both. Then they banded under determined leaders and set out for countries beyond the reach of Russia’s long arm. Yermak Timofeief headed one of these bands, and thus the advance of the Slav race toward the Pacific began. Rude and spasmodic as it was, the traffic of the English laid the foundation of Russian commerce on the Caspian. Previous to the appearance of the English the Russians had carried on their trade with Bokhara and Persia entirely by land; but from that time they began to construct transport ships on the Volga and to sail coastwise to the circumjacent harbors of the Caspian.

Before following the tide of conquest across the Ural Mountains, it may be well to cast a brief glance over the contemporaneous efforts of English and Dutch navigators to advance in the same easterly direction by water, or rather to thread their way between the masses of floating and solid ice besetting the navigable channels of the Arctic, demonstrating as they do the general impression prevalent among European nations at the time, that the route pursued by Columbus and his successors was not the only one leading to the inexhaustible treasures of the Indies, and to that Cathay which the Latin maritime powers were making strenuous efforts to monopolize.

The last English expedition in search of the north­east passage, undertaken in the sixteenth century, consisted of two barks which sailed from England early in 1580, and were fortunate enough to pass beyond the straits of Vaigatz, but made no new discoveries and brought but a moderate return to their owners. The Russians meanwhile kept up a vigorous coasting trade, their ill-shaped and ill-appointed craft generally being found far in advance of their more pretentious competitors.

In 1594 the states-general of Holland offered a premium of twenty-five thousand florins to the lucky navigator who should open the much desired high­way. A squadron of four small vessels commanded by Cornells Nay was the first to enter for the prize. A merchant named Linschoten, possessed of considerable scientific attainments, accompanied the expedition as commercial agent, and Willem Barentz, who commanded one of the vessels, acted as pilot. They sailed from Holland on the 15th of June 1594, and arrived safely at the bay of Kilduyn, on the coast of Lapland. Here they separated, Nay heading for Vaigatz Straits and Barentz choosing a more northerly route. The latter discovered and named Ys Hoek, or Ice Cape, the northern extremity of Novaia Zemlia, while the other vessels passed through the straits, where they met with numerous Russian lodkas, or small craft. This southern division entered the sea of Kara, called by Linschoten the sea of Tartary, on the 1st of August. Wooden crosses were observed at various points of the coast, and the inhabitants bore evidence of intercourse with the Russians by their manner of salutation. The Samoiedes had come in contact with the advancing Muscovites in the interior as well as on the coast.

On the 11th of August, when their astronomical observations placed the vessels fifty leagues to the eastward of the straits, with land still in sight toward the east, this part of the expedition turned back, evidently apprehensive of sharing the fate of their English predecessors, who had been unfortunate in those latitudes. The two divisions fell in with each other on the homeward voyage, and arrived at Amsterdam on the 25th of September of the same year.

A second expedition sailed from Amsterdam on the same errand in 1595. It consisted of not less than seven vessels. Willem Barentz was chief in command, assisted by Heemskerk, Linschoten, and Cornells Rijp. The departure of this squadron was for some reason delayed until July, and after weathering the North Cape a few of the vessels sailed directly for the White Sea to trade, while the others proceeded through the straits of Vaigatz. They met, as usual, with Russian lodkas, and for the first time definite information was obtained of the great river Yenissei, which the Russians had already reached by land. After prolonged battling against ice and contrary winds and currents, the expedition turned back on the 15th of September and made sail for Amsterdam.

After this second failure the states-general washed their hands of further enterprise in that direction, but the city of Amsterdam still showed some faith in ultimate success by fitting out two ships and intrusting them respectively to Barentz and Rijp. This expedition made an early start, sailing on the 22d of May 1596. Their course was shaped in accordance with Barentz’ theory that more to the north there was a better chance of finding an open sea. On the 9th of June they discovered Bear Island in latitude 74° 30'. Still keeping on their first course they again encountered land in latitude 79° 30', Spitzbergen, and in July the two vessels separated in search of a clear channel to the east. On the 26th of August Barentz was forced by a gale into a bay on the east coast of Novaia Zemlia, on which occasion the ice seriously damaged his vessel. Here the venturesome Hollanders constructed a house and passed a winter full of misery, a continued struggle with famishing bears and the deadly cold. Toward spring the castaways constructed two open boats out of remnants of the wreck, fitted them out as well as they could, and put to sea on the 14th of June 1597. Six days later Barentz died. In July the unfortunates fell in with some Russian lodkas and obtained provisions. They finally reached Kilduyn Bay in Lapland, one of the rendezvous of White Sea traders. Several Dutch vessels were anchored there, and one of them was commanded by Rijp, who had returned to Amsterdam and sailed again on a private enterprise. He extended all possible aid to his former companions and obtained passage for them on several vessels. This put an end in Holland to explorations in search of a northern route to India, until the attempts of Hudson in 1608-9. The problem was partially solved by Deshnef’s obscure voyage in 1648, and after another failure by Wood in 1676, Russia made the attempt, Vitus Bering starting from Kamchatka; afterward were the efforts of Shalaurof and of Billings. Finally a Swedish expedition under Nordenskjold accomplished the feat in 1879, after wintering on the Arctic coast.

CHAPTER II.

THE CENTURY-MARCH OF THE COSSACKS.1578-1724