Identifier: youngnimrodsinno00knox (find matches)
Title: The young Nimrods in North America : a book for boys
Year: 1881 (1880s)
Authors: Knox, Thomas Wallace, 1835-1896
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Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers

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if not quite twenty times as many seals as St. George.They are the only seal islands worth mentioning in the world. The Rus-sians found out their value a hundred years ago, and by a careful systemof preservation they prevented the destruction of the important businessof sending seal-skins to market. There are several seal islands in theSouth Pacific, but they were entirely depopulated through the greedinessof the men who visited them, twenty or thirty years ago. One hunter THE PRIBYLOV ISLANDS. 277 boasted that he did not allow a single seal to escape from an island hevisited, but slaughtered old and young without the least regard for thefuture. There were fears that the Pribylov Islands would be treated inthe same way when the territory was transferred to the United States byliussia, but the prompt action of the Government prevented such a ca-lamity. The islands were discovered and occupied by the Russians in 1786,and a colony of one hundred persons was placed there. The descendants
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A SEAL FAMILY AT HOMli. of these colonists are living on the islands to-day, and no others are allow-ed to settle there. The population is something less than three hundredmen, women, and children, and they have the exclusive privilege of kill- 278 THE YOUNG NIMRODS. ing and skinning the seals. The Company pays them forty cents for eachskin, and as the product is a hundred thousand, the annual income of thisvillage amounts to forty thousand dollars. They buy what they want inthe stores of the Company at the wholesale prices of the San Franciscomarket, and indulge in a goodly number of luxuries. By the terms ofthe lease, and also for reasons of policy, the Company does not permit thesale of intoxicating liquors, and thus manages to maintain good order inthe little community. The colonists are natives of the Aleutian Islands,and devout members of the Greek Church. They are a simple-mindedand docile people; and as long as their tendency to intemperance is heldin check, they are eminently

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