I was a little surprised to find that I could carry on even a very limited conversation with the Eskimo of this locality, the last of that tribe I had lived among being the natives of the north Hudson's Bay regions, of whose existence these Eskimo knew nothing.
On the 31st I sent a couple of Eskimo couriers to the "Alaska" at Golovnin Bay, asking her to call at this port in order to take my party on board, after which I sat down to await results. Meantime we had moved on shore into Mr. Leavitt's house, which was kindly put at our disposal. Mr. Leavitt was the signal observer, and had been stationed here over three years, and he was as anxiously awaiting the arrival of the "Leo" as ourselves.
St. Michael's, Michaelovski, or "the redoubt," as it is variously called--St. Michael's Redoubt being the official Russian title, translated into English--is a little village on an island of the same name, comprising about a dozen houses, all directly or indirectly devoted to the affairs of the Alaska Commercial Company. Mr. Neumann was the superintendent, and a very agreeable and affable gentleman we found him, doing much to make our short stay at the redoubt pleasant. There are no fresh water springs on the island near the post, and every few days a large row-boat is loaded with water-barrels and taken to the mainland, where four or five days' supply is secured. The "opposition" store, three miles across the bay, seems much better situated in this and other respects, but when St. Michael's was selected by the Russians over a third of a century previously, the idea of defensibility was the controlling motive. The passage between the island and the mainland is a river-like channel, and was formerly used by the river steamer until Captain Petersen became master, when he boldly put out to sea, as a preferable route to "the slough," as it is sometimes called, there being a number of dangerous rocks in the latter.
On the evening of the 31st we again visited the Eskimo village, in company with most of the white men of the redoubt, in order to see the performance of a noted "medicine-man" or _shaman_ from the Golovnin Bay district. He was to show us some savage sleight-of-hand performances, and to foretell the probability and time of the "Leo's" arrival. In the latter operation he took a large blue bead and crushing it to fragments threw it out of doors into the sea, "sending it to the schooner," as he said. After a long and tiresome rigmarole, another blue bead was produced which he affirmed to be the same one, telling us that it had been to the vessel, and by returning whole testified her safety. A somewhat similar performance with a quarter of a silver dollar told him that the "Leo" would arrive at St. Michael's about the next new moon. There was nothing remarkable about these tricks; and another of tying his hands behind him to a heavy plank, and then bringing them to the front of his body, and lifting the board from the floor of the medicine house, was such a palpable deception as to puzzle no one.